A Treasure Trove of Travel Videos
CEO Brian Searl has found his niche with Insider Perks. A former broadcast editor with the CBS affiliate in Cleveland, his new company combines his passion for travel with his experience in television.
About a year old, Insider Perks combines professionally produced travel videos with journalistic principles of independent reporting. For example, a traveler planning a vacation in will find videos on the site, produced in a straight-forward news style, highlighting key points of interest such as the International Spy Museum, Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Museum of Natural History. Searl, who employs three fulltime people, is careful to point out that Insider Perks is not a review site and it’s not competing for contributed or user-generated content.
“We didn’t want to be a review site, and we’re not competing with TripAdvisor,” said Searl. “These are unbiased guides to key travel destinations that will change the way you travel.”
PRWeb + Social Networks = Site Traffic Spike
Searl first learned about PRWeb when considering the options for launching his company. As a small shop, with a smaller budget, cost was a key consideration. In addition, his business is entirely online and his customers are online, which means he wanted to market online – so online news releases and social media seemed like the right combination.
“PRWeb has great distribution, provides a lot of flexibility for optimizing our content for search, and has a strong tie-in with social media,” said Searl. “But the online news release is just the start – and we tap our social networks to take it one step further.”
“Many steps further” might be a more accurate description – customers can engage Insider Perks travel reviews in virtually any platform or format they wish – from , YouTube and to podcasts, iTunes and mobile phones. Recently, Searl & Co. launched a new social media platform called “You Report. You Decide.” where Insider Perks provides an editorial summary of the top travel stories and the rest is “reported” by social media users on Twitter.
Increased Page Views, More Reader Interaction, More Site Traffic and Reporter Inquiries
Insider Perks has only published around half a dozen news releases, but Searl already says he sees a definite trend upwards in page views. The average Insider Perks news release receives about 1,800 page views and drives an estimated 500 to 1,000 additional site visitors – he’s even received an inbound call from a writer at the Reader’s Digest as a direct result of his PRWeb news release.
Searl also notes that his experiments with multimedia and video have greatly improved interactions – a measure of reporting that PRWeb provides every time a reader ‘interacts’ with a news release. His initial releases counted six interactions but grew to 35 on subsequent releases once video was integrated into his release. This is consistent with new research conducted by PRWeb showing that releases containing multimedia, hold readers’ attention for up to 30 seconds longer than those without multimedia.
“PRWeb is one of the most innovative marketing platforms out there,” said Searl, summing it up. “PRWeb puts you in control of your online marketing position.”