Yes - Mobile Marketing has arrived at HollywoodPrize. We now have the ability for Sponsors to send SMS Text Messages to Contestants that have chosen to opt-in through the Sweepstakes Contest form or the Online Street Teams.

Here is a sample view of what it looks like:

Posted by Rob at 03:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those of you that haven't noticed, Online Promotions Group / HollywoodPrize.com has recently launched several new services in recent months in an effort to become the premiere lead generation, entertainment marketing, database management solution.

CASTING DIRECTORS

Film / TV / Broadway / Theatre Online Casting is now completely online and confidential. During the beta trial , these services are FREE to use.

How does this work?

Its simple.

• Create a FREE Client / Sponsor Account on HollywoodPrize.com
• Once approved, click on MyCastings and Create/Edit Roles. At which point, the system will assign a breakdown submission number (aka Electronic Ticket number).
• Display the electronic ticket number in your breakdown (preferably at the end where you mention where to send the submissions. The breakdown should say:
If submitting through HollywoodPrize.com, please use breakdown code "HP-10001" (i.e. whichever code your production is assigned by the system).
• From there, only authorized Managers, Agents and Actors/Actresses (who do self-submissions) will submit their materials to you from the HollywoodPrize system. And yes - its completely confidential. Your contact details will NOT be revealed to anyone you don't want to.
• You will not receive any $pam from the Internet from unauthorized submissions (unless somehow an unauthorized party gets a hold of your breakdowns).
• What to expect? Well, each artist can submit his/her headshot, resume, online reel (via YouTube - if available) and Manager, Agent, and/or Artist's Rep details as well as his/her height, weight, speaking accent and best of all - Artist "pitch" - i.e. the reasons why this artist should be considered for an audition for this role
• You can also track the rate at which you offer the artist (if you offer the part).
• Similarly, you can record if you have paid the Manager, Agent or Artist for this role by changing the status from unpaid to paid.
• Once cast, you can move the role into Casting History and begin work on the Casting the next role.
• You can always refer back to your Casting History if you need to refresh your memory on who and what rate you cast a certain role. This data will be captured in the database
• MS Excel Data Export - Yes, if you use Mozilla / Firefox, you can easily export an MS Excel file (.csv format) of all of your casting submissions

MUSIC FESTIVAL / FILM FESTIVAL - ONLINE SUBMISSIONS - CALL FOR ENTRIES!!!!

Meantime, HollywoodPrize.com has launched Online Film Festival and/or Music Festival Registration services. Tired of paying WithoutABox.com and/or SonicBids.com for this simple service?

No worries. HollywoodPrize's Festival Registration services are customized and during our beta trial period: FREE!!!

Are you looking for a company that can host, design and maintain your online Film Festival and/or Music Festival registrations? Are you looking for a company that can provide lead generation entertainment marketing and database management solutions? Look no further than Online Promotions Group and its online portal called HollywoodPrize.com.

Founded by Online Promotions Group in August 2003 as HollywoodWin.com, HollywoodPrize.com provides the ultimate online entertainment marketing lead generation solutions available today. These services include, but are not limited, to:

Online Film Festival / Music Festival Hosting
With each online Film Festival / Music Festival promotion, you can take advantage of the following capabilities:

• Save Time and Money!
Create ONE (1) FREE Sponsor Profile and run as many Film Festivals / Music Festivals etc as you'd like all from one login and password

• The Best Lead Generation!
Are you trying to maintain a leads list of the most qualified / talented filmmakers or bands, musicians, solo artists, etc. via your Festival? We refer to these artists as "Contestants". Nevertheless, perhaps you are trying to an online subscriber base and you need new leads? HollywoodPrize can host your Festival without compromising your brand as an organizer.

• Customization! Customization! Customization!
Upload your customized header, footer and background graphics or hire HollywoodPrize's Creative Dept to create a custom Festival Registration Page for you. This includes your own custom URL hosted on HollywoodPrize.

• Easy Data Export!
Export all of your Contestant Data (i.e. leads) to one MS Excel (.csv format) file and its yours to keep. All of your Contestant leads include full name, US Postal, email, 3 (THREE) opt-ins (Promo, eNewsletter and SMS), and survey answers.

• Get Customized Online Surveys!
Create customized multiple choice surveys and track / analyze the Contestant responses. Learn more about how your Contestants learned about your Festival, specific details about their film or music submission, and their demographics (gender, age, geographic location, etc.)

• Online Rewards Loyalty Programs!
With each Festival you run, you earn 10 points. Earn enough points for a FREE FESTIVAL! HollywoodPrize will track your Festival History. Similarly, each of your contestants will earn 1 point for entering into each of your festivals as well as 1 point for each valid / qualified colleague they refer to your promotion.

• Electronic Ticketing!
Track your Contestants off-line materials as they are sent in the mail to your office via HollywoodPrize's Electronic Ticketing System. All artists are emailed an ET and given specialized instructions that you create. ETs are also captured in the same spreadsheet as your Contestant profile data and each Contestant will receive ONE (1) ET for each Festival you run. And best of all, you can notify whether you have rec'd the artist's materials by checking one simple "Rec'd" checkbox. No more hassle phone calls from artists to check if their materials have been rec'd. They simply log in to their accounts and check to see if you have rec'd the materials.

• Complete Confidentiality!
HollywoodPrize will not sell, rent or offer your confidential Contestant leads list with any other vendor. Contestants may decide, on their own, however, to share their data with other Sponsors (i.e. Festival organizers) if they so choose.

• Create A Viral Campaign!
Each Festival offers you the ability to create a Refer A Friend loyalty program. Contestants (i.e. Fillmmakers and/or Musicians) can refer up to 10 colleagues at once right on the registration page. Each Referral is also rewarded with ONE (1) point that would be historically tracked in HollywoodPrize.

• RSS Podcasts!
Stream a sample of your Festival content in RSS and Podcast this content to Contestants. This includes Net Video, Audio files (MP3, Windows Media, Quicktime), documents (.pdf, .txt, .doc, etc.) etc.

• Click to Purchase Links!
Link your Festival page to your purchase page and track sales of all of your products, events, etc. Of course, HollywoodPrize will help you to communicate to Contestants that they will not increase their odds of being selected for your Festival by purchasing your products, services, etc. Contestants will always have this option if you offer it.

• Fundraisers / Raffles!
Are you running a fundraiser and/or raffle for a charity? Do you need HollywoodPrize to collect check or credit card information from your donors for you? Let HollywoodPrize collect the data and you can process the payment.

• Manage / Add Link Partners!
HollywoodPrize is the only Sweepstakes Contest portal that offers you the ability to manage Link Partners for each of your Festival pages. By placing your Link Partner's 90x90 button on your Festival page, you can offer webmasters reciprocal traffic to their websites while tracking which sites deliver the highest and most targeted leads. For an additional fee, Online Promotions Group will contact webmasters at targeted websites and barter on your behalf to drive traffic to your festival page via banners, buttons, text links, etc.

Posted by Rob at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Its been a while since I've threaded....but we've been really busy building our site and adding new services here at Online Promotions Group. I've received a few emails from some of you so I will answer them here:

Q. What is MAMBO? How can it help my band?

A. MAMBO is a content management software solution. It is an Open Source solution that anyone can download for free. However, most artists and management companies haven't the slightest clue as to how to install it on a webserver. It is a rather complicated install. Through the use of MAMBO, you can control your own content. Therefore, if you want to make a text or image change to your website you can do so without the need to hire an expensive webmaster to help you.

Here's an inside look at the Admin control panel:

It can help you to make fast changes to your website and keep your content current. You can do this from any location...even the road...so long as you have internet access.

And yes, we (Online Promotions Group) can install this for you . Please click here to learn more.

That's a one-time fee and includes training. Any further troubleshooting (unless its a system error) would require separate maintenance fees.

Q: Have you seen any real value in MySpace campaigns?

A. Yes and no. MySpace campaigns are starting to become old hat. They were really cool about 6 months ago as a way to leverage a network of dedicated fans towards a single marketing goal. The problem is that fans have seen just about every gimmick to get them to join a "friends" list. I suggest using MySpace as a PR and brand awareness vehicle. We don't make promises on how many "friends" we can add to your profile but instead we use MySpace to get sales leads through our points rewards program via HollywoodPrize.com. The "leads" data we collect on the sweepstakes contest page is far more valuable then the added friends. And since HollywoodPrize can survey these leads, you can learn key data points such as how much fans are willing to pay for your product, how did they learn about your product, what they would like to see from your product, etc.

If you are interested in running a MySpace campaign that makes sense, please click here.

Q: Is HollywoodPrize the first sweepstakes contest portal to include Refer A Friend?

A. Possibly. But we're certainly one of the first to offer a Refer A Friend email program that allows you to refer up to 10 friends at once! See the latest Country Music Across America contest to check it out.; The value of this program is that each email is coming from a trusted source. Each referral can really mutliply your contestant entries.

Q: Could you explain SEO versuses SEM?

A. Seach Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing webpages in an effort to get your website ranked high in natural / organic search results. In Google, these would be the search results you see on the left side. The main search results. Seach Engine Marketing (SEM) typically refers to paid inclusion campaigns. These are the text link ads you see on the right side and at the top (sometimes in a blue box). Companies pay to get listed in these places based on your keyword search. The company that pays the most gets listed the highest. However, in SEO the website that ranks the highest has little to do with who paid the most.

Q. How can Online Promotions Group help with SEO Entertainment Marketing?

A. First, we take a look at your meta data and see if you are doing anything wrong. Yes, there is in fact a standard for meta tags and they must be followed very closely in order for your website to index properly on tier 1 search engines. Second, we look at your image tags (called alt tags) to see if all your images are labeled properly and if your page title and page content match. Then, we analyze your link density. Do you too many links on your page? If you, Google may be looking at your site as having too many links but not enough content. There needs to be a certain level of content embedded with the links in order to achieve the appropriate link density.

Next, we look at link reprocity. Which sites are linking back to yours? How many are there? Do they drive relevant traffic back to you? Which leads me to the next item....link relevancy. Does your site link with sites that are revelant to your content? If not, you are essentially creating a poor link relationship and mind as well just link with $pam sites. How well is your page defined textually? Meaning, to what degree do you describe your band, value proposition, products, events, etc. clearly and with a high level of keyword density? How high (position-wise) is the description of your page listed? Yep, you got it. Google likes page definition as close to the top as possible. Keywords buried at the bottom of the page literally get lost. The higher those keywords...the better. Does your content makes sense? In order words, don't create a page filled with a ridiculous bombardment of keywords but nothing more. Nobody is going to click or link to your page if its just a word pit of random keywords but doesn't say anything really meaningful. Fans are using search engines to find you...don't waste your chance to sell your brand by creating a nonsense page filled with relevant keywords that is total bull.

Furthermore, keyword PHRASES matter. So if the content doesn't have strong phrases that will mirror an actual search, your page won't get found by relevant traffic. Next, there's the IP address. Don't link all of your webpages from one webserver (i.e. IP address). Yes, Google looks at IP Addresses of the referrer so if the referral server is always the same...that will not help your quality link ratings. Last, the age of your page counts. The older the better. So if you create a website and it doesn't rank high initially despite doing this the right way...your site may be new and may be still sitting in the Google Sandbox.

Q. Have you really consulted with clients and helped their SEO Entertainment Marketing practices?

A. Absolutely. If I gave you a list of my clients, you'd be shocked. These big and small entertainment clients alike realize that SEO is not an instant gratification practice. They have shown patience and invested the appropriate time and money to really build appropriate content, links, and well-written descriptions. Entertainment Interactive Marketing is a new and emerging niche of the online marketing industry. I don't recommend any SEO project for less than 6 months. You'd really be wasting your time and mine with anything less.

Well thats just the tip of the iceberg...i can't give everything away. Thats just a little taste of what we do.

If you're interested in our SEO / SEM services, please click here.

Posted by Rob at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Country Music Across America is broadcast to over 40 million homes on the cable network GAC, which is owned by Scripps Networks and best known for Food Network (Emeril Live), HG-TV, and Shop at Home Network. GAC is also the home of the Grand Ole Opry and several other great country music related programs. Country Music Across America (CMAA) however has really begun to expand their online presence. When they approached us (Online Promotions Group / HollywoodPrize.com) about hosting sweepstakes contests, handling website development, online marketing and online survey tools, we were thrilled. They have really blossomed into one of the premiere country music news source and websites. We have successfully been able to pinpoint their online demographics as well as their brand into new markets that were previous untapped since the show's inception in 2003. I bring this up because I feel this is a shining moment in online promotions. The current campaign "Win a Trip for 2 to Nashville" is a testament to the concepts of direct marketing and highly targeted viral branding. The production company for CMAA hasn't spent a lick on advertising yet the traffic to their contest page and the response to Storme's Blog has been amazing.

Accordingly, we are currently developing new, more socially relevant Refer A Friend capabilities for HollywoodPrize. I don't want to reveal too much in this blog but lets just say this campaign has really opened our eyes into the mass potential of social networking software for entertainment marketers.

Posted by Rob at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently, HollywoodPrize has added survey tools to our registration profile capabilities. Lately, a lot of entertainment marketers have asked us to deliver fully integrated survey responses to our sweepstakes contests. We have delivered. Our new survey tools allow our clients to ask multiple choice, multiple selection and true/false questions along with their contest registration form. The beauty of our system is that we deliver all of the data numerically and conclusions can be made on a quantative level. If you want to know, for instance, how many people in the southeast bought your DVD or CD in the last year, what percentage of them are women, where they obtained it (e.g. online, on the street, downloaded it, etc), and what price they are willing to pay for it - our survey tool can do the work. The surveys were always a part of the original HollywoodWin site but our new IT development team has taken this simple business spec and really brought it to a whole new level. In my view, there maybe less than 5 interactive agencies in the entertainment marketing space that can match our product. Thats a big maybe.

One thing that has irked me is this belief, however, that contestant data is really unique. Let me clue some of you people in right now: ITS NOT! Yes, it may shock some of these record labels and big move studios but you are all receiving the same data. There's nothing too unique about it because sweepstakes contestants typically enter into mutliple contests regardless of who is releasing the product. But the true value in the data is how much you know about the contestant. What is his/her likes and dislikes? What are his/her spending habits? What are his/her behaviors online in respect to consuming entertainment? This is where many companies fall short. Gladly, this is not where our clients fall short. They have upper hand knowledge of really knowing their consumers thanks to HollywoodPrize. But, I have to laugh when I continue to see the old school approach of blanketing the entire USA with massive waste marketing only to find out that really small pockets of individual people (regardless of geographic location) are willing to buy a certain product. So we'll sit back and watch these big companies continue to spend spend spend and even fool themselves into thinking their data is unique, yet yield so little in terms of demographics with each new release. Meantime, our clients will continue to have their conumers pinned down as if they were local neighbors. And oh by the way, that blanket marketing approach includes mass email blasts to local radio stations. What is that costing them again? Geesh.

Posted by Rob at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, we just learned that the podcast for one of our artists, Robert Schilling, has been added to the music store for Apple's iTunes. As you know, Apple has tight standards as to which podcasts are accepted into the library. We asked Robert about this and his comment was "its great to be somehow affiliated with Apple again. For those Infinite Touch buffs, The Other Side of The Window multimedia CD was permantly stored in their technology library in 1995 for being the first independent band to have a full length, hybrid (PC & MAC) multimedia CD."

We took the time to look it up and in fact, The Other Side Of The Window is in fact in Apple's Cupertino famous Technology Library. We later discovered that Infinite Touch received the 1996 Gold Summit Award for that CD which included the Robert's most well known song "I Ask Why".

Anyway, the link to the Robert Schilling podcast at iTunes is as follows:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=129054533&s=143441

Posted by Rob at 03:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Online Promotions Group has recently been asked to provide Podcasts for its clients in the past month. Accordingly, we have streamed three podcasts for the following artists:

Robert Schilling - http://www.robertschilling.com/robertschillingpodcast.rss
Todd Wall - http://www.toddwall.tv/toddwallpodcast.rss
Robin English - http://www.robinenglish.com/robinenglishpodcast.rss

If you know of any artist looking for podcasting, sweepstakes contest hosting, blogs, SMS text messaging, email marketing solutions, please contact us.

Posted by Rob at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Welcome to the official HollywoodPrize.com Blog!

> HollywoodPrize.com

Posted by Rob at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)