Building Your Brand with Online Video Takes SKLZ

CHALLENGE #1: How to provide athletes with engaging content to develop and perfect their skills
SOLUTION #1: Create instructional videos demonstrating the advantages of using SKLZ athletic training tools

CHALLENGE #2: How to organize and deliver hundreds of videos via the web without sacrificing ease of use and the viewer’s experience
SOLUTION #2: Leverage the unique ability of Limelight Video Platform to organize, manage, analyze and deliver high-quality videos online

SKLZ is the premier developer and marketer of athletic performance and skill development training products for serious athletes of all ages. The flagship brand of Pro Performance Sports, SKLZ provides training products for a variety of sports, including baseball, fast-pitch, golf, football, basketball, and soccer. By focusing on transforming innovative concepts into effective sports training tools, SKLZ is helping serious athletes reach their full potential.

Located in Carlsbad, California, SKLZ is the largest manufacturer and distributor of sports training aids in the world. Its products can be found in top sporting goods stores, such as Dick’s, Sports Authority and Modell’s.

Searching for the Right Online Video Platform

The vision for the SKLZ website, which receives more than 100,000 visitors a month, is to inspire athletes to develop their skills, introduce them to the SKLZ brand and products, and to support sales at retail stores. To help meet these objectives, the company made a commitment to add videos to their site and to drastically expand their library of training-related video content. It believed that if athletes could watch instructional videos that incorporate its products, then they would be more likely to see SKLZ as a legitimate source for training.

“We are different from many companies in that our products truly need to be dynamically used, and they need to be used properly,” said Scott Curry, Director of Marketing Communications at SKLZ. “Many people see our products and immediately ask themselves ‘how does this work and how do I use it?’ There is no better way to demonstrate the value of our products and how they complement athletic improvement than through video. This is crucial not only to helping athletes become better at their sports, but also to converting more shoppers on our website and later at retail stores.”

Realizing the strategic importance of online video, SKLZ decided to transform its site into an athletic training destination packed with instructional and product videos for athletes from every sport. To implement this extensive new project, the manufacturer realized it needed a flexible video platform solution that would allow them to efficiently upload, manage, organize, analyze, and deliver more than 360 videos (and growing). This solution would not only ease navigation and maximize end user experience with the site, but also enable SKLZ to build brand awareness.

SKLZ reviewed more than 100 websites that utilize video and spoke with several online video platform providers. The manufacturer could not find any providers that would allow it to meet all of its objectives, with one exception – Limelight Video Platform.

“After testing Limelight Video Platform, we immediately realized how easy the interface is to understand and work with,” noted Curry. “As we moved towards implementation, there were no questions on how the solution worked. Also, their customer and technical support teams were knowledgeable, open, and eager to help us problem-solve, which set my confidence level high. With Limelight, we knew that the technology was there and that the support was there.”

Launching the Enhanced SKLZ.com

On April 5, 2011, SKLZ launched its new, enhanced website. The site is packed with 360 videos, 250 of which are instructional videos that include video series on topics like how to swing your bat with more power, how to steal more bases, and methods to improve your agility. It also has 83 product introduction videos for each product in its online store. These videos enable viewers to better understand how to effectively use SKLZ products and what benefits they have to offer.

Within just the first two months of launching the video-centric site, SKLZ saw an 8% increase in overall site traffic and 73,000 video views. The introduction videos, which usually run one minute in length, are typically viewed for 50 seconds, while the instructional videos are viewed for 45 seconds on average. According to SKLZ, these numbers indicate that viewers are thoroughly engaged with the video content and consequently the SKLZ brand.

Furthermore, the addition of video content to the SKLZ website has been met with positive responses from retailers, who realize that consumers are more likely to purchase products if they’re aware of the product benefits and if the products are supported by instructional videos. In fact, SKLZ has added Microsoft Tags to the product packaging, which point directly to product introduction URLs for on-the-spot product information. The package also has a call to action to visit SKLZ.com for instructional videos, so in-store customers are immediately aware of the availability of the associated videos.

Limelight Video Platform is Backbone of New Site

Managing and Organizing the SKLZ Library: Tags

The success of the SKLZ website is in large part due to its ability to efficiently organize, filter, and manage its content, which allows it to continue building a large library yet keep it easy for viewers to find the videos they want. SKLZ is able to achieve this using the tagging capabilities within Limelight Video Platform.

Leveraging Limelight Video Platform, SKLZ created custom tags for each video, which include information such as the general topic of the video, the sport(s), and the product number of the product used in the video. These tags allow viewers to quickly and easily browse and filter the videos first by sport and then either by topic, such as acceleration, or by SKLZ product. Once a viewer selects a sport and then a topic or product, a list of relevant video series appears. When the viewer selects a particular video series, a playlist of 3-6 short instructional videos, all of which comprise the series, is presented. All of this content is delivered to the viewer using the information in the tags.

The tags also allow SKLZ to display, aside the video that is playing, the product featured in the video as well as additional relevant content. At the end of the video, the featured product is displayed within the player, making it easy for consumers to browse or purchase the product they just watched. Some of the tags are also viewer-facing. For instance, when watching a video within a series on “how to expand your range,” viewers can click on the tags “defense,” “fielding,” or “lateral movement.” By clicking on one of these tags, viewers are provided with a list of video series on that topic.

Through custom tags, Limelight Video Platform allows SKLZ to organize its library so that it can continually feed viewers with more, relevant content while also making it simple for viewers to locate and buy the products featured in the videos. Thus, custom tags enable SKLZ to easily organize its library so that viewers can quickly find the content they are looking for.

“Limelight’s easy-to-use platform allows us to efficiently manage and organize our library while maximizing the online experience for our end users,” stated Curry. “Working with their APIs was simple and straightforward. If we ever have any questions, the Limelight team was always there to troubleshoot. From the beginning, we realized that their team would continue to adapt and evolve their solution. This is a company that is on the forefront of innovative features, yet values simplicity and the viewer’s experience. “

Building Brand Awareness

To improve its presence in search engine results and direct more traffic back to its website, SKLZ created a specific URL for each of its videos. The manufacturer also created a viral element, allowing visitors to easily share and comment on the videos. What’s more, SKLZ altered the player interface to maintain a strong, unified brand presence on the site. Rather than employ an off-the-shelf solution, SKLZ branded the Limelight player by adding their own colors and tailoring the “play” button to their logo. As a result, they can enhance their brand not only on their website, but also on sites where users share their videos.

Delivering Optimal Viewing Experiences

As consumers expect more rich media on ecommerce sites, they’re also expecting seamless viewing experiences. Therefore, maximizing the performance of the videos on the SKLZ site is critical to building brand loyalty and establishing credibility with its retailer partners.

That’s why SKLZ is also employing Limelight’s content delivery network (CDN) infrastructure, which is tightly integrated with Limelight Video Platform. By leveraging these integrated services, SKLZ can rest assured that its videos will be delivered with no buffer or delay to any viewer location, even during intense traffic spikes. It can also employ just one company to host, upload, manage, publish, deliver, and analyze its videos.

The integrated video platform and CDN provides SKLZ with several benefits. To simplify workload and content management, the manufacturer can manage Limelight Video Platform and Limelight’s CDN services within the same interface. SKLZ can also more quickly transfer large volumes of videos by leveraging a dedicated line between its physical location and a Limelight point of presence on the edge of its network.

To maximize end user performance , SKLZ can improve player responsiveness and viewer experience by caching the player, playlists, and all metadata information at the edge of Limelight’s network, close to each end user. What’s more, Limelight Internet Health Monitor provides real-time information to Limelight Video Platform, enabling SKLZ to maximize viewer experience in near real-time as network conditions change.

Analytics

A key component of Limelight Video Platform is its ability to capture analytics, which allows SKLZ to track and analyze viewer engagement with each video. SKLZ is analyzing how many viewers are watching both the instructional videos and product introduction videos, giving it insight on what types of instructional content viewers are interested in and what products they want to learn more. SKLZ is also taking note on how long the viewers are watching the videos to determine if they’re finding the content engaging or relevant. These analytics are essential in deciding what type of instructional videos SKLZ wants to develop and publish in the future and which types of products are most appealing to athletes.

“Limelight’s offering has really helped us build and improve our brand,” said Curry. “Since adding more videos to our site, sales and traffic to our site have consistently increased month over month. We can confidently share our videos with consumers and retailers alike. We have received many compliments from consumers, retailers, distributors and especially our overseas partners about the simplicity of the design. Our innovative training and skill development tools coupled with the impressiveness of our videos establishes a high level of credibility in the marketplace. By simply sharing a video link, we can show retailer partners that we are sophisticated marketers and show consumers that we are committed to delivering products and accompanying video content that will improve their games.”

About Limelight Video Platform

Limelight’s video platform solution enables organizations to quickly take advantage of the fast-growing demand for online video while delivering an exceptional viewing experience. The offering provides tools for managing, publishing, and syndicating videos online, including hosting, encoding, channel and playlist management, advertising, and reporting and analytics.