Posted by Catie Foertsch on Thu, Jul 01, 2010 @ 10:59 AM
If you're thinking about using video to market your business, good for you. Video's interactivity and rich content are very effective for engaging, communicating and connecting. But before you invest time or money (or both), it makes sense to be sure you aren't just making video for the sake of having video on your site. You want your video assets to work hard for you and justify your investment, don't you?
Here are the top four questions to ask before you begin shooting. Consider them thoughtfully, and you'll have the answer to the really big question: what kind of video should you make?
1. What do you want your video (or videos) to do for you? This forces you to get beyond the very general "We just want to have video on our site" and define your goals. Be as specific as possible. Here are a few examples:
- streamline our customer service process
- introduce our key people
- inject humor into the early stages of our sales process
- move people through our sales funnel
- demonstrate how our product works
- provide different ways for visitors to understand who we are and what we do
- provide in-depth learning experiences
2. Who are your audiences and how do they learn? Who will watch the videos you'll make? This question will help you define what style of video to make. If you're connecting with 19-year-old males, you'll make a different kind of video than you would for new mothers or retired golfers.
3. What is the message you want to deliver to your audience(s)? If you make them correctly, videos are like arrows. They deliver a specific message to a particular target. Figure out what message you need to send. If you have more than one audience, don't use the same video for all of them. Instead, create different versions of your message so that each group sees and hears exactly what they care about.
4. How will you measure success? It's not a good idea to invest in assets and then leave them alone because you trust (or hope) that they're doing what you want them to do. Better to know how you define success so you can determine if they're working. If they are, great. You've figured out what works, and you can continue to create video assets that do the job. If you find that they aren't doing what you want them to do - understand why not, and then try something different. The goal is to create assets that achieve your goals and contribute to your success. You won't know if that's happening unless you measure and analyze.
Take the time to answer these four questions before you begin production, and you'll have the information you need to make video assets that are powerful and effective communication tools. They'll work hard for you, and they'll do the job you made them to do.
Posted by Catie Foertsch on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 @ 01:00 PM
Earlier this week I attended a fascinating panel discussion - "Combining SEO and Video to Drive Awareness and Lead Generation Online" - featuring some heavy hitters in the world of online marketing. A large part of the discussion centered on best practices for using video in lead generation and conversion, and how to measure success. A comment by Judy Gern, Director of Conversion Marketing for Constant Contact, captured the reason businesses need to use video in their lead gen programs:
"People who consume video tend to become customers at a much higher rate."
Goodbye to Viral Video
Joe Chernov, Global Director of Communications & Social Media for Eloqua, noted that there is less emphasis on ‘viral' videos than a few years ago. Gimmicky ideas like young men jumping into jeans, LED lights on sheep, mattress dominoes, etc., have given way to a new understanding of video as a practical, economical communications tool. Now companies are using video for sales, support, PR - all effective applications for video. "We're seeing a smarter, more sensible use of video," said Chernov.
He noted in particular that video works especially well in press releases - those that include an embedded video receive 500% more views. Because of that remarkable effect, "we try to embed video in every press release," Chernov said.
What Works in Lead Gen
Constant Contact uses video as "an appetizer" for lead generation programs because of its ability to capture people's interest and draw them into the funnel. The company conducts in-depth studies on performance of various video and key word combinations, and has found that videos with "do it yourself," "instructional," and "how-to" tend to perform the best.
Constant Contact has also found that video works best when it's given freely, before information is asked for, as opposed to holding out the promise of the video to get people to provide their information. "We give value when we ask for information, not after we get information," said Gern.
David Meerman Scott's Sales Funnel
Marketing superstar David Meerman Scott discussed the role of video in his sales funnel. At the top are short viral videos and excerpts from the informational interviews he conducts with his Flip camera - shorter videos that are casually made. Further down the funnel, where people are clearly interested in hiring him and are deciding whether to proceed, he uses video of a keynote speech he delivered previously. The production values are spectacular, he said, and rather than post short clips from the speech, he's posted the whole speech. He's found that at that point in his funnel - "right there when people are deciding to hire me or not" - people are really engaged and tend to watch the whole video.
Short, funny videos and short excerpts of interviews he's shot with his Flip camera work higher up in the funnel, he said, but near the bottom of the funnel the quality of his keynote video is important. "It really makes the difference," he said. "That video has helped me close $250,000 in speaking engagements in one year."
Measuring ROI
In lead gen programs, the number of email addresses gathered is usually the metric against which success is measured. But Meerman Scott disagreed with limiting ROI metrics to the traditional "collecting email addresses or business cards." He suggested that more meaningful metrics include view counts, and knowing through measurement what people do after they view the video.
Another metric for him is simply asking people when they hire him to speak how they made their decision. Often, he said, they tell him they watched his keynote video.
Tim Bradbury, president of New Media at American City Business Journals, suggested that instead of looking to ROI standard metrics, companies start with their expectations and then develop their own metrics to define success. It may be, he said, that the view counts and comments captured by YouTube are enough.
Bottom Line
It can be easy to think about all the different reasons why video is a communication strategy your company is not quite ready to commit to - change is difficult, how do you figure out how to use video, what you're doing now is working well enough, etc. But if you're standing on the edge of the pool, hesitating to take the plunge into a video commitment, remember why Constant Contact uses video:
People who consume video tend to become customers at a much higher rate.
Posted by Catie Foertsch on Mon, Oct 19, 2009 @ 08:43 AM
It's hard to imagine a business today that doesn't have a website. Unfortunately, no matter how good it is, a website isn't nearly enough. You also have to understand how to be active on the web to help people find your website, and then how to romance them once they land on your site. By ‘romance' I mean helping them fall in love with your product or service so they either buy outright, or give you their contact info so you can continue your sales process. If you know how to do all this, you are eating the lunch of your competitors who don't get it yet. If you are one of those companies that don't get it, you're struggling. And your struggles are only going to get worse.
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The best part is that the book is written in a simple, easy-to-understand style that will lead you step-by-step through what might seem like an impenetrable maze: from Facebook and Twitter to blogging to SEO to landing pages and lead conversion. No, you're not in Kansas anymore. But you are in good hands with Halligan and Shah.
And if you're already blogging and using Social Media and have a handle on SEO, good for you. BUT don't make the mistake of thinking you don't need the book. Because no matter how well you think you're doing, you can learn more and do better. There is no ‘good enough' in today's world. There's only constantly working to improve, or falling behind.
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