Several years ago I was asked to put together a series of customer video interviews to be used for generating customer leads and to help close sales. Like most companies, our customers were dispersed around the U.S. I put together a request for proposal and sent it out to professional video vendors. All the bids I got back were for about $35,000 plus travel expenses. As I reviewed the bids, I could see that their costs were reasonable. It simply costs a lot of money to script, shoot, edit and deliver business-quality videos. As a start-up, we didn't have that kind of budget so the project got pushed back several times.
Some of our more enterprising sales people were shooting videos with their personal hand-held cameras. These amateur videos were quite compelling because they were eye-level, face-to-face interviews with the customer about what they liked about the product. The sales people began to pass these videos between each other to show to prospective customers and to help train new sales people. It was apparent that we didn't need the glossy, voice-over video to help advance our sales prospects. To our audience, the "people-like-me" videos were far more compelling. To the marketing budget, these videos were also more compelling because they cost less than $100 each to produce. In a short period of time, we were able to build a library of customers from different backgrounds that would appeal to many customers.
In the process of shooting and publishing these videos, I learned a few tips that can help your marketing and sales teams do the same.
1. Train your army
You aren't going to be able to shoot these videos on your own. Most marketing and PR people aren't in front of their customers regularly. The best way to get a lot of customer interviews is to train your sales team to shoot the videos on their own.
To get started, ask sales teams to shoot four interviews of their teenage children. Ask the teens about their favorite topic - themselves. Practicing a few times in a pressure-free environment goes a long way to help your sales people master the camera and sound. They should also edit and upload them to YouTube. Getting them comfortable before they sit in front of their customers will help them build confidence and will ensure that you get a lot more usable video content.
2. Shoot first, ask questions later
Good marketeers ask their customer's PR department for permission before they shoot a video. Don't do that - Shoot the videos first and then get permission. Capture everything you can with your own camera while you are in front of your customers. Of course, don't upload it publicly to YouTube without permission, but get it in the can now and ask permission after.
This single principle will dramatically increase the volume of customer interviews you have to develop. A good customer reference program needs lots of customers and you can bet that some of the interviews will not turn out as planned.
Even if the customer decides that you cannot publish the video publicly, they will most likely allow you to use it for internal training. Whether the customer approves it or not, you will still have the case documented for marketing or training.
3. Master the minute
Your customer interviews should be short. Even the most complicated of products can be discussed by your customers in one or two minutes. You don't need them to discuss the technical details. What you are looking for is a simple endorsement that will help your prospects see that someone else has trusted you to solve their business problems.
Getting an interview down to a minute or two takes a little bit of practice. First, interview the customer off camera to hear their story. Take notes about why they selected your product and listen for what is unique or different from other customers. Second, help the interviewee outline the top few points and then immediately shoot the video. This allows the person on camera to remember what they are saying and allows their passion for your solution to come through on the camera.
4. One shot, one kill
Shoot the interview from beginning to end without stopping the camera. Before you hit record, check that the interviewee is positioned properly and is ready to speak. Cue them from behind the camera and let them speak. When one or two minutes has elapsed, let them know with another cue to wrap up. The goal is to shoot the video so it doesn't need to be edited at all. For every two minutes of video that you shoot, it will take you 20 minutes to edit that video. If you are producing even a modest amount of interviews, that editing time can quickly consume your budget and will become the bottleneck.
It took me years to learn this lesson. I'd shoot video and it would sit on my computer for weeks as I tried to find the time to edit it. Then David Spark taught me this simple technique and I quickly began to shoot videos with nearly zero edits. Producing content always slows down at the editing stage. Metaphorically kill your subject in one shot and you'll do yourself, and your budget, a big favor.
5. Hosting is hard, let YouTube do it
Streaming video content in a reliable and scalable way is very difficult. Fortunately, we now have great services to do it for us for nearly free. Let YouTube, Vimeo, or one of the other free video services do all the hard work for you.
Also, these services have millions of people coming to their sites daily. By having your videos on their sites, you will attract their audiences. YouTube has become one of the top search services so uploading your content there will immediately start to drive traffic.
When you upload the video, carefully consider the tags or categories you assign to the video. These words are how the video service search engine will help direct people to your content. Use the natural language that your prospective customers use when talking about the problem your product solves. I find it helpful to playback the video and type every relevant word said by the interviewee. Then add all the appropriate acronyms and product names. Often this can tally 20+ words in an average customer interview.
6. Viral videos
Each page, video, photo, press release, whitepaper or piece of content on your Web site should have a universal sharing menu that allows people to push that information to their friends. There are several free tools that do all the hard work for you. I don't have any reliable stats, but people see roughly 10 percent more page views by simply adding a sharing menu to plain content. Stuff that is hot (like videos) will see much sharper increases in views as fans pass it along.
One way people determine the value of a video is its viewer count. This is often visible at the bottom of the video window. Because of this fact, I recommend driving all of the traffic to one video hosting site so the view counts steadily climb. If the video is hosted in several locations, then counts will also be split and it will appear less successful.
For more detail on making your content viral, see this post titled Marketing in the Feed.
7. Geared up
I've shot several videos that follow these basic points using a simple hand-held video camera. I've included links below to a few examples.
I recommend arming your sales and marketing teams with inexpensive cameras, like the Mino HD Flip. These cameras can shoot in high definition and cost under $200. As with all company-owned electronics, some of them will get damaged or evaporate. At this low price, you can easily re-arm your team when you lose the equipment.
Video examples:
Chris Gulker - Rays of Light for Cancer Patients
TradeMark G at Maker Faire
Habitat for Humanity - La Ceiba, Honduras
When you add video testimonials from your customers to you marketing and sales collateral you'll quickly see that they become the most viewed and credible tools in your marketing mix. These videos are compelling because they help your customers see that someone like them solved a similar problem with your product. With these tips I hope you are able to produce 350 videos for $35,000 instead of only one.
What works for you? Tell me about it in the comments.
Friendly disclosure: I work at a PR agency that represents several social media companies. One of those companies makes tools that allow you to share content online.
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Marketing in the Feed
The new dream of the marketing professional is to reach their customers within feed. The feed is that stream of status updates, shared photos and videos that people see when they log into Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed or any of the other 50 social networks. That feed is special because people place a higher value or trust in information that comes from their friends. There are several easy tactics that marketing professionals can use to allow fans and supporters to share their cause with their friends.
At a basic level, that feed is generated when a person reads a New York Times article that interests them and they think that others will like it too. They then share that information into a social network using links on the page that quickly email or post that information on another Web site. For example, I love to read the NY Times Most Emailed stories because they are often the best of the paper. Something of unique value is created when you track what people are willing to send to their friends.
Younger generations seem to be getting much or all of their current events through the feed. They learn of Michael Jackson's death or the launch of a new phone through information shared from their friends or a list of people they follow. They may never open the New York Times paper (or go to the Web site), but may read several stories a day when people they follow give their take on the story.
How can marketeers engage with their publics and customers in the feed?
1. Make all content shareable.
Each page, video, photo, press release, whitepaper or piece of content should have a universal sharing menu that allows people to push that information with their friends. There are several free tools that do all the hard work for you. I don't have any reliable stats, but people see roughly 10 percent more page views by simply adding a sharing menu to plain content. Stuff that is hot (like videos) will see much sharper increases in views as fans pass it along.
2. Generate lots of media so your customers can share it.
If you interview a customer, think about how you can turn that single interview into multiple pieces of content. Instead of just interviewing them and taking notes, record it on video, audio and take photos. You can quickly turn that traditional printed customer case study into a one minute video testimonial, audio podcast and photo slide show. This aproach has a multiplying effect on your marketing efforts and will generate a high volume of earned placements from your customers.
For example, I worked for an agriculture technology company that outfitted much of its sales teams with low-cost video camcorders (most used their own home handhelds). Every time they went to a customer's farm, they shot video of the customers using the product. The videos were grainy and shaky, but prospective customers loved them. The amateur video was more credible to them and gave them the "test drive" they needed before buying. Once the amateur clips are uploaded to YouTube, everyone can easily share them and find them on their own. When the videos were embedded into the company's website, those videos received more clicks than anything else on the website and turned into real money for the sales team.
3. Monitor the feed and engage quickly. Hire a community manager.
If you are inviting your customers to share content, you have to listen to them and quickly respond. As the community manager for a software company, I set a goal to successfully close nearly all online conversations within 24 hours. This drove the community engagment team to quickly find and resolve any concerns that arose. Customers and prospective customers always knew that we'd be there to help them and often directed us to conversations that needed our insight. Good community managers are a combination of customer support and public relations people. They must feel free to comment on behalf of the company instantly and know the service well enough to resolve the problem.
4. Identify people with a large following. Engage them early.
Community managers quickly learn who has a large voice or strong following. Since the era of the pitchman, people have sought out those with influence. In feed marketing era, the influence map has shifted dramatically. A single person can have 900,000 followers on Twitter. That influence radius dwarfs the daily readership of all but the largest print journalists.
I recently worked on a campaign with a startup company where a news article about their newly launched service was ReTweeted by a handful of people who had a very large Twitter and Friendfeed following. Within 30 minutes, that story was pushed out to over 600,000 followers. The client saw a sharp spike in Web site traffic from the Tweets that far exceeded the referral traffic it received from the many traditional media stories. In addition to customers, that Tweet appeared in the feed of much of their target stakeholders providing them with critical third-party validation during their launch.
Marketing in the feed is governed by the same brand building strategies. The rules of earning someone's trust and engaging with stakeholders remain constant. The realtime pace and transparency inherent in the feed do require some changes in tactics to help your customers share your good news and respond to their enthusiasm.
Friendly disclosure: I work at a PR agency that represents several social media companies. One of those companies makes tools that allow you to share content online.
At a basic level, that feed is generated when a person reads a New York Times article that interests them and they think that others will like it too. They then share that information into a social network using links on the page that quickly email or post that information on another Web site. For example, I love to read the NY Times Most Emailed stories because they are often the best of the paper. Something of unique value is created when you track what people are willing to send to their friends.
Younger generations seem to be getting much or all of their current events through the feed. They learn of Michael Jackson's death or the launch of a new phone through information shared from their friends or a list of people they follow. They may never open the New York Times paper (or go to the Web site), but may read several stories a day when people they follow give their take on the story.
How can marketeers engage with their publics and customers in the feed?
1. Make all content shareable.
Each page, video, photo, press release, whitepaper or piece of content should have a universal sharing menu that allows people to push that information with their friends. There are several free tools that do all the hard work for you. I don't have any reliable stats, but people see roughly 10 percent more page views by simply adding a sharing menu to plain content. Stuff that is hot (like videos) will see much sharper increases in views as fans pass it along.
2. Generate lots of media so your customers can share it.
If you interview a customer, think about how you can turn that single interview into multiple pieces of content. Instead of just interviewing them and taking notes, record it on video, audio and take photos. You can quickly turn that traditional printed customer case study into a one minute video testimonial, audio podcast and photo slide show. This aproach has a multiplying effect on your marketing efforts and will generate a high volume of earned placements from your customers.
For example, I worked for an agriculture technology company that outfitted much of its sales teams with low-cost video camcorders (most used their own home handhelds). Every time they went to a customer's farm, they shot video of the customers using the product. The videos were grainy and shaky, but prospective customers loved them. The amateur video was more credible to them and gave them the "test drive" they needed before buying. Once the amateur clips are uploaded to YouTube, everyone can easily share them and find them on their own. When the videos were embedded into the company's website, those videos received more clicks than anything else on the website and turned into real money for the sales team.
3. Monitor the feed and engage quickly. Hire a community manager.
If you are inviting your customers to share content, you have to listen to them and quickly respond. As the community manager for a software company, I set a goal to successfully close nearly all online conversations within 24 hours. This drove the community engagment team to quickly find and resolve any concerns that arose. Customers and prospective customers always knew that we'd be there to help them and often directed us to conversations that needed our insight. Good community managers are a combination of customer support and public relations people. They must feel free to comment on behalf of the company instantly and know the service well enough to resolve the problem.
4. Identify people with a large following. Engage them early.
Community managers quickly learn who has a large voice or strong following. Since the era of the pitchman, people have sought out those with influence. In feed marketing era, the influence map has shifted dramatically. A single person can have 900,000 followers on Twitter. That influence radius dwarfs the daily readership of all but the largest print journalists.
I recently worked on a campaign with a startup company where a news article about their newly launched service was ReTweeted by a handful of people who had a very large Twitter and Friendfeed following. Within 30 minutes, that story was pushed out to over 600,000 followers. The client saw a sharp spike in Web site traffic from the Tweets that far exceeded the referral traffic it received from the many traditional media stories. In addition to customers, that Tweet appeared in the feed of much of their target stakeholders providing them with critical third-party validation during their launch.
Marketing in the feed is governed by the same brand building strategies. The rules of earning someone's trust and engaging with stakeholders remain constant. The realtime pace and transparency inherent in the feed do require some changes in tactics to help your customers share your good news and respond to their enthusiasm.
Friendly disclosure: I work at a PR agency that represents several social media companies. One of those companies makes tools that allow you to share content online.
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