Online video has become an extremely effective marketing tool, however many companies are still nervous about adopting an online video strategy. Jake Ward, business development director at Groovy Gecko, explores why this is and talks through the key steps to help any company get online.
Why bother?
Probably the first question to answer is why bother with online video. There is a whole plethora of other marketing tools, so what makes video so special? To me, the biggest part is the humanisation of a company and engagement you can only truly get through video. By seeing someone on screen you can relate much more easily. You can also make video both entertaining and interactive, with live polls, Q&A and other innovative tools to really draw your audience in.
Video also lends itself to being integrated with other marketing channels. For example, you can integrate the video into social media channels for better reach or embed it into an e-newsletter to make it more interesting.
Understanding hesitation
Despite video being one of the most successful ways of reaching a global audience instantly, there are understandably a number of reasons why companies could be hesitant at first. Essentially, it normally comes down to four main areas:
- Talent – you may not feel you have the right spokespeople internally to put in front of a camera.
- Technology – often there is a lack of understanding about what is entailed in developing a webcast.
- Bandwidth – companies can be concerned that they simply won’t have the bandwidth to cope with video streaming.
- Cost – online video is seen as an expensive luxury.
Talent
It is often rare to find key spokespeople who know the company and market you wish to address inside out and possess the appropriate presentation skills to make a natural, engaging webcast. However, all is not lost, as actually almost anyone can present with a little help.
We always endeavour to make presenters feel comfortable, by explaining what will happen and letting them have a few dry runs before the video rolls. We sometimes add an autocue, but it really depends on the individual, as some people are much more natural without the autocue.
Making a fuss of the presenters, with a bit of make-up and maybe someone to do their hair, helps to build excitement, making them feel like they are in a movie, and giving them the all-important confident boost to perform well on camera!
Technology
For companies new to online video, we wouldn’t recommend jumping straight into a fully live presentation. By taking baby steps, they can slowly but surely get accustomed to the technology and the process. It will also help for the spokespeople!
So, instead of going straight to live, I would suggest the following roadmap:
- Create an on-demand video and post to your website. There are a number of good platforms out there to help you organise your videos and upload them easily to your site. At Groovy Gecko, we use Kaltura’s OVP to do that for our clients.
- Create an on-demand video, but stream as live with live Q&A. That way the video part is still on-demand, but you give the audience the feeling of it being live and you can interact with them through the Q&A.
- Create an on-demand presentation, but stream as live with synchronised video and live Q&A, which gives the audience an even better feeling of watching a live video, without too much risk still for the presenters.
- Once you feel comfortable, you can progress to fully live, with polling, live Q&A and all the bells and whistles, giving your audience a fully interactive experience.
Bandwidth
As soon as anyone talks about video, one of the instant reactions is whether there will be enough bandwidth to upload or view. Thoughts arise of it crashing the servers and leaving everyone without email, and the other concern can be that the video will keep stopping part way through if you do manage to view it. However, bandwidth is getting better, but there are also a number of ways we can protect against crashing servers and stuttering servers.
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are specially designed and located for optimum video delivery. They have server clusters around the world and essentially move the video files as close to the viewer as possible, thereby ensuring the quality of the experience and the delivery. This is also called “edge streaming” as the servers are placed strategically close to the edge of the internet, quickly handing off the streams into the viewers ISP (Internet Service Providers) to ensure the very best performance and also taking care of scale to accommodate very large webcasts.
Also, by using Adaptive Bitrate Streaming, the video will adapt its size and quality depending on available bandwidth. This means that if someone has very little bandwidth, they can still view the video seamlessly without stuttering, but the resolution will be slightly lower whilst the bandwidth is limited.
Costs
The cost of producing online video depends on how sophisticated you want to get. I recommend starting small, creating some fairly basic on-demand videos will be relatively low cost, and you can make the decision if and when to scale it up once you have tested the water.
What are you waiting for?
Online video can help get your branding and messaging across to a wide global audience, but it also enables you to engage with that audience in a way that simply isn’t possible through other means. It can be a daunting task at first, but the benefits make it definitely worth the effort!
