Tuesday Marketing Notes (Number 9—November 22nd, 2005)
A B2B Marketing Newsletter for BMA Members
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The Web Video Revolution: Making the Most of Web Multimedia for Your B2B Web Site (The Internet: Part 3)
by Eric Gagnon
If you’re not using video on your company’s Web site, you’re missing out on the best tool for presenting and selling your company’s product or service online.
Improvements in multimedia player formats, most importantly Macromedia’s Flash video player, now built into Internet Explorer and other leading browsers, mean videos can now be activated from within any web page, so you no longer have to worry about users not having the right video player, plug-in, or connection speed.
This is a revolutionary development for B2B marketers, and a golden opportunity for you to improve your Web site’s sales response.
So instead of merely describing your company and its products using text, you can show your product in action, and tell your viewers about your product’s key features and benefits, using spoken words and moving images. It’s a powerful new capability that can dramatically increase the interest in, and response to, your Web marketing efforts.
Let’s face it: For better or worse, all of us, including your prospects, are reading less. At the same time, one of the few advantages of years of TV watching also means we can absorb visual information quickly. So, there’s nothing like multimedia—that is, moving images accompanied by spoken words—to convey information faster and better than text alone.
By using video, you’re putting your site visitors through much less effort than merely hoping they will read product descriptions and sales copy on your site. You can also deliver a consistent, professionally-produced presentation of your product to every site visitor, without expecting them to read your site’s sales copy, product descriptions, FAQ, or other sales content.
After all, wouldn’t you rather watch and listen to a tight, informative, professionally produced video that answers the most likely questions you’d have on a product in one or two minutes, instead of spending ten minutes to search this out for yourself on someone else’s Web site?
I’ll cover what you need to know as a marketing or agency professional to get started on this exciting new opportunity to present and sell your company’s (or client’s) products.
Uses for Web Video in B2B Marketing
Here are a few ways you can use Web video on your company’s Web site in B2B marketing applications:
• Home page intros: Introduce your company and product by kicking off your site’s home page with an introductory clip providing a summary of what your company does, the products it sells, what’s so good about them, and where the viewer can go next on your site to find out more about them;
• Product demonstrations: Video clips on your site’s sub-pages show your product in use, and answer the most likely questions your interested site visitors would have on your product;
• New product introductions: Multiple text links for key product features can link to individual clips telling site visitors what’s special and unique about your new product or product upgrade;
• Talking heads: Enthusiastic company executives who have something to say make for compelling Web video. When combined with professional narration setting up and talking around the clip, these short segments convey management’s enthusiasm about your product to the viewer.
Production Techniques for Web Video
If movies are the “big screen,” and television is the “small screen,” then think of Web video as the “micro screen:” That’s because Web video is usually placed in a small area alongside text and other graphics on a conventional Web page. To conserve bandwidth, most web videos currently are no larger than about 320 x 240 pixels, and this strongly influences the way they’re produced.
For example, one of the best-kept secrets of video production is that the audio portion of any video project (i.e., its soundtrack narration) carries most of the burden of communicating the information in the presentation.
You can confirm this by turning the sound off next time you watch TV. Can you tell how much information is lost? Given the smaller screen size of Web video, the audio narration track carries an even greater burden of communicating the content of a Web video.
Other features that play well on regular television, such as fancy special effects, eye candy, and musical theme intros, are at best superfluous when shown at Web video’s smaller format, and at worst actually detract from what you’re trying to say. When producing Web video, limit special effects to explanatory product animations and other informative features (see below).
As in other all other forms of B2B marketing communications, what you say is more important than how you say it—and the best Web video focuses on presenting your product and its benefits clearly and persuasively to first-time viewers.
Keep it simple: Production for most Web videos needn’t be more elaborate than using well-shot, fast-paced clips of your product in use, along with plenty of bullet-point text lines and captions to reinforce the video’s audio narration.
Every Effective Web Video Begins With a Great Script
If the audio portion of a Web video is more important than the visuals, then the script is the most important part of your Web video project. For Web videos, the persuasiveness of your video’s written script sets an enthusiastic tone for your company and its product, and tells the listener, in plain language, why they need your product.
The script is the foundation on which all the other elements of your video—live action shots, still images, and text bullet points—are built. Since the script drives the content and presentation of the visual imagery used in your project, it should always be the first step in any video project. Make sure your script is right before shooting any video for the project.
The best approach to writing a script for Web video is to make a straight exposition of your product, its key features, and its benefits. Make your script read and sound like a smoother, more commercialized version of the sales presentation made for the product by one of your company’s sales reps.
Your script must anticipate and answer the most commonly-asked questions a typical listener would ask about your product or service, and describe its typical uses and applications. Above all, it should emphasize your product’s sales benefits with energy and enthusiasm.
Web Video Script Structure
Here is one example of a broad outline for a script for the audio narration of a Web video:
1.) Intro: Short opening sentence introducing your product, and stating its prime benefit—i.e., the most important thing your product does for the listener;2.) Quid pro quo: What benefit the listener receives when they buy or use your product;
3.) Main product details and USP (Unique Selling Proposition): Overview of your product’s functionality: Who can use it, how and where it’s used. What is it about your product that makes itdifferent and better than similar products, and why should the viewer buy yours instead of a competitor’s product?
4.) Sum up: This is the “tell ‘em what you just told ‘em” part: Briefly reiterate the major product benefit, what this means to the prospect, and what they receive from it;
5.) Close: Tell the viewer what they need to do next, to take a step closer to buying the product—i.e., get more info by calling a sales rep or distributor, get more details by downloading a white paper, etc.
The Visuals: Show Me the Product!
I say again: Show me the product! The video side of your Web video needn’t be an elaborate production, as long as you show me the product. The most important thing your site visitors want to see are images of your product, and how it’s used.They want to see each of your product’s major features being demonstrated, and to be told what the benefits of each of these features mean to them.
So focus on making sure you’re using clean, well-lit video for these important product shots, and check that there’s nothing in any of these shots, like jerky or clumsy hand movements, or messy, cluttered backgrounds, that draw attention away from what you are trying to show the viewer.
The product demonstration shots you’ve seen in those timeless Ron Popeil kitchen gizmo commercials (remember the Veg-O-Matic?) come close to what I’m talking about (minus the hammy acting in the people shots). Ron Popeil is the master of moving the merch using video. Anyone who can sell a million dollars’ worth of product on QVC in one hour is someone we can all learn from; any B2B product will also benefit by being shot and demonstrated in like fashion.
Bulleted text and captions also help reinforce key sales points. Use bulleted sidebar text and captions liberally throughout your project. Text always works better if it’s combined with live video, as in this split-screen format below . . .
Forget about eye candy: Just because special effects are relatively cheap and easy using digital video doesn’t mean they belong in your project. So don’t pretend to be the George Lucas of B2B video. Don’t use artsy, time-killing moving textures or thumpa-thump music to set a mood. And nothing kills a Web video faster than flying your company’s logo across the screen. Your viewers don’t want to see any of this time-wasting eye-junk. Show me the product!
Animations and informational graphics: Animated product and system diagrams, charts, tables and other infographics that aid the viewer in their rapid understanding of your product or service are excellent additions to any Web video. Nothing works better at explaining complex product features or system concepts more quickly or effectively than simple, animated graphics accompanied by plain-spoken voiceover narration.
Keep it moving: We’re all used to quick-cut edits, so any image that stays longer than about two seconds risks losing your viewer. So make sure that the images in your project change about every two seconds. If you’re using still images, make sure you do something with them: Pan them across the screen, or scale them up (or down), in the style of a Ken Burns documentary, to hold the viewer’s attention.
Evaluating a Video Producer’s Reel
When you get involved in a video production project, you’ll find yourself looking at “demo reels” from prospective video producers showing you their best work. Most of us have been watching TV for most of our lives, which already makes most of us, in a way, reasonably qualified to judge a video producer’s work.
Here’s what to look for when evaluating a video producer’s work for your project:
• Watch for solid explanation: Don’t let yourself be blown away by special effects and other eye candy on the producer’s demo tape. They’re the least important part of any Web video. Focus instead on how well the producer explains the product or service presented in the video. As a first-time viewer, do you clearly understand what the product does, and are its benefits clear to you?
• Watch for pacing. Do a mental “one-two-one-two” count while watching the video: Clips, shot angles, or other visuals should change about every two seconds. Visuals that are held for too long, or not changed often enough, risk losing the viewer’s attention;
• Watch for competence. Pay attention to good production values. And look out for the little things: The camera shouldn’t jiggle. There should be no dust visible on the product in extreme closeups. Product lighting should be crisp and bright. Executives interviewed shouldn’t have shiny faces, or shiny bald spots on their shiny bald heads that should have been covered by makeup;
Read the Script!
Before your producer shoots any video for your project, you need to read the script. This is the foundation for every video project, and tells your product’s story. As you read the script, it helps to imagine how it would sound as a professional voiceover. It also helps to read the script aloud to yourself (or have it read to you).
After the script, the next thing you’ll be looking at is a storyboard or outline of the proposed project. These are rough sketches of each shot, shown in sequential order for the entire project. In simple B2B videos, your producer may use a written shot list instead of a graphic storyboard for the project.
Follow the visual pointers we’ve outlined here, and make sure key sales benefits are emphasized by text bullet points in the storyboard or outline.
Costs, and Getting It Done
Expect to pay between $500 and $1500 per minute for a typical Web video. A typical, one to two minute video project may run between $3500-$5000. Your ad agency can probably do this either in-house, or they will bring in an outside production shop to work on these projects for you.
When considering cost, you also need to consider the benefit of using Web video: Each time the video plays to a new viewer on your site, you can be assured that your product is being presented and demonstrated effectively and consistently, without having to rely on this viewer to read your sales copy, or stumble on to the right link on your site. What is this worth to you? Certainly, at least the cost of getting the video produced, and usually many times more than this cost in sales response.
B2B Web Video Examples
Here are some interesting examples of B2B Web videos. The first two are ones I wrote and produced, and the other five are excellent examples I’ve seen on the Web.
Click on the link below each screen shot to play the video . . .
1.) Cellsocket: OEM Web video for a cell phone accessory:
2.) Internet Media: Web video for Yellow Pages directory publishers:
3.) Liquid Metal: Demonstration video for new alloy:
4.) Festool: Power tool sales/demonstration video:
5.) BrightCove: Web video programmer:
6.) Wall Street Journal Boardroom Connection: Excellent talking head interview format with supporting visuals:
Send Me Your Web Videos!
This is an important topic, and I plan to cover it again in the future. If you have your own video projects you’ve done, send links in to me and I’ll consider them for inclusion in a future TMN on Web video.
Next week, I’ll cover white papers: How to produce them, and how to use them to sell products and services in B2B markets . . .
Reader Comments:
Commenting on last week’s TMN on outlining and prototyping a B2B Web site, Pat Bitton (pat_bitton@eurestopartners.com) writes:
Eric:
Great article, but I believe you missed a key first step: Define the audiences who will visit your site (the big five being usually: prospects, existing customers, editors, analysts, investors). Each of these audiences is looking at the site from a different perspective and is searching for a different sequence of information.
Pat Bitton
Partner, Euresto Partners
Dear Pat:
Thanks for your comment. The “define the audiences” goal is a common approach to Web design. My big problem with this approach is that it produces Web sites that just aren’t very effective at converting site visitors to prospects, because they’re trying to address and serve all these audiences more or less equally.
This takes critical information focus away from the most important site visitor: The prospect.
The main mission of the site—to turn a viewer into a prospect—Is muddled when vital product information gets shoved aside by the other stuff that’s not of interest to potential buyers.
Of your list: prospects, existing customers, editors, analysts, investors—I’m focusing on the prospect. Because without a prospect turned into a buyer, there is no customer. And if there aren’t customers—then editors, analysts, and investors won’t care anyway.
Comments? Suggestions? Send them to me at eric@realmarkets.net
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Eric Gagnon (eric@realmarkets.net), is president of GAA, a sales and business development consulting firm, and is the author of The Marketing Manager’s Handbook, the master study guide for the Business Marketing Association’s Marketing Skills Assessment, Skill Builder, and Certification (MSA/B/C) programs.
For more information on The Marketing Manager’s Handbook, available to BMA members at a special discount, link to:
http://www.businessmarketinginstitute.com/book.html
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Test, Train, and Build Your B2B Marketing Skills for Better Sales Success: BMA Announces New Assessment, Training, and Certification for B2B Marketing Managers
For more information on the new BMA Marketing Skills Assessment, Skill Building and Certification (MSA/B/C) training and professional development program, visit http://www.businessmarketinginstitute.com
