You're representing your brand on camera more than ever. Give yourself a break — online meetings, online expos, and all your other sales and marketing efforts go better with new video content.

Only 20% of B2B companies these days rely on in-person or field teams — down from 60% last year (source). For many B2B companies “website interactions” has meant redoubling their eCommerce efforts — with good results and with fewer interactions. But it’s not so easy to get online orders for complex and pricey purchases like technology solutions. They’re seeking to make up for the lost engagement with online tools that can all be improved with new video content.

• online meetings
• website interactions
• self-serve interactions
• live chat agents

The experience of tech buyers

Some intriguing characteristics of tech buying are captured in the chart below, based on data collected just before the pandemic really settled in.

The prevalence of stakeholders arriving late in the buying process makes a strong case for new video content —like short videos dramatizing benefits for stakeholders  Source: https://www.marketingcharts.com/top-b2b-charts-of-h1-2020

Buyers appear to put more value on personalized sales materials than you might have thought. Most are making decisions as part of a team, not on their own. 93% reported that a new decision influencer was inserted into the buying process after the vendor’s proposal was submitted. Overall, the tech buying experience outlined here suggests the need for varied content — including video.

New video content to support digital selling

“Personalizing” a video doesn’t mean you need to appear on camera. We’re all getting more used to showing our faces presenting on-camera, but recording worthwhile video messages can take a lot of time. The best way to “personalize” a video is to share it with the right person at the right time. For that, you need a library of short videos that zero in on specific topics. Not high-level overviews, but trustworthy show-and-tell videos that hit the mark. And you need videos that speak directly to different members of the buying committee.

How do you build a library like that? You can edit existing videos. Plan new videos in “chapters” that can stand alone. Get your on-line demonstrators to record screencasts that can be edited into punchy stories. Compile customer comments into animated gifs. Planning and editorial skill can go a long way to “personalize” videos for specific interests and points of view.

Pro Tip (for MacBook and iOS users)

If you’re a MacBook and iOS user involved in online meetings, take a look at the Camo app. Even the free version lets you significantly improve your online appearance by making it easy to use the excellent video camera in your iPhone or iPad in place of the mediocre webcam in your MacBook.

Why beef up online meeting video? Because computer screens are better at delivering video than they are at replicating in-person engagement.

Findings from a recent report on lead-gen strategies from Ascend2:

• Most marketers think their social media tactics are increasing the quality of leads
• Most marketers are spending more on social media because of COVID-19
• Most marketers regard video as the most effective type of content for lead-gen, followed by webinars, and live events/webinars

All these “most-effective” online content types feature moving pictures on a small screen — in other words, they’re all video. Looking at no-motion on the screen for any length of time makes most people antsy.  Consciously or not, viewers expect video to move — including online meeting video.  So, most webinars, especially those that feature software demos, could benefit from added motion, as well as editorial tightening-up.

Video content thrives on motion

Given the ongoing impracticality of “live” events and travel, companies are increasing their investment in webinars.

Here are three simple ways you can add motion to your webinars and online meeting video without spending too much of that investment:

• Skip Intro. Spend as little time as possible on “housekeeping” details, presenter credentials, and agenda-setting. Most of this info will have been covered in the invitation package. Just summarize it on the title screen so you can get off to a quick start.
• Use your webcam. Not all visuals are worth seeing in full-screen screen- share mode. In many instances, briefly holding a photo (or even a cue card) up to the camera while you talk, will feel more natural to viewers.
• Use video clips. This can work especially well in software demos. Think of your demo as an illustrated story in several chapters. You’re the storyteller, and you want strong visual support for each chapter.

Plan how you’ll follow up

As I noted in this article, the key to digital selling is the asynchronous engagement that goes on after the online meeting. The online meeting video clips you prepare are going to come in very handy here, because your sales team can make them the subject of emails in a planned cadence. And they can be contextualized in other ways for sharing in social media, where video is the most effective scroll-stopper.

As companies invest more in webinars and similar productions for digital selling, viewers will come to expect higher production values in online meeting video. Good writing and editing will matter more than ever.

Digital selling is how sales teams meet goal these days. And theres' a lot more to it than online meetings.

When it comes to digital transformation in B2B marketing and sales, marketing has led the way in recent years. But now B2B sales teams are finding that they need get up to speed with digital selling in a hurry.

“The pandemic makes digital selling absolutely essential to hitting goal,” says Glenn Eckard, head of client success and experience at Journey Sales (a long-time client of ours). Having launched their well-regarded digital selling solution, called Smart Rooms, in 2015, Journey Sales works with a variety of sales organizations, including some of the largest and most respected brands. So Eckard has been uniquely positioned to observe the urgent drive to master digital selling in real time.

The problem now is the pipeline

“What we’re hearing most right now is concern for pipeline,” says Eckard. Our customers have been closing deals, but account managers, who have always relied on ‘walking the halls’ to tee up new cross-sell and upsell opportunities with existing clients are eager to find new ways to extend reach and penetrate the new spaces.”

Reluctance to travel is part of the problem, obviously. “But even if the selling teams want to travel, it’s turning out that many customers don’t want them to visit. Often, this is because the buying team has moved remote and doesn’t want to have to travel to their office for a meeting.”

“Besides that, as they come to recognize the effectiveness of a strong digital selling strategy, businesses are realizing that they don’t need to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in T&E.”

Beyond “live” meetings: asynchronous engagement

“Digital selling” says Eckard, goes way beyond live meetings using tools like Zoom. Video meetings can be very effective, but “if sales have no way to maintain the engagement after the session, it’s hard to gain real traction.”

The salesperson needs to make their presence felt, and they can’t do it the old way — by just dropping by. Add to that the pressure of closing, say, eight deals right now and simultaneously teeing up eight more for the next quarter. No-one has the bandwidth to do all this with online video meetings alone. This “asynchronous” side of digital selling is crucial for sales.

A branded digital sales experience

“What’s needed,” argues Eckard, “are private, secure, branded digital customer experiences with a continuous flow of relevant content, where customers can invite colleagues into the community, and where and buyer and seller can work together to figure out how the solutions being offered can help achieve the customer’s goals.”

When it comes to delivering the optimal asynchronous digital selling experience, Eckard says video plays a pivotal role with its ability to put across a lot of information clearly, in short order.

When will things get back to “normal”?

Eckard believes that many of the changes the pandemic has enforced on sales, will persist in some form. “Nothing will relieve the pressure to fill the pipeline and close deals,” he says, “but nearly everything about what organizations do to make those things happen will continue to change.”

"Real" video — the kind we've been watching all our lives — involves more planning than typically goes into today's online video meetings. This is an opportunity to stand our.

For many sales professionals, conducting online video meetings is now a big part of the job. And, it’s not something that comes naturally to most of us. Even if you perform well and the group resists talking over one another, attention will wander in online meetings. Multiple talking heads on a small screen? That’s very different from a professionally produced video where everything has been well thought through by a director or performer. Every online video meeting can benefit from more of that.

Visual content that improves online meetings

In talking with our technology sales and marketing customers, we’ve come up several ideas about how to make better use of video in online meetings.

• No marketing. Avoid commercial interruptions.
• Technical. People in an online meeting don’t want superficial content. They want to get into the weeds (though not over their heads).
• Visual. Illustrations, animations, pre-recorded segments with subject matter experts can all add variety and motion. They need to be short. And they need to clarify a key point.
• Realistic demos. Customers and prospects want to see your solution in action. However, unless they signed up for a comprehensive capabilities demo, they probably don’t want one. But they will appreciate a tightly scripted screencast with a happy result at the end of the click path.
• Tactical. Many online webinars and demos end with Q&A sessions with no visuals at all. This is odd, since sales professionals are accustomed to anticipating questions and objections. Save some of your good visuals for the Q&A.
• Reusable. These suggestions all describe well-designed content for meetings. Most of it will also be short enough to be shareable on social media.

One of the most common complaints from employees working from home is about the amount of unproductive time they spend in online meetings. Everyone will appreciate video meetings that run faster and smoother because you’ve gone to the trouble to make them more like “real” video.

Talking heads make for OK videos in online sales meetings. But well-thought-out visual support can deliver a lot more infomation faster.

Increased familiarity with online video platforms like Zoom has opened up opportunities to stand out from the crowd with better quality video. Maybe you’ve already improved your on-camera game with expert lighting tips or by adding a spiffy virtual background. But there are still plenty of opportunities to make better use of video in online sales meetings.

Beyond talking heads.

Still, a prerecorded spokesperson may not be the most effective visual support for an online conversation about a technology solution. PowerPoint support can be effective, as long as you don’t have people staring at bullet points for minutes on end. You can personalize, and improve a PowerPoint presentations by keeping yourself in the picture.

For an online video meeting, video is a more natural type of visual support than PowerPoint. But the product explainers, webinars, tutorials, and branding videos you used in your video marketing programs were designed to reach the widest possible audience of customers and prospects. They aren’t social enough for socially distanced selling. They are probably too long, too impersonal, and out-of-context for your current situation.

What types of video can improve online sales meetings?

Single subject. You will want videos that fit naturally into a conversation. Ideally, they can be shown when the subject comes up — so they shouldn’t cover more than one subject.

Little or no narration. Unlike PowerPoint, a narrated video doesn’t give the presenter much opportunity to participate. Narrated videos are good for messaging consistency. But a professional narration can make the conversation less friendly and casual, and an unprofessional narration can be distracting. Adding on-screen text will help ensure messaging consistency without monopolizing the conversation.

Short. Break down the subject into several segments. If it’s a “live” presentation, you don’t need 100% visuals — just for those parts where the presenter needs some visual support.

Simple. Videos used in online meetings can make a big impression by explaining something the customer is interested in, in the shortest possible time. You’ll need to put a lot of thought — and probably some trial-and-error — into the content of the video. But you don’t need to add a lot of pizzazz.

Reusable. A video designed for online conversation will be useful in social media conversations, too.

(ICYMI — here are some free video resources we recommend)

Face-to-face online get-togethers are a great opportunity to use video in sales communication.

Looking to host better meetings and raise the level of your working-from-home game with video? Just about everybody is using video for online sales communication these days, not just “inside sales.” Here are some free tools for videoconferencing, video production, virtual classrooms, interactive video, and more, that you may not have run across up to now.

Web conferencing. Cisco has enhanced the free version of its Webex videoconferencing software. Google Cloud offers GSuite customers an enhanced version of Hangouts. You can try Adobe Connect free for 90 days.

Distance learning. People eager to learn how to do sales onboarding and training better will find plenty of material in Adobe’s terrific collection of courses, webinars, blogs and more about distance learning.

Social Media. Videos uploaded directly to social media (as opposed to links to videos hosted on other platforms like YouTube) get higher engagement. Preferred formats vary across platforms and are subject to change. Consult this Always Up-to-Date Guide to Social Media Video Specs from Sprout Social, and keep it  handy.

Managing and distributing your video library. Panopto, is inviting companies to try their corporate video management approach— dubbed “Enterprise YouTube” — free for three months. The goal is a searchable, customizable library of on-demand video assets that takes full advantage of all the video creativity you can muster from internal resources and external partners. (A workplace productivity study by Panopto and YouGov actually put a dollar value on the cost.)

Screencasts. TechSmith is offering its powerful screengrabber Snagit, and its collaboration platform, TechSmith Video Review, free to use through the end of June.  Also worth a look: CloudApp.

Video messaging. Vidyard offers the new Vidyard for Internal Communications free through June 30. In addition there is a free version of their popular video messaging app, one of the most widely used (and easy-to-use) tools for video in online sales communication. Also worth a look:

Interactive Video. You can enhance videos (including existing videos) with clickable chapter headings and interactive elements like polls and quizzes with free open source software from H5P. It is compatible with WordPress and other CMS.

Tech companies are scrambling to come up with demos and presentations for events that have moved from big exhibit halls to small screens.

Are you prepping for a meeting that has unexpectedly been moved online in response to the coronavirus crisis? If so, you’re probably up against the fact that B2B sales presentations and interactions on the small screen are pretty low-energy compared to live meetings and presentations.

You can boost the energy level of online conferences with video. But maybe not with the videos you have on hand now. Videos  for online meetings need to be conversations.

If your audience is not live, but rather working remotely, they’re probably going to need a little extra stimulation. Video can help.

How are videos for online meetings different?

• Not sales-y. Visitors aren’t there to watch commercials.
• Very short. They shouldn’t inhibit or interrupt your presenters. Visitors want to interact.
• More visuals, less talk. You’re using video because it’s the fastest way to explain stuff.
• Specific. These videos should anticipate and respond to specific questions, objections, and misconceptions.

Where can you find these videos?

Your existing video library contains a lot of them. But you need to make the best bits instantly accessible. Who wants to sit through 5-minutes of introductions to a previously recorded webinar? You’ll still probably need to create some videos.

How can you quickly repurpose existing videos for online meetings?

Add chapter headings. Clickable HTML overlays with players from Vimeo and other platforms make this easy. Chapters enable your presenter or viewer to hop right to the relevant point in a demo or customer use case.

Make an existing video interactive. A cool DIY solution is to add interactive elements like polls and quizzes. You can do that with open source software from H5P (compatible with WordPress and other CMS), or with interactive tools from numerous paid services.

Make short (< 30 sec) videos from longer ones. A video that makes one point well can support live presentations and can also be shared in social media. This doesn’t take much editing skill, but it does require editorial skill.

Edit software demos and screencasts so they tell an interesting use-case story.

Animate diagrams and illustrations from existing PowerPoint decks and white papers to help your presenters or viewers work through processes step-by-step. Someone has already thought through how to communicate this essential information visually, so it won’t be too difficult the make it more engaging by putting the parts in motion.

How can you make a bunch of new videos for online meetings PDQ

Convert existing text content. FAQs and sales messaging documents already contain information that can be better explained visually. Starting with “approved” content can shorten production cycles. This is the kind of thing your presenters should have on hand to answer expected visitor questions.

Try agile video production. Producing sales and marketing videos has traditionally been a drawn-out process encumbered by slow approvals and rework. But this needn’t be the case.

Tech companies already use collaborative agile methodologies to deliver quality digital products in the shortest time possible. Why not do the same thing with video? We find that many aspects of “agile” work very well in video production: teamwork, clearly delineated responsibilities, daily meetings, delivery of “working” videos on a set schedule.

All you need to do is put together a team of people who can prioritize the things your customers want to know and can explain these things to the video professionals who can transform them into simple videos that will make your online meeting stand out.

Note: A version of this article was previously published in Biznology.

Note: headlines are from

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21161635/nvidias-gpu-technology-conference-gtc-online-only-coronavirus

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/02/google-cancels-cloud-next-because-of-coronavirus/

Here’s an infographic chock full of video marketing statistics you can use to argue your need for a bigger video marketing budget. Candidly, I’m not a big fan of infographics. Too many cite numbers that are unverifiable (like the 7-second attention span of a goldfish), or questionable sources (like other infographics).

But this one, from digital healthcare agency Omnicore appears to be responsibly sourced for the most part.  (Though I don’t recommend telling your boss that “a website with a video is 53 times more likely to end up on Google’s front page. If only! While it’s true that Forrester reported this — in 2008.  They’ve long-since disclaimed it.)

Here are some points relevant to technology solution sales and marketing videos you might slip into your next video budget meeting. You might also be interested in video marketing statistics previously discussed on this blog, including What types of videos can influence B2B buying decisions? and Videos for marketing to millennials on the buying team.

Video marketing statistics relevant to technology solutions

• 59% of executives prefer video to text. (Wordstream)
• Videos increase organic search traffic on a website by 157%. (Conversion XL)
• People spend 2.6x more time on pages that have videos. (Wistia)
• 23% of marketers use Interactive videos. (Wyzowl)
• Marketers expect to lose 33% of viewers within the first 30 seconds. 45% and 60% will stop watching after a minute or two. (AdAge)
• Social media posts with video have 48% more views. (Hubspot)
• Compared to YouTube links, Facebook’s native videos have 10x higher reach. (Socialbakers)
• LinkedIn video campaigns receive view rates of  50%. (Linkedin)
• 84% of marketers say that using videos on LinkedIn has been successful. (Smart Insights)

A worthwhile collection of video marketing statistics. (Source: Omnicore).

An updated tech solution video checklist

Read more…

The 30 items in this technology video checklist come out of our experience with hundreds of teams from tech companies putting together product introductions, demos, and other short videos designed to get customers up to speed on what a particular technology solution can do for them.

Organization

• Team includes the people with the most customer and market insight.
• All relevant background materials shared with production team.
• Style preferences, graphics standards, and branding guidelines communicated.
• Collaborative methodology, team responsibilities, and signoffs determined.
• Feedback and sign-offs specified.
• Realistic deadline established.
• Budget includes captioning, social media versions, trade show/conference versions (without narration), edits for re-purposing.

Messaging

• Presents a compelling reason why viewer should care about what you’re saying in the first 15 seconds.
• Presents a true-to-life situation facing the target customer.
• Tells a story and helps to build a video library of good stories.
• Asserts one memorable differentiator (more is not better).
• Differentiates solution decisively with comparison to alternatives.
• No vague promises.
• Has a useful shelf life, not simply part of a “product announcement” package.
• Coordinated with other content (e.g., summarizes research report, animates relationships or processes described in website product section)

Visuals + motion

• Relationships and processes are animated step by step.
• Adds supplemental relevant information with graphics or text.
• Key points can be understood with the audio turned off.
• Uses motion and transformations deliberately to keep the focus on what matters to the viewer.

Narration

• Conversational and low-key, not high-pressure sales-y.
• Word order matches on-screen events.
• Minimal audio-only information.
• Narrator selection by audition.
• Background music not distracting.

Distribution

• Thumbnail image selected or created.
• Uploaded to YouTube + other platforms.
• Surrounding text communicates who should watch the video and what they’ll get out of it.
• Captions and transcript.
• Clickable chapter headings and links for long videos.
• Repurpose excerpts.

Not everything on this technology video checklist applies to every situation, of course, but they’re all worth considering because they can make the production process smoother, and the resulting more valuable to viewers.

NOTE:  A version of this technology video checklist appeared previously in Biznology.

Daily online meetings, one of the hallmarks of agile software development, and speed up the production of videos, too (it *is* digitial software, after all).

Do you have a looming deadline for a presentation that explains something new, exciting, and complicated —   but there’s no consensus on the best way to explain it? Is your sales or investor relations team clamoring for a video that will speed up conversations with non-technical decision-makers? This may be the time to try agile video production.

We were contacted a couple of months ago by engineers at a startup. The team was preparing to introduce a radically unconventional streaming processor for compute-intensive applications like AI and machine learning.

The challenge

The deadline was tight. The challenge was to get agreement on how to visualize the chip’s internal workings, and then to quickly turn out a video that would clearly explain the impressive technical achievement in a way that could be easily understood by the sort of person who goes to AI hardware conferences.

An agile approach

As we were about to get started, we were surprised to be asked by our client’s team leader whether we prefer meeting every day or every-other-day! Not something we’d ever been asked before. Certainly not our usual approach, but one that came naturally to the folks we were working with.

Though no formal agile methodology was used, or even mentioned, the prospect of a daily meeting demanded that we produce working software (digital video) every day, in order to have something to test and evaluate. This eliminated miscommunication and greatly improved the finished product — all well within the tight schedule. Our customer was happy that their audience loved the video. We were happy that the unaccustomed high level of collaboration boosted both the quality of the video and the efficiency with which it was produced.  You can view the video here: Groq Tensor Streaming Processor architecture is radically different.

When to apply agile video production methodology

This methodology may only be applicable to complicated tech solutions. Where the product message is locked in, choosing how to present it depends largely on taste, and daily testing is not guaranteed to improve it. But if everyone starts out unsure about what will work, agile video production can work for everyone.