The poor economic conditions that together we face will require more business discipline than ever in 2009. In order to truly thrive, the coming year will be one that calls for a laser sharp focus in three areas:

• Clear measurement of ROI
• Keeping your executives and key opinion leaders in front of prospects and customers
• Getting maximum utility from every dollar spent

If well planned and executed, interactive video and multimedia programs are a truly resourceful way to effectively address all three of these goals. The inherent ability of video and multimedia to convey the personality of your organization, support your brand’s identity, reinforce customer relationships in a one-to-many manner, and generate actionable lead data, provides the springboard needed to rise above your competition.

Clear measurement of ROI

If a B2B online video program is not measurable, it’s rarely worth doing. Be sure to choose a multimedia platform that provides advanced metrics, and establish the benchmarks beforehand to assess engagement quality and determine viewer interests. Number of registrations or leads, and average viewing length are basic statistics that can be used to measure the success of a video campaign. However, a platform that includes further tracking metrics will give you deeper insight that greatly enhances ROI including: registrations by classification, engagement time for non-registered viewers, segment view times, click and download activity, aggregate audience demographics, platform interactions, or polling feedback.

All of these data points can feed into an engagement formula. This information is very important to determining the effectiveness of your program and can be used to rank leads, guide follow-up communications, conduct virtual market research, support product planning, and much more. Lastly, the data that you do capture should easily integrate with your CRM and/or SFA system

Choosing a multimedia platform that allows for easy integration of the collected data into these systems is critical for timely follow-up and future use. Make sure that the captured information from the video campaign reporting, especially the basics regarding registration contact information, can be seamlessly passed into your SFA system. This will ensure that your sales reps can get immediate notification when a prospect has viewed your multimedia program and requests more information. As you are well aware, a timely follow-up call at the point of interest can lead to a dramatic increase in sales, turning your online video into a “lead machine” for your company.

Keep your exeuctives and key opinion leaders in front of customers

In a struggling economy, putting your company executive and thought leaders in front of customers is arguably one of the most effective ways to stay connected with customers, and convey the uniqueness, personality and stability of your organization. Delivering your presenters online with video and multimedia offers a multitude of cost-saving advantages over one-to-one communications. Travel and meeting expenses are virtually eliminated since participants can view the program at their desk. Programs are professionally produced and edited, so the same high quality content is delivered to everyone regardless of time or location. Because the program is available on-demand, it is more convenient to attend and viewers can search program content for the segment that applies to them, fulfilling their information needs more quickly. Some examples of meetings that could be easily delivered online include strategic positioning, product announcements, or market education, or market research presentations.

Keep the taping informal and short

Before setting up a video taping session, think about how to shoot the media so it can be redistributed in multiple venues to increase the value of the content and ROI of your investment. Think of the broadest number of applications: What is the goal of this video? What discrete audiences do I want to reach? Are there different messages for each? Are there some shared messages? How do I want to distribute this?

As an example you might want to produce a corporate identity video. In one video taping session you could capture a few different things 1) a welcome message from your CEO that can also be used on your company homepage 2) your top customers talking about why your company is great to do business with 3) and a product demonstration. These can be “packaged” into different videos. A corporate identity video can be featured from your website homepage which might include pieces of the video. Excerpts can be used for a banner advertisement that gets run in purchased ad inventory on relevant websites. An alternative introduction could be planned for use on another web site, such as a channel or strategic partner. The customer video interviews can be featured on the Customer Success Stories section of your website. You could release one customer video interview per month in your company’s e-newsletter. Or, a video clip could be sent to the press for a new product introduction.

To learn more about using online video and multimedia to meet and exceed your goals for 2009, contact us.

*Parts of this article were excerpted from the "Guide to Developing Effective Online Video Communications."

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