Turn Employees Into Brand Advocates With Case Study videos

Your content marketing mission? Turn your employees into brand advocates with well-developed case study videos . Share with employees the kind of impact your brand has – they have – on people and companies. Share with job candidates the impact they could have once they start working with you.

Also known as success stories, case studies are a proven way to convince prospects to make a purchase. After all, they feature your customers describing how your product helped them. Excerpts from one case study can be used across your content marketing channels – from YouTube Channel  to blog posts,LinkedIn and landing pages.

But many companies neglect to share those success stories with the people who made them possible, thus ignoring their No. 1 growth resource – their own employees. Here’s how to use case studies as a critical tool for your new brand advocates, from HR and finance to production and distribution.

Recruit the best people

Increasingly, people want to work for companies that make a difference, and the youngest generation is leading that revolution. Ensure that your recruiting team has success stories to share at job fairs and interviews:

• Create content focusing on what the new employees would be accomplishing and the incredible feeling of helping customers achieve their goals.

• Talk about specific employees who came to do just another job and ended up feeling fulfilled because they received a thank-you letter from a customer who shared how her life or business was better because of their work.

• Incorporate thank-you letters, emails, etc., into your video marketing for candidates to watch. You could create a video of customer stories. Or create a video of employees sharing what it’s like to work for a company that cares about the value it delivers, each one detailing a customer success story.

• Focus your stories on detailing the benefits and results, and mention features (like comfortable working hours) later.

You want to help your colleagues get people excited to work with your brand. When they understand the impact they could have, they’re more likely to invest in their job and become your newest brand advocates.

Train employees better

Continue to showcase your success stories during orientation. Work with your HR team to incorporate the case study videos in training materials and presentations.

When training employees who will come in close contact with customers – like customer service and social media agents – you might want to build simulations of customer interactions. In this case, share real-life examples of how the brand dealt with the situation to make sure your new recruits are better equipped to succeed – but stay open. They might just come up with better solutions.

Incorporate in office culture

While you integrate case studies throughout your brand’s YouTube Channels and social media platforms , you should do the same at the office. Videos are a great tool to share your office work culture environment to the prospective employees  

• Make your success visual – Create a customer success videos display in your pantry or conference room so employees can see it. Add quotes from case studies in the video. Consider installing screens and displaying case-study videos.

Improve customer retention

Develop case studies specifically to prove that your product or service not only works, but is the go-to solution for your customers’ challenges:

• Make a special effort to share them with your customer service representatives who are the face of your company, the ones capable of bringing preservation rates up and turnover rates down.

• Help your salespeople by giving them the content in a format that they can use to prove your product works. Diversify your case study content to ensure that it addresses the diverse objections that your sales team hears.

Grow your new brand ambassadors

While you have access to potential success story sources through social media discussions, don’t underestimate the value of your employees’ input, particularly those who work at the point of sale. To encourage your employees-turned-brand-ambassadors to help in this process:

• Ask them to make the introductions, strengthening their involvement in the content creation process.

• Feature employees in the stories, interview them for your videos.

• Ask employees for their input such as suggesting challenges to address in the case studies, analyzing drafts of the success stories, etc.

• Show your appreciation for their assistance. Read case studies in team meetings and praise those who were involved. Write generous recommendations on their LinkedIn profiles. Recognize them and their contributions on Twitter (include a link to the case study video).

• Share how the case study videos  are being used by your company and are contributing to content marketing ROI. Show how they support the company’s growth and customers’ success.

This article was originally posted on Content Marketing Institute:  http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2016/02/employees-brand-advocates/

Case Study Videos How and Why

Before someone purchase a product or service there is one question they almost always ask themselves.

Will it give me the result that I want?

That’s why almost 9 out of 10 consumers read online reviews in order to determine the quality of a local business before buying from them.

Making sure that you are collecting customer reviews and testimonials can certainly help with this. But equally powerful is the use of case study videos.

Case study videos combine engaging visuals and a powerful soundtrack with the authenticity of a real customer's experience of your product or service. Case study videos can quickly deliver a large amount of information building trust and confidence that you can deliver on your marketing promises.

Below we will look in detail at how to create a highly effective case study videos for your business. 

Why Create Case Study Videos?

Case study videos are effective because they give a prospective customer the information that they need to feel comfortable making a purchase decision. This is achieved in a way which doesn’t feel forced or phony. In fact the success of case study video is because of their authenticity. They feature real people talking in a natural way about their experiences with a product or service.

If the subject has been properly selected then they should closely align with the typical buyer for that product. Because of this prospective customers can relate to the problems that the person in the video has experienced, and will be looking for a similar solution to the one that is presented.

Case study interviews are also perfect for identifying features of the product or service which were most important to them and are also likely to be important to future customers as well. These features may actually differ from what the seller of the product believes to be the most compelling.

How To Plan Your Case Study Video

A great place to start is by looking at other people’s case study videos to find relevant examples to show your video production agency. This is useful even if the videos are not a 100% match to what you want to achieve with your own video.

Why? Because a good video production agency will be able to look at the example videos that your provide and determine how they were shot, which camera’s were used and what kind of crew members may have been employed. All of these elements will play a role in determining the budget for the creating a similar type of video.

Providing example videos also helps to clarify for your video production agency the look for your video. If you are appealing to a younger audience a fast paced, brightly colored video with rapid cuts may work well. With older and luxury target markets then a better approach might be to use a slower paced edit with very high quality cinematography. Conveying your intentions is typically best achieved by providing example videos with a similar aesthetic.

How To Shoot Case Study Videos

Bosch Eye Care Solutions Case Study Video 

Case study videos have been around for a number of years now. This means that the standard setup for case study videos has been well established. The traditional way of shooting a case study is to feature a straight to camera interview where the customer explains the background to their problem and how the product provided a solution. This talking head interview will typically also use cutaways to add interest and context to what the subject is talking about.

This default standard is certainly effective (there are good reasons why it is popular) but it also means that it is possible to innovate and create something which will stand out in the market. Below we will look at some of the ways to have your case study video stand out in a sometimes crowded market.

Standing Out On Social Media

There are additional techniques that you can use to really make your video on social media where people’s attention span tends to be extremely limited. On social media people are searching for top level content. They may not be aware of your product or even have fully clarified the nature of their problem. As a consequence you need to be able to quickly grab someone’s attention and hold it throughout the case study.

One of the things that can really help is fast paced editing. Each time a video cuts between shots the viewer’s attention is drawn back to the video. This editing “trick” is something that Hollywood has used to keep people constantly. Since the 1930’s the average shot length has decreased from 8 – 11 seconds to 4.3 – 4.9 seconds. These faster cuts are known as“Post-classical” or “MTV style” editing.

The use of bright colors can also be very effective. This can be combined with the brand’s own colors in the video. People’s visual memory is extremely strong, so while they may not remember the full contents of your video by having a certain color it will provide a visual cue to trigger memories of that video later on. For example, they might remember it as the green or pink video that that they saw.

Sound design is another element that is often overlooked. Good sound design can be used to heighten emotion and excitement. Ambient noise, such as the sound of the wind rustling through blades of grass or the sound of a crowd cheering, can be recorded and mixed to created a certain auditory effect.

Time is scarce commodity on social media. One way that you can maximize the time that you have available is to use sound to present narrative elements. So for example, rather than showing a drill on the screen, you could use the noise from the drill which would suggest it to the audience. While the audience may not recall all of the contents of the video at this top level the positive associations created by sound design can help if that prospect is subsequently exposed to more of the company’s marketing.

The Ideal Length Of A Case Study Video

There has been significant research into the ideal length for online video. But, really is no one right length for a case study video. The two components which should determine the length for you video is how long you can hold the attention of the audience and how much time is needed to convey your message. This might be possible to achieve in as little as fifteen seconds. With a more complex product it may take five minutes or even longer to present a compelling arguement. Shorter is not always better. Provided that the video is highly relevant to the target market then they will watch a longer video.

To make sure that you are maximising your audiences scarce attention it is important that you are leveraging all of the elements that video offers and they these are working cohesively together. This means presenting high quality visuals which reinforce the primary features of the video. There should also be a great music track which really drives along the narrative of the video and gives the people a reason to keep listening. The voice over or interview from the subject should not be repetitive while delivering all of the relevant information. When all of these elements are working together you have a powerful and compelling sales tool that can achieve a lot in a short amount of time.

Shooting Your Case Study On Location vs. In Studio

The benefits of shooting in studio is that the environment is completely under your control. This completely eliminates the issue of ambient noise. Unfortunately, the downside to this is that the sound environment can also sometime come across as quite sterile. This is something that can be addressed later in post production.

On location, whether that’s going into someone’s home or workplace or an exotic outdoor location, provides a more interesting visual background and a sense of authenticity. The disadvantages is that you don’t have the same level of control over the environment. This means that you may have to stop production every time that a plane goes overhead or bus drives by.

Another factor that you can’t control if you shoot outdoors is the weather.  lighting is much easier to control in a studio than outdoors. Of course, shooting outdoors does allow you to take advantage of natural light which can be great for imbuing your video with authenticity.

Overall, it could be said that a studio setup tends to result in a video which looks more commercial. This can undermine the sense of authenticity which is so central to producing a compelling case study video.

Interested in learning more about our case study video services? Get in touch below. 

The Benefits of Having Your Corporate Video Professionally Created

An expertly crafted corporate video not only strengthens ties with your existing patrons, it also positively presents your brand and company’s goals to prospective clients. However, even the best editing and video equipment for amateurs cannot produce the results a professional video production company can. Here are a few reasons why, when it’s time to update your corporate video, it’s wise to employ the services of an established video production company.

Cost of a Corporate Video

The initial cost of having a corporate video professionally produced is what turns many clients away from the process. However, when you budget in several factors — including the cost of purchasing professional video and editing equipment — you might be surprised at how affordable it can be. If this is your first attempt at producing a corporate video internally, expect the possibility of several costly setbacks and delays. From re-shoots to editing issues, it will actually cost you less to have your corporate video produced professionally. So instead of spending your weekends reading a video camera’s instruction manual or installing editing software, pass the responsibilities to a qualified professional.

Quality

Search the Internet, including YouTube, for corporate videos. It won’t take years of editing or production experience for you to determine the videos shot professionally and the videos created by amateurs. Many companies don’t have the budget to hire a staff and purchase the necessary equipment to create a quality product. So instead of asking an inexperienced employee to shoot a shaky video on his smartphone, hire an experienced professional video production company.

Your Audience

Today’s consumers are smart, savvy and sophisticated. They know quality, what they like and aren’t afraid to turn off a poorly produced commercial or video before it ends. Nothing is more unattractive to a prospective or established client than a boring, poorly produced corporate video. A professional production company is aware of what makes a corporate video interesting as well as how to effectively represent your brand in an engaging and entertaining manner. Don’t risk losing a potential client because your video won’t hold their interest.

Your Reputation

Finally, if you’re still on the fence about hiring a professional video production company, there is one critical point to consider: your company’s reputation. Remember that a corporate video is a potential client’s first glimpse into your brand. Provide a poor first impression and chances are the client will look elsewhere. Dazzle the client with your professionally produced video, though and you’ll leave a lasting positive impression that might land you the account.

A thoughtfully crafted corporate video is the best way to positively portray your company or brand. Instead of agonizing over the video’s concept and execution, turn to the professionals at Visual Entity

Preparing Your Video Strategy

You have a cause to promote or a new product to launch. You’re looking to connect consumers with your brand, or simply get the word out there about what it is you do. You’ve decided to allocate some of your budget to video production, but before renting the cameras or even before writing the shooting script, you need a video strategy. It’s an essential step many businesses and organizations skip, one that could either make your video a huge success or — if done improperly — a chaotic disaster.

Consult the Experts

If you were installing a new network in your office, you wouldn’t tackle it yourself just because someone on your staff is good with computers, right? You’d call in an IT expert. Don’t assume because you have a dynamic marketing team that they’re ready to make the leap to video campaigns without professional guidance.

Decide on the Overall Goals

Whether you plan on making one video or 20 videos, define campaign’s goals. These goals may cross over with the overall goals of your business or organization. For example:

• To build your online presence
• To increase sales
• To increase brand awareness

Shelve these goals for now as you develop a strategy to make your video a small part of your company or organization’s overall goals. You can’t expect everything from a single Corporate Advertising Video; you’ll write that video off as a failure if you can’t achieve it all. Videos are made for more defined goals.

Define the Video’s Goals

An essential part of your video strategy is determining the individual video’s goals. Ask yourself to define the goal of the video in one sentence. For example, it might be:

• To launch a new product or service
• To instruct consumers on how to use a product
• To introduce consumers to your company
• To drive more traffic to your site
• To get more followers for your social media profiles

This smaller goal should serve an overall goal. For instance, driving traffic to your website or increasing the number of followers of your social media profiles can help build your online presence. Once you have an individual goal defined, your strategy to achieve that goal — and achieve success with the video — will fall into place.

Acknowledging the importance of videos in the modern marketing arena is the first step to success for your business or organization, as Forbes reports more than 90 percent of marketers rely on videos in their content marketing campaigns. However, preparing your video strategy is an important second step — and not one you should tackle alone.

 Get in touch to discuss how we can best help your business reach it’s full potential.

by Adam Krell

How Can You Tell if a Video Production Company is Legitimate?

When choosing a company to produce your next video project you may wonder,’how can you tell if a video production company is legitimate?’

There are a few ways to determine the professionalism of a video production company when checking them out online.

First, when looking at their website do you feel that it is professional. Do the values that they say they provide resonate with you? The level of design and aesthetic that they have put into their site is a good way to determine if they have what it takes to represent you. The way they represent themselves is a reflection of how they will be able to help you represent your company.

Another way to determine if they are legitimate is to look through their client list. If they don’t have a client list that is a major red flag. They are either novice or don’t feel comfortable sharing their past client work. Both factors will do not give you confidence in their abilities. Their client list should have clients that are of a size, a level of professionalism, a region, or in an industry that is relatable to your business. If they have testimonials, watch/read them and see if they seem genuine and if they highlight things that are important to you like detailed outlines, or never missing a deadline.

Next, you should look through their portfolio and see if their work resonates with you and is the caliber you are looking for. You also want to make sure that their work is consistent from project to project. If one of their videos is amazing and some of the others are awful, that is a red flag. You don’t know what you will be getting from the company. If they are willing to share the information, it doesn’t hurt to ask if they produce all their work alone or sometimes work with an agency. This will give you a good idea of whether or not you can expect the high quality work you are seeing in their portfolio. If they are not open enough to share this information, you could also Google the name of their work or project and make sure no other agency, company, or vendors claims to have produced it.

You should visit their contact page. If their contact page is just a form and they don’t tell you where they are located, that could be a red flag. If they do have a location, you can find out if it’s a home, an office, in a good part of town. This can give you more insight into what type of company they are and how they operate.

Lastly, when you contact them their response and response time can tell you a lot about them as a company. If they are looking for more information rather than just trying to make a sale, they are likely a more legitimate company.

You need to vet a video production company like any other type of company. The big things to look for would be that their client list and portfolio seem transparent and honest and that their work speaks to you.

This article was originally posted on Phanata media:   http://blog.phantamedia.com/how-can-you-tell-if-a-video-production-company-is-legitimate/

5 Essential Elements of a Successful Marketing Video

Video is the most lucrative marketing material around, promising higher engagement, more conversions and bigger profits. Pretty compelling stuff – at least it had better be, because the expense of video production leaves little room for error once the cameras start rolling.

However, the success of your marketing video is largely decided before the production process even begins. Tick the right boxes in the planning stages and you should have yourself a concept, storyboard and a bag full of confidence that your video will be a hit – and here are the five elements that make the difference.

#1: Emotional appeal

Whether you leave your audience weeping, crying with laughter or stunned into silence, your video needs to make an emotional impact if you want to provoke a reaction. This is nothing new to video though, even in the digital age, because TV has been perfecting this art for decades.

#2: Relevance

Reaching your audience on an emotional level starts with creating a relevant message to them. We say it so often, but this is why you need to understand your audience, down to the finest detail. Appeal to their pains, needs, desires, fears and you can use these emotional connections to bring them that extra step closer to your brand.

#3: Benefits, not features

A large part of this is understanding how to sell the benefits of your products or services. Benefits are not the features of your products, or even what you think people love about them most. The benefits you need to capture are the ones that show your audience how you’re going to improve their lives, whether by fixing an everyday problem, saving them money or making their wildest dreams come true.

#4: A narrative

To capture the benefits of your brand, make them relevant and appeal to your audience on an emotional level, you’re going to need a strong narrative. The art of storytelling is at the core of every marketing message, and it starts with a character your audience can relate to. This is the emotional bridge between your viewers and the marketing message at the heart of your video.

Every good story needs a point of conflict too, a problem that puts your main character in jeopardy and your viewers on the edge of their seats. Bang! There you have your emotional appeal and now it’s time to show your audience the beauty of resolution.

#5: Call to action

With the hero in your story facing impending doom (or something less dramatic) and your viewers full of empathy, it’s time to introduce your brand. That’s right, you’re the answer to all their problems and, if your video hits your audience on an emotional level, all that’s left is a strong call to action to seal the deal.

Always keep your goal in mind – even if you’re using humor, fear or whatever emotion to engage people, your goal isn’t to make them laugh or scare them. Your goal is to inspire action and compel your audience to buy into your services and your call to action is the final prompt – so use it wisely.

This article was originally posted on Matinee Multilingual:
http://www.matinee.co.uk/blog/5-essential-elements-of-a-successful-marketing-video/

7 Tips to Save Time and Money on your next Corporate Video Production

Ultimately it comes down to the production company you’ve chosen to ensure your idea for a video has been developed into a cohesive script, to effectively plan and execute your video shoot, and to edit the footage down to an exciting and informative video that provides your audience valuable knowledge about your business.

But there are many things that you and your employees can do to help the production company along with the process. By following these helpful tips, you can help save time in the planning, execution and editing of your video –  and we all know when you save time, you save money.

Here are a few things that you can do to help expedite the process to ensure a smooth experience and a project delivered on-time and on budget.

1: Know Your Audience

It’s very important to know who you want watching your video. Are you trying to generate leads for your company? Explaining your technology or product to early adopters? Trying to increase conversion rates on your website? The more accurately you know your audience, and the information you wish to present them, the more you can help ensure your production company accomplish your goals.

2: Watch Other Videos

When crafting your idea for a video, take some time to watch examples of corporate videos, promotional videos and advertisements. Save the links and make notes on what you liked and didn’t like. Being able to give your filmmakers visual references will help jumpstart the development process and ensure you and your production company are on the same page.

3: Know Where Your Video Will Live

Often times businesses haven’t given thought to where they want their video to be seen. If you plan on having your video play on your website you might want your video to look and feel very different then if you’re looking for a broad audience on YouTube. If you’re planning on having your video broadcast on television, let your filmmakers know early on so they can plan ahead. Where the final video ultimately lives will dictate the type of equipment, cameras, video codecs and final delivery format your production company will use. If you don’t plan ahead you can run into compatibility and quality issues down the road.

4: Clear Schedules First

Your business and employees are very busy! Often times trying to get everyone in the same room can feel like herding cats… sometimes literally. If you’re able to schedule the shoot far enough in advance (even before the script has been fully developed) you can ensure the key personnel will be available for the camera.

5: Know Where To Shoot

If your production company will be filming an interview at your office there are a few things to keep in mind when choosing the room to film in. Size matters! Try and choose a room that is large enough for the gear, crew, and the interview subject. Bonus points if you have a room with a nice background, like a window with a view.

Audio is something else to keep in mind. Is the room you want to film in right next to a row of sales people busy on the phones? Try and find a space that can be quiet while filming, and off the beaten path of your employees. You don’t want to spend an hour getting the perfect take, only to have to start over because your employees were doing what they do best: Working!

If you work in a large office complex or are shooting in a tech-savvy conference room, make sure you know how to reach the building maintenance department. Video crews can often edit out noise coming from an air conditioner or flag off an offending overhead light – but being able to address these issues before your crew starts rolling saves time and money in the editing room.

6: Have A Style-Guide Ready

Providing your production company with the details of your brand’s style-guide will cut down design time in the editing room and ensure the final look of the video will perfectly compliment the rest of your company’s marketing materials. Having assets like fonts, logos, and specific colors available early in the process will save time and money later.

7: Know Who Has Editorial Approval

Often times many of your employees will be involved in the making of your corporate video. It’s always encouraged to have as much input from key people in your organization as possible, but when it comes to reviewing and approving editorial revisions, it’s important to know exactly who needs to be giving notes on further revisions, and who can ultimately sign off on the completed project. Make sure these people are available to review the cut when it’s ready! Nothing causes a production company more anxiety then waiting to hear back on an edit while watching the deadline rush closer and closer.

So there you go! With these 7 tips in mind, you can count on your next video project to be high quality, under budget and completed before the deadline.