Vimeo vs. YouTube for business—and what you should consider instead

Lots of vendors call themselves video platforms, but each do wildly different things for different audiences—from helping beauty bloggers monetize to helping marketers drive leads to helping entertainment execs build streaming services.

Vimeo vs. YouTube for business: which video platform is which and which is best for you? We’ll explain the differences between YouTube and Vimeo—two of the most popular video platforms out there—and tell you more about a third option you may not have thought of: a video platform that’s built for business.

Vimeo vs. YouTube for business: What are the differences?

Each of these platforms is used by different people for different things. YouTube is a social media site that helps viewers discover videos. Vimeo is a video hosting platform for organizing video playlists.

What can be confusing is that there’s some basic feature overlap.

Both platforms allow you to upload videos, measure views, and create playlists. But each platform also does a few important things that the others cannot.

Only YouTube can:

  • Recommend your video to 1.8 billion users
  • Run pre-roll ads before your video starts playing

Only Vimeo can:

  • Help monetize both videos and live streams and reach a paid audience with built-in features

But these two options also have their downsides, chief of which is that they’re a place for all video content, regardless of creator, quality, or intent.

What does a video platform for business offer?

On the flip side, a video platform that’s built for business can offer you a whole lot more. That’s where Vidyard comes into the mix.

Vidyard is a video marketing platform that helps both B2B and consumer businesses drive and measure pipeline and revenue.

Only Vidyard can:

Vimeo vs. YouTube vs. Vidyard: Which one’s right for you?

With so many features to review, how do you choose the right video platform for your business?

 

Vimeo vs. YouTube vs. Vidyard comparison graphic

Of the three, Vidyard and Vimeo share the most features. Both allow viewers to control the look and feel of their players, but Vidyard is designed to make video useful throughout your entire organization—from marketing to sales to support to HR—whereas Vimeo is oriented towards helping consumer marketing teams monetize their videos to consumers on, say, a smart TV. Many of Vimeo’s features cater to influencers while Vidyard focuses on businesses.

Both platforms allow teams to embed, share, and track videos, and to customize their video player. But only Vidyard integrates with sales and marketing systems, offers ROI analytics, and makes it easy for sales teams to send one-to-one video.

YouTube stands alone in that it’s a social media platform first and a video hosting platform second. A whopping 1.8 billion people go there to watch everything from how-to videos to full movies, comment on content, and interact with other users. It’s built around an algorithm inspired by slot machines and designed to get viewers lost in a vortex of fascinating footage (cue cat video montage).

GIF via GIPHY

Yet for businesses, YouTube has some downsides: YouTube makes money by selling pre-roll ads, content suggestions at the end of videos, and side screen offers. All of which you can’t always control, and which could even be for your competitors. It also limits the data you can view. For companies trying to convert leads and accounts, it provides little insight.

The Bottom Line: While YouTube has a huge potential audience, only Vidyard integrates with sales and marketing systems, and offers ROI analytics. But, you can get the revenue-generating benefits of a video marketing platform like Vidyard and a social network like YouTube by using them together.

Combine Vidyard and YouTube for the win

Vidyard and YouTube make a great pipeline-driving pair. Marketers can upload short teaser videos to YouTube which link back to their website where the full video is hosted by Vidyard (which integrates with your YouTube channel).

This way, marketers hitch a ride on YouTube’s powerful recommendation algorithm, which shows videos to the people who are most likely to enjoy them, and marketers get all the granular data and lead-capturing benefits of Vidyard once viewers land on their website.

When viewers watch a Vidyard-hosted video, you can:

  • See how much of the video they watch, and what parts they rewatched
  • Trigger actions, such as alerts to the sales team
  • Capture leads with post-roll forms
  • Score the new lead or account
  • Measure the video ROI

For most businesses, a combination of Vidyard and YouTube offers the greatest mix of discoverability and convertibility for turning traffic into pipeline. So, despite tens of thousands of Google searches, the question isn’t “Should I use Vidyard or YouTube?” It’s “How can I best use Vidyard and YouTube together?”

Want to learn more about what an enterprise solution like Vidyard can do? Check out this six-minute demo to learn more!

The post Vimeo vs. YouTube for business—and what you should consider instead appeared first on Vidyard.

from Vidyard http://www.vidyard.com/blog/vimeo-vs-youtube-for-business/

How to Take Care of a Hot Tub Cover

Aside from doing a great job of keeping the hot tub’s water and chemicals from evaporating, a cover also helps in preserving the high temperature. You get many other benefits from having a hot tub cover installed, but in order to keep it working properly for a long time, make sure you do the following:

Cleaning
Step 1 – Remove Cover
Take the cover off of the hot tub and set against a wall or something stable. Rinse it off with water first before doing any scrubbing.

Step 2 – Scrub
After the cover is pre-rinsed, begin in an upper corner and with small circles begin scrubbing with the brush and hot soapy water. Go across the top and begin moving down the cover. Rub gently while steadily progressing into a harder motion for more stubborn dirt.

Step 3 – Rinse and Repeat
Rinse one side completely of all soap. Begin on the other side in same manner and rinse thoroughly. Source: DoItYourself

Protection
Condition your cover with a vinyl protectant after cleaning it. Vinyl is a bit like skin, and cleaning your hot tub cover will have an effect similar to opening pores. Cleaning the vinyl will help it better absorb a conditioning protectant. A freshly cleaned vinyl surface also gives dirt and grime a stronger foothold, so you should always condition the cover after cleaning it to prevent it from quickly getting dirty again.

Most covers are made of vinyl, but some are made of acrylic. There’s no need to apply a protectant to an acrylic hardcover. Source: WikiHow

Maintenance
In addition to cleaning, you can help prevent major issues by checking for and repairing any damage on a regular basis. Damaged vinyl should be patched immediately using a vinyl repair kit. Inoperable zippers may need to be repaired by a professional, but must also be fixed as soon as possible. Both issues can allow water to infiltrate the foam core if left unaddressed.

Your hot tub cover must be allowed to dry out occasionally. If you never take it off your spa, you’ll shorten its lifespan. Pop it off monthly while you clean the shell and balance your water, and let it dry completely before replacing it. Source: SwimUniversity

Any hot tub related concerns? We’re here to help! Call us!

 

Contact:
Universal Spas
19300 Langley Bypass, Surrey, BC V3S 7R2
(604) 539-2182

from Buying Hot Tub’s from Vancouver’s Leading Brands at Universal Spa’s https://universalspas.ca/2019/04/how-to-take-care-of-a-hot-tub-cover/

Outreach and Other Leading Sales Platforms Add Personalized Video Selling Tools, Powered by Vidyard GoVideo

Top sales acceleration platforms now deliver scalable video prospecting capabilities to help sales professionals book more meetings and humanize the sales process

KITCHENER, Ontario – April 10, 2019 – Vidyard, the leading video platform for business, announces a new partnership with Outreach, the leading sales engagement platform, to bring personalized video messaging and real-time video engagement data to sales teams around the world. Outreach joins EveryoneSocial, Reply.io, 366 Degrees, ConnectLeader, and FunnelAmplified as the latest members of Vidyard’s partner Integration Directory to integrate the Vidyard GoVideo video selling app directly into their sales engagement workflows. Through these integrations, sales professionals can easily record, share and track one-to-one videos without ever leaving their sales tool of choice.

Personalized, one-to-one videos are changing the way sales prospecting is done because putting a face to a name creates an instant connection with prospects and customers. By using Vidyard GoVideo, Vidyard’s flagship video messaging app, reps can convey authenticity, trust, and boost response rates by 2-5x. Vidyard GoVideo helps users quickly capture, host, and track personalized video messages, has become instrumental in helping sales professionals dramatically increase pipeline.

Today, six apps join Vidyard’s flourishing partner Integrations Directory, which now includes more than 40 marketing and sales apps that are charged to bring the power of video to a wide variety of platforms:

  • Outreach: As an Outreach Galaxy partner, reps can use Vidyard GoVideo to create high-impact videos that are embedded in sales emails–right from within the Outreach platform. Send introductions, product demos, and more to make emails engaging at scale, and keep track of who watches to prioritize follow-ups.
  • EveryoneSocial: Sales teams that leverage social media to build pipeline and engage with buyers use EveryoneSocial. From within the EveryoneSocial web and mobile apps reps can quickly select or record a Vidyard GoVideo, share it with prospects and connections, and get detailed analytics on who and what is driving results.
  • Reply.io: Use the Vidyard GoVideo and Reply.io integration to add maximum personalization to your sales drip campaigns. Create personal intro videos or product demos, add them to an email sequence in Reply.io, and automate one-to-one email engagement at scale with a personal touch.
  • 366 Degrees: The 366 Degrees engagement platform, combines relationship marketing and sales outreach solutions for mid-market enterprises. By integrating Vidyard GoVideo, businesses can now create, manage and distribute video via the platform and share real-time engagement across CRM’s like Salesforce and Nimble.
  • ConnectLeader: With ConnectLeader’s TruCadence®, sales reps can sequence multi-channel engagement via phone, email, social media, and now video with Vidyard GoVideo. Leveraging ConnectLeader’s breakthrough dialer stack, reps can follow up on a day’s worth of cadence tasks in just one hour!
  • FunnelAmplified: With FunnelAmplified, reps can generate leads from every member of their team, build brand-hubs for employees, and distribute content for employees to publish to social networks from one central dashboard.

“In today’s noisy market, it’s difficult for sales reps to stand out and earn the attention of potential buyers. Personalized video is changing that, giving them a compelling new way to break through the noise and connect on a more human level,” says Michael Litt, CEO and co-founder of Vidyard. “Through our expanding partner community, we’re now enabling sales reps to leverage the power of video from directly within their sales tool of choice in a way that is easy, personalized and integrated with how they work today.”

“Sales is becoming more personal every day. You must use the right channel for the right engagement for the right prospect and customer, and we’re finding video to be a key channel in engaging buyers,” says Manny Medina, CEO and co-founder of Outreach. “We’re excited that Vidyard has joined the Outreach Galaxy in such a powerful way – by enabling the recording of personalized videos in Outreach and in turn, feeding buyer video engagement right back into Outreach.”

On April 18th, Vidyard is also partnering with SalesHacker to launch a new series called “Videoify my Sales Pitch”, in which video marketing and sales experts will encourage anyone to level-up their sales outreach by going-video, regardless of their industry. Reps can learn how to easily and effectively add video to their sales sequence by watching video selling experts ‘videoify’ real sales pitches from real sales reps. Registration is free and available now.

This announcement also follows the launch of the Vidyard GoVideo mobile app, enabling Vidyard GoVideo users to record, share and track personalized videos wherever they go.

More Information:

About Vidyard
Vidyard is the video platform for business that helps organizations drive more revenue through the use of online video. Going beyond video hosting and management, Vidyard helps businesses drive greater engagement in their video content, track the viewing activities of each individual viewer, and turn those views into action. Global leaders such as Honeywell, LinkedIn, Citibank and Sharp rely on Vidyard to power their video content strategies and turn viewers into customers.

Media Contact:
Sandy Pell, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications at Vidyard
press@vidyard.com

 

Outreach and Other Leading Sales Platforms Add Personalized Video Selling Tools, Powered by Vidyard GoVideo

Outreach and other leading sales platforms add Personalized Video selling tools, powered by Vidyard GoVideo. Top sales acceleration platforms now deliver scalable video prospecting capabilities to help sales professionals book more meetings and humanize the sales process.

The post Outreach and Other Leading Sales Platforms Add Personalized Video Selling Tools, Powered by Vidyard GoVideo appeared first on Vidyard.

from Vidyard http://www.vidyard.com/press-releases/outreach-and-other-leading-sales-platforms-add-personalized-video-selling-tools-powered-by-vidyard-govideo/

How to spring clean (or set up) your branded YouTube channel

“Build it and they will come”—wonderful advice for summoning the ghosts of legendary baseball players, awful advice for managing your YouTube channel.

Many companies, particularly those in B2B, launched their YouTube channels during the social media scramble of the early aughts when people said things like, “What’s your Google+ strategy?” without irony. For most of these companies, merely having a YouTube presence didn’t translate into traffic or leads and their channels grew stale and dormant.

Today, we’re going to dust yours off. YouTube has added a few new tools (and mercifully removed others) and it can be a valuable source of website traffic (paired with your video marketing platform) if only you clean it up.

Spring-clean your channel in five steps:

1. Decide your channel’s purpose

Before you go dusting digital shelves, plan. Is your YouTube channel going to build awareness or accelerate leads? Tell brand stories or explain the details of your product? Each approach requires a different strategy, and while your channel can do multiple things, it’s best to do one thing well first.

Not every product or service is a fit for YouTube. If you sell something super niche, YouTube might have trouble finding the right people to recommend your videos to, and any traffic you get will be low quality. If that’s your situation, consider creating a channel that’s of broader interest to your industry. Or, maybe don’t use YouTube.

How to do it:

  • Consult your customer research. What personas will the channel influence, and at what stages in their journey? Write it down and keep your notes handy
  • (Optional) Pick the keywords you’ll target with your channel

2. Give your company its own Brand Channel

Skip this step if you already have one, but there are two types of YouTube channels: personal channels (for individuals), and brand channels (for companies). Brand channels are created from individual channels, and if an employee created a brand channel from their personal one, it could be a problem. They’re the recovery contact if you ever forget the password. (Yikes if they’re ever sick. Double yikes if they ever leave.)

If you’re not sure who owns your current channel, create a new individual Google Account for the business (name it after the business) and use it to launch a Brand Channel.

How to do it:

  • Sign out of your current Google account
  • Create a new Google account
  • Name it after your company (or product line)
  • Verify the account and click “Done”
  • Go to YouTube
  • Click your avatar in the top right, and in the dropdown, “My Channel”
  • Click the blue button that says “Customize Channel”
  • Click your avatar again and click the gear icon, advanced settings, and “Move channel to brand account”
  • Begin customizing your brand channel
  • (Optional) Add yourself and others as managers of the brand channel

(Optional): Link your YouTube Brand Channel to Vidyard

  • Log into Vidyard
  • In the Group menu, click “Integrations”
  • Select YouTube
  • Sign into your YouTube account

3. Brand your channel

Unkempt YouTube channels—especially those with grainy (or no) banner images—scream “nothing to see here, folks.” Brand your YouTube channels just as you do your website, and with the customer journey in mind. If people will discover it by searching YouTube, use the banner image to explain what your channel is about. If existing customers will find it by searching, “How to do X” in Google, let it be known that your channel is for support.

Complete all your channel information: Description, logo, links to your site, and a contact email.

How to do it:

  • From your account, click the blue “Customize Channel” button
  • Click the gear icon, toggle on “Customize the layout of your channel,” and click “Save” (this opens up more options)
  • Add a channel icon (aka your logo image, 800px x 800px)
  • Add a header image (2560px x1440px)
  • Select a featured video for new visitors
  • Select a featured video for returning visitors
  • Click “About” and add a channel description (there’s no word limit; longer is better, but start off with a hook)
  • Add an email for your point of contact
  • Add links to your website, social media pages, or product pages (these will appear as icons in the lower right of your banner image)

4. Hide, add, or edit your videos

If this is an old account, hide any videos that aren’t relevant to your customer journey, and make plans to update old ones. Adding consistent intros and outros gives your videos a polished feel, and makes them more bingeable. Also update the video names to be catchier and more clickable.

What content should you post to your YouTube channel? New and different videos that aren’t already on your site, so Google doesn’t penalize the SEO of either. A great strategy, if you want to drive traffic back to your website, is to post teaser videos on YouTube with a Card that links back to the full video on your website.

At each stage, consider how your videos support the outcome you want. If you need leads, does your banner and channel description educate potential buyers? Does your video help sell the service? If the viewer is interested, is it clear how to actually buy? If you have lots of videos, organize them into playlists for each customer journey.

How to do it:

  • Hide or delete irrelevant videos
  • Edit and re-upload outdated videos
  • Add new videos
  • Give each video a catchier name
  • Give each video an intriguing thumbnail
  • Add CTAs to each video, either in the recording or using YouTube Cards and End Screens

5. Promote your work

What good are YouTube videos if nobody watches? Run a campaign announcing your revitalized YouTube channel and it’s purpose—to make viewers laugh, to help them solve problems, or to educate them on your product. Let recipients know exactly what to expect, and what you want them to do, such as subscribe, or share.

Beyond pushing your existing audience to YouTube, you can improve your in-YouTube SEO to attract more prospects. YouTube is a search engine (the world’s second-largest, in fact) and your videos can show up in Google search results. Improve your videos’ chances by using keywords in the titles and descriptions, tagging your videos, and continuously improving your titles and thumbnails to make them ultra-clickable.

YouTube determines which videos are most relevant by total view time, so short, snappy videos that get clicked and keep viewers engaged will help attract new viewers and grow your channel.

Finally, keep it up. If your goal is grow the channel, post consistently, and continue testing topics, formats, and thumbnails, just as you would any marketing campaign.

How to do it:

  • Announce your YouTube channel everywhere
  • From your Brand Channel, follow other brands and channels
  • Insert keywords into your video titles and descriptions
  • Tag your videos
  • Add videos at a regular cadence

Looking to take your marketing strategy to the next level? We’ve put together three short guides on how to use video throughout your buyer’s journey, increase email CTRs and create better content.  

The post How to spring clean (or set up) your branded YouTube channel appeared first on Vidyard.

from Vidyard http://www.vidyard.com/blog/how-to-set-up-branded-youtube-channel/

How the new sales development tech stack is changing B2B sales

Sales development is one of the most important and under-appreciated functions in growth-oriented B2B companies. It’s also one of the most exciting when it comes to the evolution of technology and AI.

This has never been more apparent than in March 2019 when Outreach and SalesLoft, hosted their annual conferences Unleash and Rainmaker—bringing together more than 2,000 members of the sales development community to discuss the latest trends and innovations in this burgeoning market.

https://play.vidyard.com/embed/v4.js

These events made it clear that new technologies are transforming sales prospecting and what it means to be a sales development rep (SDR). These days, SDRs do a lot more than simply“smiling and dialing” (and emailing) 10 hours a day hoping to bring in a few more leads. In fact, the average SDR is responsible for 12.3 deals per quarter.

With the changing behaviours of today’s buyers and the availability of new technologies, sales development is becoming a sophisticated business function that takes a strategic approach to identifying and developing new sales opportunities based a wide range of buying signals and sales engagement techniques.  

On average, SDRs use six different tools. And the days of SDR teams inheriting tech from the broader sales and marketing teams—such as customer relationship management (CRM), email automation, and social listening—and adapting them to meet their unique requirements for scalable sales prospecting are quickly coming to an end.

Rise of the SDR tech stack

We’re now witnessing the rise of a sales development tech stack that is built from the ground up to help SDRs connect with more prospects, build more meaningful relationships, and book more meetings—and to do it all at scale.

The real power in this new tech stack is its focus on both automation and personalization, two forces that have traditionally been at odds with each other in the worlds of sales and marketing. Automation drives scale and efficiency while personalization creates relevance and urgency. This combo gives you more at bats and a higher batting average as a sales rep.

While technologies designed for SDRs aren’t new, we’re now seeing a tipping point where the market is moving from “lots of great tools” to an “integrated tech stack” where all of these tools can work together within a single user experience.

This is being fueled by sales engagement platforms like Outreach, SalesLoft, InsideSales.com and others opening up integration points to allow other apps and tools to plug in.

SalesLoft now boasts a large app directory while Outreach introduced a Galaxy partner ecosystem to enable “any action” to be taken by an SDR from within one primary application. In essence, this means that an SDR can send an email, connect on social, make a phone call, send a personalized video, initiate a direct mailer, or even start up a chat conversation all from within a single application, thanks to various third party app integrations.

It’s all about helping sellers be more efficient, more effective, and more strategic in how they sell.

Implications for B2B sales teams

The rise of the SDR tech stack has many implications for today’s B2B sales teams, both in how we empower our reps and what we need to expect from our sales leaders. The top implications that I took away from interviews with sales experts at the events included:

  1. Impact on sales leadership and culture: Sales leaders need to understand that the world has moved beyond the cold call list. They have a greater responsibility to understand the technology, to identify and implement new processes supported by that tech, and to train their teams accordingly. This will also make for more motivated reps.
  2. Automation vs. personalization: Automation and personalization are both critical for today’s SDRs, and new technologies are helping on both sides of the equation. Every SDR team needs to be conscious of how they use technology to find that optimal balance of efficiency and effectiveness. The new stack is about quantity AND quality.
  3. Cool tools vs. integrated stack: It’s easy to adopt lots of cool sales tools and to see incremental gains in sales performance. But the promise of the new sales tech stack is to create a step-function change in performance across your team by bringing the top tools together in a way that is easy and efficient for any new rep to adopt. More data sources plugging in to the mothership will also enable more impactful AI.
  4. The “next action” has evolved to include video: Most sales teams are familiar with email, phone and social as the primary “next actions” for trying to engage a potential buyer. With diminishing returns happening on these channels, we’re now seeing one-to-one video, direct mail, and chat as the next wave of “next actions” for SDRs.

To stay on top of what’s happening in the world of sales development tech, follow these super smart people who are also very generous in the content and knowledge they share online:

And to learn more about adding video to your sales prospecting, check out The Definitive Guide to Video for Sales.

The post How the new sales development tech stack is changing B2B sales appeared first on Vidyard.

from Vidyard http://www.vidyard.com/blog/new-sales-development-tech-stack/

The Latest Trend in Hot Tubs, Pools, and Spas for Fitness: Swim Spas

 

A home is not complete without a swimming pool, specially if you’re swimming to stay fit. Unfortunately, not every house in Vancouver has ample space to accommodate traditional pools which, on average, measure 18 by 36 feet. Hot tubs can be a great addition to your home and can positively affect your well-being, but a pool can be more effective if you enjoy swimming laps as part of your exercise routine. Swim spas are the latest trend in hot tubs and pools that many will find useful. These are a combination pool/spa hybrid that is smaller but offers the full benefits of swimming pools, spas, and hot tubs.

 

Health Benefits

Swim spas work by making use of water jets to create currents. These currents provide resistance for the swimmer. You can adjust the jets to create greater resistance as you swim, in effect, providing you with a much harder workout. The hot and cold streams jets are also effective in relaxing muscles and relieving pain from conditions like arthritis as well as joint, nerve, and muscle problems. Hydrotherapy through the use of swim spas has also been found to help with other problems like sleep disorders, headaches, and depression.

 

Compact

Swim spas are relatively smaller than traditional pools, with its average size of 8 by 16 feet. It can easily fit in smaller backyards or large indoor areas, and can come in a variety of shapes. Its compact size also makes it easier to install.

 

Convenient

By having a swim spa at home, you’ll find it easier to do both a vigorous, high-resistance workout and a low-impact workout. Typically, after you exercise, you’ll want to relax in spas or hot tubs to soothe your muscles and promote faster healing. With a swim spa, you don’t need to move from one place to another, as both the exercise and the hydrotherapy session happen in the swim spa.

For families with small children, this type of combination pool/spa hybrid is also an ideal addition to the home. Premium swim spas installed by trusted companies like Universal Spas are only 4 to 4.5 feet deep, so it’s safe for children to use as they would a regular swimming pool.

 

Easy to Maintain

One of the most notable advantages of installing a swim spa in your Vancouver home is its easy maintenance. Because it is smaller than the average swimming pool, it is has less surface, making it easier to keep clean and requiring fewer chemicals.

from Buying Hot Tub’s from Vancouver’s Leading Brands at Universal Spa’s http://universalspas.ca/2019/03/the-latest-trend-in-hot-tubs-pools-and-spas-for-fitness-swim-spas/

Transforming the buyer’s journey with video: Is your organization ready?

The use of video is a now a major component of the buyer’s journey and one of the most important marketing tools in an organizations arsenal; 52% of marketing professionals worldwide name it as the medium with the best return on investment (ROI).

More companies are realizing the potential of video and adapting their marketing strategies and budget to incorporate video assets. The process of integration varies between companies but there are many common themes that arise when it’s time for an organization to bring its video strategy to scale.

In a recent session during Vidyard’s Fast Forward 2018 conference, Vidyard VP of Marketing Marcy Dobozy met with representatives from three different organizations to discuss their ventures into video for business.

Glenn Hughes, Video Producer at Gordian talks about why his company chose to use video in their marketing strategy.

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“If a picture’s worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million” (Glenn Hughes)

 

Video allows companies with complex and difficult to explain products to eloquently deliver their message to potential customers. Breaking down complex ideas in shorter explainer videos is a strategy that is implemented by organizations with an effective video strategy. Using a video platform that can supply advanced metrics goes a long way in proving ROI and getting the go-ahead from finance to implement video at scale. The ability to track things like engagement over time rather than simple views and impressions was of major importance to Gordian and one of the main reasons these companies are choosing to use the Vidyard platform.

Video At Scale: Getting The Tools Into The Hands Of In-House Employees

For most organizations bringing a video presence to scale is a matter of taking the video first approach. Creating longer form video content that can be repurposed into podcasts, blog posts, and short clips for social is a way to maximize your time and resources. Finding a balance between video assets that are created in-house versus outsourced is another aspect of bringing a video strategy to scale. There’s still a place for highly produced and more expensive videos but they live predominantly at the bottom of the funnel. It shouldn’t come as a shock that small businesses use the fewest external resources, with only 24% reporting that they relied exclusively on agencies, contract employees, or freelancers (per Video Benchmark Report).

Nathan Isaacs, Senior Content Strategist at Act-On explains how his company is taking the video first approach.

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Whether your organization has an in-house studio with a dedicated team of video experts or you’re focused on getting the tools in the hands of current employees, the use of video at scale is a tool that all marketing teams should be leveraging. We know the importance of a video strategy but how do we go about getting started?

“How can I remove the barriers that have traditionally been in place?”  (Nathan Isaacs, Act-On)

Getting Started: Building a Video First Culture

Taking the first step into creating a culture of video can be vastly different across organizations but the common thread is getting people who aren’t comfortable on camera to overcome their fears. Starting off with something like a simple webinar or GoVideo where the subject is able to speak about a topic that they know inside out can be a good way to break the ice. Producing content around trade shows where staff were in their element and comfortable was a tactic that the team at Rockwell Automation employed, Shannon Vaughan, Marketing Technologist explains.

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While leveraging in-house staff and getting video into their hands to create their own content is important that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t proceed without a strategy. The team at Gordian begins every video project big or small with a detailed creative brief and brainstorm session before they begin the film process. Whether you’re filming an iPhone video or a full production piece you should be able to answer these three important questions before filming.

  1. What is the purpose of the video?
  2. What do you want it to achieve?
  3. How will you measure success (beyond views)?

Whatever strategy you choose to employ it comes down to your employee’s willingness to take the leap into video. Getting the video equipment into their hands so that they are comfortable with the creative tools and having them record a short initial video are great first steps. Another strategy is to leverage the webinar content that you most likely have already produced to begin building your video presence to scale.

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Embracing Video Across The Buyers Journey: The Right Video At The Right Time

Developing a video strategy that is well suited for implementation throughout the buyer’s journey can be tough as different types of videos excel in different stages of the funnel. Vidyard has identified the 12 Types Of Videos That Work Best For Each Stage Of The Customer Lifecycle. Let’s take a look at a few examples of the different types of videos that are used throughout the purchase funnel.

Brand awareness and promo videos are an important tool at the awareness stage of the funnel. The team at Act-On found great success with a high production video that used humour in hopes of getting their name out there and grabbing the attention of prospective customers.

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Over at Rockwell Automation, the team launched their LinkedIn Storm campaign in support of a global product launch this past April. In a series of explainer videos of various production value levels, Rockwell product experts from around the world composed videos to contribute to the campaign.

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Gordian has taken things a step further and developed a series of videos that aim to assist in a complete customer journey within a Vidyard playlist.

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The Right Video Platform For Your Business

Finding the right video platform that will fit your needs is one of the most important steps in developing a video strategy. Relying solely on basic tools like YouTube or Vimeo just isn’t enough for businesses that are looking to take the next step with video. The platform’s ability to measure the success of a video with advanced analytics and the integration with marketing and sales tools goes a long way when proving the ROI of your video strategy. Nathan Isaacs explains why the team at Act-On chose to use the Vidyard platform.

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Watch the full webinar here for a more in-depth look at how video is transforming the buyer’s journey.

The post Transforming the buyer’s journey with video: Is your organization ready? appeared first on Vidyard.

from Vidyard http://www.vidyard.com/blog/transforming-the-buyers-journey-with-video/

Vidyard and Outreach deliver effective sales videos where you work

Over the past couple of years, top performing sales and business development reps have leveraged the power of 1-to-1 video powered by Vidyard GoVideo to increase their production. Incorporating video messaging into their sequences and follow-up emails, not only helps to humanize their message, but also increases their connect rate by as much as 400%, while also increasing pipeline and closing more sales.

We are taking this to a new level with our Vidyard GoVideo application and our newest partner Outreach, who power one of the leading sales engagement platforms for teams.

With Outreach’s new Galaxy solution, users of their service can easily CREATE and SHARE video messages created with Vidyard GoVideo right from within the Outreach console using templates, sequences and personal messages. The integration of these events into Outreach means you can automatically have a follow up call task created, or send an email, or take any action you need t0o, seamlessly.

Robust yet seamless workflow is at the heart of any high performing sales team. This data integration between the powerful Vidyard GoVideo solution and Outreach’s sales engagement technology makes it a killer solution for any sales team

Click here to learn more about this integration!

The post Vidyard and Outreach deliver effective sales videos where you work appeared first on Vidyard.

from Vidyard http://www.vidyard.com/blog/vidyard-and-outreach-integration/

3 ways sales can be more successful with video

Sales has never been an easy job to automate. For every tool that pops up promising automatic follow-ups or additional data points for tracking engagement, there still needs to be a human element to the sales process. Remember, as Fast Company put it, “People don’t buy products – they buy better versions of themselves.” And for all the technology that’s available, the best way to help prospects connect the dots between your product and the person they want to be is a bona fide, living, breathing human being.

But sales teams aren’t working stacks of lead cards anymore either. The average marketing database is in the thousands, and grows by hundreds of leads every week, meaning that by the time the MQL become SQL, there is no shortage of prospects for salespeople to… well… prospect.

And if each salesperson is trying to juggle dozens of possibly-engaged leads, how can they best prioritize their time? Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to do this with video!

Engage at the right time

Knowing a prospect has downloaded a whitepaper is useful information, but you may never know if they actually read it. That’s where video is a game changer from an engagement perspective – not only will your salespeople know that a prospect has clicked play, but they can see exactly how long that prospect viewed the video. Powerful tools for separating the wheat from the chaff.

Once your sales team decides to engage with a prospect, it’s still not easy to know whether or not the prospect really cares about what you’re saying. In other words: email open rates are great for knowing when a prospect has clicked on an email, but really don’t tell your salespeople anything about how engaged they are. Maybe they just deleted it right after!

And voicemails are even worse – you may never know if your prospect even listened to your voicemail, let alone whether they were excitedly jotting down a follow-up number to call you back.

That’s why high performing sales teams have been moving video into the prospecting process and using it not only to drive more engagement but to help prioritize the leads worth pursuing versus the tire kickers that aren’t really interested.

Automate to reduce workloads

Look for sales and video tools that can become part of your reps’ workflows to save time and improve efficiency

Focus on tools that reduce rather than add steps in the workflow. The key here is finding tools that are simple, seamless and integrated.  For example, if your team uses Vidyard and Outreach, you can now record and send videos in your email right from within Outreach. And when your prospect views the video, that activity triggers your next task so you can immediately take action to convert at the highest level.

Your team doesn’t have to worry about creating 1:1 videos for every prospect (because time is money) they are able to use pre-recorded videos within their sequences, templates, and snippets.

Vidyard is excited to be included in Outreach’s new app marketplace The Outreach Galaxy.
The Outreach Galaxy is a commitment to bring all your sales actions into a single workflow
within Outreach. Click here to learn more.

Tools that live in workflows reduce the amount of the non-selling work reps must focus on, while also increasing their chances of actually adopting the tools and seeing success.

Bring Marketing into the mix

Ensuring reps have the tools and collateral they need to be successful is hard — especially for leaders in high-growth companies, where scaling creates a constantly evolving environment. Creating a strategic sales enablement plan will make your team more productive and help you reach your goals each quarter.

When it comes to content, video is an innovative sales enablement piece that, when used in tandem with other digital and traditional marketing content, can reach prospects most effectively.

Sales and marketing should work closely together to develop and leverage video content to craft demos that focus on the benefits of their product, making it more clear and easy to digest for the prospect in a few quick bites. If reps are using video in their prospecting emails, they can use a CTA button with a Calendly link embedded at the end of the video to capture new leads and quickly convert them.

The most successful sales teams collaborate with their marketing team on an ongoing basis to provide the insights they need to develop meaningful, innovative video content to engage, and ultimately convert, the right leads.

Conclusion

Sales enablement isn’t easy, but by choosing tools (like Vidyard GoVideo) that complement your reps’ workflows, including your marketing team, and adopting a video first mentality, will allow you to close more deals than competitors who still rely on email threads and clunky spreadsheets.

The post 3 ways sales can be more successful with video appeared first on Vidyard.

from Vidyard http://www.vidyard.com/blog/3-ways-sales-can-be-successful-with-video/