Video Marketing Lessons from WPC
Videos have always been a core feature of the Worldwide Partner Conference keynotes. Hollywood-style videos tell inspiring stories about partner achievements around the world. This year's WPC was no exception, with videos that pulled at heartstrings from Japan to Haiti to the Imagine Cup Finals. But this year, there was a new dimension as well: Mainstream, user-generated video was everywhere. Here are a couple of examples.
Augmenting Twitter with Video
Dux Raymond Sy, SharePoint MVP and social media guru, interviewed partners and Microsoft team members throughout WPC, expanding his stock of videos on YouTube channel. Dux uses videos to add interest and depth to his regular Tweets, building an impressive community of devoted followers.
An important lesson in the videos that Dux produces is his focus on others and not himself or his business. He engages and builds goodwill because he is generous with the spotlight and brings entertaining and informative content to his followers.
Customer Testimonials from Around the World
At the Microsoft Partner Network booth, Varvid and Mimecast streamed interview-style webcasts three times a day. The popular webcasts were getting 2,000-plus daily views, perhaps providing a glimpse into the "real" WPC experience more than the streamed keynotes.
As their name suggests, Varvid specializes in video for VARs, and partners were eager to talk about the value of the service that they provide. CoreConnex, developer of Corelytics financial dashboard, works with Varvid to create video testimonials from customers around the world.
"CoreConnex has customers in 11 countries around the world who are anxious to provide testimonials about our solution. We simply ship our customer the Flip video camera package that Varvid gave us and we interview them via Skype. We upload the video to the Varvid site and they brand it with our logo," says Tony Lael, executive vice president of CoreConnex. "It's slick and it's affordable. They are just great to work with and it gets us fresh video content each month."
Lael says the videos have produced real leads and sales for CoreConnex. With the help of Varvid, CoreConnex set up a system using landing pages and search analytics to measure traffic and referrals from the YouTube channel. Lael added, "Since YouTube is the No. 2 search engine in the world, the video content gives us access to a huge audience."
Dive into Video
Video has become easy to create and to connect to your Web site. Keep these three guidelines in mind and test it out.
- Keep it short. Three minutes is a long time on video.
- Focus on your audience. What do your prospects care about?
- Be yourself. Help your audience connect with you on a personal level.
Video is fun and can deliver real returns. How are you using video? Please tell me about it so we can share the knowledge.
Posted by Barb Levisay on July 20, 2011