Image: Video is a new medium for most companies and anything new starts of scary. Business video need not be complicated, however, and the best way to learn is by getting out there and starting.

Many (most?) companies are making too little use of video in their sales and marketing activities. I think the reason (to a large extent) is that video is a new medium for mainstream business, and anything new is always scary.

Putting screencasts up on a website is often a first step. In the software business, of course, this is more widespread and common practice for a while. Where I see a real reluctance and companies holding back is showing real people on screen.

Instead of hiding behind a corporate veil, companies need to recognise that we are entering a different mode of business, one that is far more social. Your potential customers want to know who you are.

My colleagues are reluctant; what arguments can I use?

On the one hand this reluctance is odd. Many companies are in the service business and what they are really selling is the skills of their people. It seems somewhat odd that they are holding back on putting their goods in their shop window. If you were buying services, wouldn’t you want to know who was going to deliver it?

On the other hand, I fully accept that reluctance to show ourselves is a very normal and understandable reaction. I think this is partly because we are not used to seeing ourselves on screen as other people see us (we only see ourselves in a mirror, and that is very different, as I will cover in an up-coming post). Because we are personally uncomfortable seeing ourselves on screen, we hold back from taking this step.

It is this reluctance for the people behind companies to show their face on the screen that was a key driver for me to found Sell to Camera. I want to encourage people to get out from behind their “About Us” page. That this is OK, and there is nothing difficult or strange about this. It is just the next step along the long road of making use of new media.

Do we need to TV-like video advertisements?

The sorts of videos that I am thinking about are more like what you see in a documentary or news report (talking direct to camera). I am not so much thinking about advertising in the sense of the Renault Laguna advert with Eric Cantona Claude linked to on YouTube in his original comment.

That sort of video advertising is too complex, expensive and difficult to do well for most companies to consider. Just look at the number of advertisements on TV or video that are complete rubbish!

How professional do we need to make our videos?

To be effective in a business context the videos must look professional. This does not mean, however, that we are talking about Hollywood production values. Professional speaking to camera videos are very achievable for normal business users like us. That is what I hope to show on this blog.

Can we create videos ourselves?

Yes, you can produce these videos yourself, and I will be doing this with my own videos here on Sell to Camera. I do not have any previous experience with creating video, so if I can do it so can anyone else!

The tools to create professional quality web video are out there, and so is a wealth of valuable experience. We just need to filter it and focus on what is really important to get started.

How quickly will we need to replace stale videos?

You can show different videos to first time visitors and people coming back to the site, so that would not be an issue. The Hello videos are more general, however, so I do not think you need to replace these on a regular basis.

Do we need to create a portfolio of videos?

Once the Hello video is in place you can then start to add more content. I would recommend investing the time to create a number of short videos and not a few long ones.

A good place to start is short (2 minute at most) videos where your colleagues introduce themselves. These tell your visitors much more than a standard headshot photo and a short bio.

After that, I would go out into the field and do short (2 minute at most again) interviews with customers and partners. These are much more effective than written case studies for new visitors. You can support the video with a written case study for people interested in learning more, but I think most will look at the video first.

How do we get visitors to watch our videos?

I think that the most effective aspects to getting visitors to click on your hello video are:

1. Where it is on the screen
2. The opening graphic which is shown before the video starts
3. Making it clear that this is a short video (2 minutes at most)

Someone coming to the website wants to know who you are. If you make it clear that this information is readily available then they will click on it.

A further point worth mentioning here is that you need to put the Hello video on every page on the site, not just the home page. The top-down hierarchy we used to have in the past is no longer the only path into your site.

The reason is that Google has exploded the traditional website structure and you cannot know where the user will enter your site. They are most likely coming from Google search, so you need to design your site on the basis that every page is a home page for that specific visitor.

We are multi-lingual, do we need multiple videos?

Use the same language for the Hello video and the text on your web page. If you have multiple language versions of your site then you should consider having multiple versions of the video. You can either do this by swapping out the soundtrack in the video editing software, or you could overlay subtitles.

I think this is a nice problem to have, however, and would start with your main language and not worry too much about the others for the time being.

Disclosure: In the interests of full disclosure I want to mention that I have known Claude for 20+ years. While we have worked together in the past, Claude has no involvement in Sell to Camera. I did not ask for Claude’s comment; his software company in Switzerland really is considering adding video to their website to support their marketing activities.

Image: Presenting in front of a group of people is very different to speaking into the unblinking eye of a camera. Like most things, however, it’s a skill than can be learned and improves with practice.

The Sell to Camera blog is about helping business professionals with presentation experience make the move to web video, addressing the concerns many feel when first asked to speak directly into a video camera’s unblinking eye.