Video and social media have experienced tremendous growth in the last few years — in terms of technological capabilities, as well as in usage rates. For example, according to the B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends study, marketers’ use of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn grew by up to 20 percent between 2010 and 2011. In that same time period, video usage increased from 41 percent to 52 percent among marketers.

These technologies have presented marketers with tremendous opportunities and challenges, as the audience has high expectations.

In the Content Marketing Institute’s recent webinar, Jump-Start Your 2012 Content Marketing Strategy with Video & Social Media, Steve Rotter, VP of Marketing at Brightcove, outlined some of these accelerated consumer expectations:

• Devices: Viewers demand the ability to access content on a number of different devices — not just on their PCs.
• Everywhere access: They want to be able to consume content wherever and whenever they choose.
• Social: They want to be able to engage with content, share, and discuss it across their social graphs on their favorite platforms.
• Options: Their desired content must be available at their demand, and must offer them convenient choices for consuming, purchasing, and subscribing.
• Quality: They don’t accept excuses for poor viewing experiences. Living-room quality video is essential, no matter how, when, and where they choose to view their content.

In turn, these technology speed zones have resulted in some significant speed bumps for CMOs, who face new challenges when it comes to standing out, keeping engagement levels up, and driving conversions in the face of fragmented audience attention and increased strategic complexity.

But, as Rotter says, “If you aren’t prepared to commit on these new platforms, you will miss a huge opportunity — and large portions of the audience — that your competition might grab.”

Fortunately, Rotter had some valuable insight and inspiration on hand to help improve the ways marketers leverage their content across these technologies. Framing his discussion in the context of the customer life cycle, he began by outlining some compelling ideas on how to use video to drive awareness, and offered best practices in five key areas:

SEO: Video dramatically improves SEO results, as search engines treat video content as higher-order objects when indexing web pages. Rotter suggests creating interactive transcripts of video content, as these components are searchable, drive navigation, and can create a fantastic user experience.

YouTube: As the second-largest search engine today (second only to Google), YouTube has become a powerful tool for marketers, particularly when it comes to creating content synergies. As a best practice, Rotter recommends that marketers make sure their YouTube videos point people to their own websites to maintain creative control and capture deeper viewer analytics.

Social video: Rotter stressed the importance of pushing video content onto your business’ Facebook page. He also mentioned that the functionality you create when using a white-label video player (such as Brightcove’s player), can carry over into your Facebook page, allowing viewers who discover your content on one platform to take action on other platforms as well.

Live video: Rotter described live video’s “halo effect”, where people who discover your live video may return to your site to consume additional content. This produces incremental, on-demand views that can continue long after the original video event takes place.

Online & offline integration: Mobile technology offers tremendous opportunities to engage consumers on one platform and direct them to additional platforms in a seamless way. For example, product or object recognition that results from interacting with a billboard ad can be extended through interactive web experiences by using a QR code.

Rotter also outlined some video and social media options that can be used to drive consumers further down the purchase funnel:

• Branded video channels and video product demos can be used to drive interest.
• Video case studies foster increased levels of trust, which can encourage trial.
• Video landing pages, video embeds in email, in-player calls-to-action, and shoppable video can make trial and purchase more convenient.
• Developing social-based customer communities, customer care programs, and corporate communication initiatives support loyalty.

If you would like to hear the rest of Steve Rotter’s advice and view some of his compelling case study examples, there’s still time to experience the webinar. Download Jump-Start Your 2012 Content Marketing Strategy with Video & Social Media. 

Every message begs for a video. Every product. Every offer. Online visitors expect video. And since messages, offers, and products change constantly, you need to keep churning out updates before your precious online video assets go stale.

But the uncomfortable truth is that demand for online video is growing much faster than the budgets necessary to produce it. Without a modern approach, and a whole new strategy, creating video can chew up your precious content budget before you know it. You can tame your video content budget, however.

Until recently, online video often required specialized skills, fancy equipment, big budgets, and lots of effort. A super-slick video could cost anywhere from $10k to $100k or more to produce. Small armies of camera people, gaffers, lighting specialists, and makeup artists descended on the world of marketing. And while it’s impressive to see a little bit of Hollywood unfold on your company’s production floor, the new reality is that you don’t always need Hollywood production values to make a video that delivers value. 

You can stretch your budget to fill all those video needs, by being smart about three simple strategies to tame the online video content beast.

1. Segment your video needs into three tiers, and employ different approaches in each one

Imagine you have $60,000 in your annual content budget earmarked for online video. Would you rather spend your entire budget on producing three Hollywood-style video assets at $20,000 a pop, or can you live with just one video masterpiece and save the remaining $40,000 to create dozens of perfectly good videos for scores of different campaigns?

In my experience, marketers are well-served by dividing their video efforts into three tiers — each with different levels of visibility, production values, and expenditure/effort per segment:

• Showpiece videos: These are the splashy pieces that grace the front door of your website. They play in your trade show booth. They kick off your sales meetings. They are meant to turn heads, grab attention, get the heart pounding, and stop a visitor in his or her tracks.  Kind of like this one from Olympus or the General Motors video-enabled homepage. Pull out all the stops on these videos, for they help define your company, your brand, and the aura that surrounds them.
• Workhorse videos: These videos explain your most important products, highlight your key technologies, and introduce your most visible people to help move prospective buyers along in the buying process. They’re important because they show and explain at a high level. They are crisp, clear, and are typically the videos that get passed around when a group is involved in a buying decision.  Take, for example, this simple product video from Salesforce.com — one of more than 2,600 on their website and YouTube channel. You don’t need to be splashy or cute here — just focused, authoritative, clear, and in a style that conveys the personality of your organization. And the expenditure per minute can be one-fifth what your showpieces will cost.
• Long-tail videos: Video is a great way to provide prospects with a much deeper understanding of your products (and the thinking behind them), as well as to answer frequently asked questions. This is where the involvement of subject-matter experts in your company — the people who invent your technologies and support your customers in the field — can really add value. The topics covered in these videos typically apply to more of a niche-based interest — they exist on the “long-tail” of interest. Here’s an example of long-tail video content from Alcatel-Lucent: an online video presentation that’s really a chalk-talk about a key technology. This content can be critically important to a content marketing strategy; the key is to preserve the power of video while keeping the expenditure very, very low.

Allocating your marketing budget among these three tiers — and making sure you spend appropriately for each video you produce — is a critical first step. But it’s just a start.

2. Broaden your definition of what a video is

Over the course of years, network television ingrained in us a concept of what a video is: a linear story, with a beginning, middle, and end, designed to be viewed in its entirety. All the action happens within a 16-by-9 frame. It creates a largely passive experience — the choices are to watch it or turn it off. And it’s got a certain “look”, characterized by high production values. Take, for example, this example of a showpiece video that DigiNovations produced recently for Piper Aircraft.

That’s what your showpiece videos should look like, too. And in fact, these showpieces can break through some of the network TV boundaries by becoming more interactive, engaging, and non-linear.

But what about the rest of your video portfolio, where you can’t afford to do the “full Spielberg” on every bit of workhorse and long-tail video content? That’s where it’s helpful to broaden your definition of what’s acceptable — and even what’s defined as video. Consider these options:

• Short, educational mini-segments: When you discover a good, expert storyteller in your organization, take advantage of the asset to create a series of mini-segments. In addition to the showpiece video shown above, Piper Aircraft created a much simpler series of “Tech Tour” videos — consisting only of an engineer, a computer, and a mouse — that take viewers inside the design of this new aircraft. Here’s one short segment, and here’s another. Six of these segments were filmed at a single 90-minute seating, keeping the per-segment budget low but the impact high.
• Formula-based videos: Clothing retailer Zappos has evolved a formula approach that takes creating workhorse and long-tail video down to a science. The company has posted literally thousands of “video descriptions” of its products, like this and this. Each is less than 60 seconds, very simply produced (the budget per video is probably under $50, since their shop produces around 60 to 80 per day), and is reported to raise conversions by between 6 and 30 percent. That’s a high ROI!
• Text-and-still videos: Not every video needs to be a documentary, complete with interviews and b-roll. Nestle Waters, for example, has a long-tail video series that addresses frequently asked questions about bottled water. Each segment is mostly a series of text slides, complemented by still images, but each one is search-optimized around keywords that reflect the most common concerns about bottled water. And because videos like these are highly modular, they can be created and added to the collection one at a time, spreading the effort and expense out over time.
• Man on the street: The material you use doesn’t always need to come from inside the organization. Sometimes you can get surprising results just by taking a camera out on Main Street and asking passers-by to help create your content, like a suburban Boston auto dealer did. Total field production time: about 3 hours.
• Online video presentations: Perhaps the easiest way to make video assets is by taking PowerPoint presentations, combining them with your best communicators, and weaving them together into online video presentations. What organization doesn’t have a library of presentations and a really great storyteller for each of their products, technologies, and concepts? For example, the international strategy consulting firm Parthenon Group puts out a regular economic outlook video presentation, featuring its chief economist, Roger Brinner. These are simple to produce, but powerful in effect because they combine the detailed analytical charts with the authority and color that Mr. Brinner’s commentary provides.

These are just some of many ways to create video content without pulling out all the stops. The key is to keep it simple without compromising on basic production values like good sound, good lighting, and a steady camera. (Notice that none of these is shot by an intern with a Flip-Cam — a technique that, more often than not, conveys production values that hurt your brand image more than helping it.)

3. Enlist the help of a video-creation community in your organization

You really can produce a lot of great online video by yourself. By why not share the effort — and the glory — with others in your organization? Many companies are bursting at the seams with valuable, re-useable digital content, and great storytellers. Use these resources! Let your subject-matter experts focus on the content, and assure them that you’ll take care of the rest.

The first thing to realize is that potential video content is all around you, every day. Every time an executive keynotes a conference, a product manager gives a briefing to the sales team, or a technologist gives a customer briefing, that’s potential content marketing fodder. Smart content marketers keep their antennae up, watching for opportunities to videotape these sessions for possible re-use. Even if you don’t use that exact presentation because it may be situation-specific, you can ask the presenter to recreate a more generic version for content marketing purposes.

Sure, some will run the other way if you mention you need help with a video — being recorded is the last thing that some folks want. Change your tack with the more timid types and just point out that you need their subject matter expertise. They’re sure to warm up over time and share their valuable knowledge in the form of existing slides, graphs, charts, etc. You can narrate the online video presentation for them, if they aren’t willing to appear on-camera. Once they see the finished video, they may come to you with their next great idea, ready and willing to make their video debut.

Using video for content marketing doesn’t have to be hard. And it doesn’t need to be expensive. By dividing your content needs into tiers and matching production process to these tiers, you too can stay within budget and unleash the full persuasion and conversion power of video on your prospects.

Now, go ahead and play this creation by Doremus for Logitech.

The Brand Content Challenge: Global to Local

I’ve been asked how to create global content with minimal localization and translation while taking into account local needs. This video is a great illustration of how to approach the task.  Unlike conventional B2B content that focuses on products, this video puts storytelling and emotional connection first, and then weaves the products into the story in an organic way. 

The 5-Step Brand Content Solution: Identity to Broadcast

1.  Discover the brand identity:  At a macro-level, marketers need to understand why the brand exists, and then communicate that to the audience.

Logitech is a well-known computer peripherals brand. Chad Thompson, Worldwide B2B Marketing Director at Logitech, and Joe McCormack, Creative VP at Doremus, tried to unearth the new spirit of the Logitech B2B brand in their campaign.

With ubiquitous connections and on-the-go mobile devices, work and personal boundaries no longer exist; any place can now serve as an office. Logitech identifies itself as offering products that are designed to help business users work in offices, wherever they may be; thus, the idea for “The New Office” was born.

2.  Start with crisp strategy: Three marketing strategies were in play here to bring the Logitech brand persona to life.

• Reclaim relevance:  Showcase Logitech products’ compatibility with new technologies to solve “office anywhere” challenges.
• Cross-promotion: Focus on the usage models. Here, Logitech redefined the categories not by devices but, rather, by the concept of “workspace”. Four workspace categories are relevant to the Logitech brand: larger/open workspaces, smaller office spaces/cubes, home offices, and to-go workspaces (e.g., a café; the airport). This strategy of focusing on the category, rather than on a specific product, also allows for cross-selling of multiple products.
• Engage customers: Redesign websites and customer-facing interfaces or collaterals with new creative to reflect the new brand promises.

3.  Create stories to scale:  Once they identified the “why” (brand essence) and the “what” (marketing strategies), Logitech and Doremus created the “Welcome to the New Office” campaign.

From the get-go, they set their minds to creating video content that could easily be distributed throughout different regions. Because of this, the creative content could not heavily tie into rituals, local customs, cultural differences, or too many dialogues. Yet, the story framework needed to be familiar and understood by all audiences, regardless of where they live. This video, featuring a dad making dinner for his kids and attending a meeting, is something that small business owners or working professionals, like me, can relate to.

4.  Find a great director: Once you have a good story and script, the next step is to find a director who can bring the story to life in a visually compelling way.

Given that the budget was tight, it was even more essential for the Logitech team to find a director who would be attracted to good storytelling. They were very lucky to find Eric Steinman, who loved the script and was willing to work astutely within the tight production budget.

5.  Make it happen.

The original script had more dialogue.To make it work more globally, the team worked hard to find visual ways to “show” the dialogue without words. They also made casting global. The shooting took only one day in Los Angeles, using non-union talent. The whole process from planning to production took three months.

A good product markets itself. A good story idea attracts collaborators who want to be part of it.  The secret is to find the humanity.

Really take the time to pinpoint scenarios that highlight your audience’s pain and present the solution in a very human, simple, and universal way.  

(Special thanks to Joe McCormack of Doremus, who shared his insights and thoughts for this article.)

The video embedded below is the basis of my presentation at Content Marketing World 2011.  I’ve since added some more visual elements to the storytelling — including clips from some of the movies I reference. (Hopefully, I’ve made them a little more fun to watch). Of course, if you’re interested in viewing the on-demand version of my talk, it’s available here.

Creating Your Brand Journey

If there’s one question about content marketing that gets asked almost as much as “What’s the business case?” it is simply this: “What should we talk about?”

Chris Brogan and some others have recently written that the customer is your story, and as much as I love Chris and appreciate his work, I disagree with him here.  

The Customer is Your Audience for Your Brand’s Story

The customer is not your hero. The customer is the one you want to take on the journey — the one who, at the end, identifies with, is inspired by and/ or is influenced by the hero. Should your audience be placed in the middle of your story? Well that’s for you to decide as the creator of the content marketing effort.

Your brand should always be the hero that will be transformed. Joe Pulizzi and I talk about this in Chapter 3 of our book, Managing Content Marketing. At its heart, the answer is to weave a compelling, emotionally connected story around your brand.  

In 2012 and beyond, the main reason you will be successful is because you have a specialized expertise — and because you can create a differentiated experience for your customers with that expertise. You (ideally) have a passion for the BIG idea that this expertise represents, and you’ve asked the question, “What business are we really in?”

So, in this presentation (and in the book, with much more detail), we go through the stages of what Joseph Campbell called “The Hero’s Journey,” translating it into what we call “The Brand Hero’s Journey.”

This is a construction (certainly not a template) that you can use to help brainstorm and create an emotionally engaging story for your own content marketing programs.

It’s Your Story: Make it Remarkable!

Image courtesy of Flickr/Graham Smith

But in the digital age we have fewer opportunities to connect with our audiences on a personal level. We increasingly use online presentations, webinars, and meeting tools, which often fail to capture the body language and personality of the speaker.

The result? They fall flat, failing to take full advantage of the power of personality and storytelling that a good presenter offers to a live audience.

So what’s a content marketer to do?

1. Fully exploit video

The “disembodied voice” approach to online presentations needs to evolve. Audio-only online presentations — from webinars to online meetings, from voiced-over sales decks to screen-sharing tools — are popular. But this popularity comes at a cost: Most online presentations lack personality and effectiveness.

An audio-only online presentation is handicapped right from the start, as the medium robs the speaker of many of the visual communication tools that are available to a live presenter. No eye contact. No smile. No confident stance. 

Put your best foot forward and deliver more “you” with online presentation tools that use video, not just audio.

Take a look, for example, at this online presentation from Australis Aquaculture. Pairing the CEO with an energetic product manager to tell the story of sustainable seafood, and sprinkling it with b-roll video, helps move the story along and personalizes the message.

2. Plan your presentation with online distribution in mind

So often, presentations are designed for a live event with digital capture and distribution as an afterthought. Of course you’ll send the slides after the presentation… but with no presenter, will your message seem out of context and your points be lost on your post-live audience? Capture your presenter live alongside your deck in all their hand-waving, storytelling glory and you’ll increase your chances that your audience will connect with the on-demand version of your insight.

Once the multimedia team at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise started looking around, for example, they quickly found that potential content marketing material was all around them. This keynote address by President Tom Burns, for example, was quickly turned into enduring online content that continues to work well as a demand generation and lead nurturing effort long after the live presentation has faded into memory.

3. Understand your goals — and the goals of your audience

By attempting to satisfy both your organizational goals and those of your audience, you can dramatically improve the effectiveness of your online presentation. Think about all your possible objectives for creating an online video presentation — and why your audience would sit through it. You may be looking to establish thought leadership and capture leads, or it could be that developing a fabulous online presentation is the key to your viral branding strategy. But what’s in it for them? Your audience has no interest in becoming your lead, but would love to evaluate your expertise and learn something new. When you hit the jackpot and exchange value, your presentation naturally becomes more personal.

International consulting firm Parthenon Group, for example, produces a series of thought leadership presentations by its chief economist, Roger Brinner, that directly addresses key client and prospect anxieties about the state of the economy. Brinner’s quiet authority comes through clearly in these video presentations, in a way that it simply would not using audio-narrated slides.

4. Move beyond PowerPoint by including a range of existing digital content types

Adding video to your online PowerPoint presentations will transform their effectiveness. But consider all the other great content you already have. Online video presentation tools that are on the market allow you to also pull in rich text, animations, ads, JavaScript applets, images, and more for an unique interactive experience. Your audience will thank you for not boring them with the same old flat slides. Just about anything you can render on your website can now be incorporated in an online video presentation. Get creative, save time, save money, and extend the life of all that content you worked so hard to develop.

New online presentation platforms allow live web pages to be synchronized into a presentation or webinar, for example. This is perfect for taking polls and displaying real-time results, or even for taking orders right in the presentation window.

5. Look for powerful, flexible online presentations tools, but start with what’s simple

Luckily, today’s most advanced online presentation platforms don’t stop at video synchronization. They further enhance the experience by providing just-in-time footnotes, virtual handouts, calls-to-action, forms, quizzes, surveys, interactive transcripts, and other tools as part of the entire interactive experience. And they augment that experience with powerful analytics that show how the presentation material is being interacted with. We’ve built all that capability into KnowledgeVision, but other platforms will undoubtedly be adding some of these features in the future, as well.

Most importantly, don’t get overwhelmed by trying to do too much, too early. Start simply, getting your bearings with basic, on-demand video presentations and adding powerful features and even moving to live streaming later on. It really is easier than ever to create video presentations for an online, 24/7, anytime/ anywhere world.

Of course, it’s easy for Hollywood to tell great stories — it has a “secret storytelling sauce.” But Hollywood doesn’t have to be the only one with the formula for telling great stories.

Your marketing videos can have some of that secret sauce too

And here’s the best part: Using Hollywood’s secret sauce is simple.

I’ve used this formula successfully many times in my former career as a marketing and branding filmmaker.

I’m going to show you how you can use it too.

It’s your story that differentiates you from the competition

Story is what differentiates you from your competition. After all, it’s your story — not anyone else’s.

In their book, Managing Content Marketing, authors Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose talk about how important it is for a business to develop and share its story. Specifically, chapter 3, Create the Journey: Developing Your Pillars of Content, shares how businesses can use a classic storytelling model, The Hero’s Journey, to execute on a story-based content marketing strategy.

What is the Hero’s Journey?

Mythologist Joseph Campbell popularized The Hero’s Journey in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell’s insight told us that powerful stories and narratives share a common structure. At the heart of this structure, there is a hero who goes through several stages. Here’s an overly simplified version:

1. The Journey

The hero experiences a calling — a call to leave the world of comfort behind and discover something greater.

2. The Transformation

Along his quest of discovery, the hero is challenged by many tests and obstacles yet eventually overcomes them.

3. The Return

Having triumphed over the obstacles, the hero returns to share the new-found knowledge with others.

So, back to reality. If you feel this Hero’s Journey stuff is pie-in-the-sky, I hear you. That’s what I thought years ago. Then I started using it in projects. I noticed that using The Hero’s Journey structure:

• simplifies the interviewing process
• provides structure in delivering a message
• deepens the engagement process

Let’s take a look at how can you use this structure in your own video (and audio) projects.

Video is the perfect medium to tell your stories and to differentiate yourself; it captures music, voice, scenic footage, and graphics in one format. (Feel free to use this template to energize your podcasts, as well.)

A simple Hero’s Journey template for marketing videos

Tweaking The Hero’s Journey for video is quite simple. Here’s a structure to get you started.

Let’s say a hospital is announcing a new treatment center. (This could apply to a new program, a new initiative, etc.) We’ll keep this example simple so you can see how it easy it is to customize.

These questions are a starting point; they are not meant to be a complete list.

1. Where are we now? (Problem)

• Share with us how most treatment centers operate today.
• Why is this a problem?
• How did we get here in the first place? Weren’t things fine as they were?
• How did you get the idea to change the model?

2. Where do we want to be? (Solution)

• Talk a bit about how the opportunity to change things came about.
• What are the biggest challenges you are facing?
• How are customers (internal teams, etc.) reacting to this challenge?

3. What have we learned? (Results)

• Now that you’ve been through the process, how do you feel?
• How have your customers (patients, doctors, employees, etc.) responded?
• Do you have any encouraging words to those watching this video?

4.  What should we do next?

• What specific action should the viewers of this video do next?

This template can easily be tweaked for ongoing programs or services. You don’t have to wait until products or announcements are final.

Customizing The Hero’s Journey

One of the three key play points for video mentioned in the free eBook, CMI’s Content Marketing Playbook 2011: 42 Ways to Connect with Customers, is this:

Instead of taking a one-shot approach, consider a video series that builds interest, and an audience, over time.

This fits beautifully within The Hero’s Journey structure. Here’s one way to use this idea.

Create one video focusing on one act. Instead of producing one three- or five-minute video, consider breaking the project down into three one-minute videos, four videos, or even five videos.

For an audience with shorter attention spans, breaking one longer video down into several shorter videos can improve the odds your audience will view the videos. For some viewers, seeing a 90-second video is more inviting than seeing the time indicator showing five minutes.

Rinse and repeat for each product, service, or training you offer.

Summary

You may not produce the next Hollywood blockbuster, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add a little of Hollywood’s secret sauce to your marketing videos.

Have an interview coming up? Try sneaking in a few questions using The Hero’s Journey framework. If you like the results, try it again. It’s easy to adjust for many projects.

Over to you

Have you used The Hero’s Journey in any of your projects? If so, we’d love to hear about it.

If not, have you used something similar to The Hero’s Journey?

Do you have a structure (or formula) that works well for capturing content?

Here are a few things to keep in mind when planning your film shoot:

1. Depending on the type of video you are creating, evenly divide filming between recording interviews and capturing b-roll. In our experience, having plenty of good b-roll makes a video more powerful.
2. Because the times for capturing b-roll are often fixed (a certain activity only happens at a certain time), start by identifying the must-have footage and inserting that into your filming schedule.
3. Fill in the rest of the schedule with interviews and nice-to-have b-roll. If you discover, due to limited timing, that you need to sacrifice either a must-have piece of b-roll or a nice-to-have interview, we often recommend sacrificing the interview. The value of b-roll should not be underestimated, not only because it can strengthen the impact of your current video project, but also because it can serve as key footage for additional video assets created down the road.

Get an inside look at the value of b-roll in this video by Rachel Jellinek. Rachel presents two alternatives of a single video–one with b-roll and the second without: http://dlvr.it/lCKjN.

For the self-producer, here are some things to consider when selecting equipment:

1. A video camera. This is pretty obvious, of course, but which one? There are thousands from which to choose that will be perfectly adequate for the DIY producer. Even something as modest as the video recorder on a smartphone will work. We usually suggest, however, that something a notch above  is preferable. Kodak’s Playtouch video camera, for example, is a low-priced option (about $175) that shoots decent video, and, just as importantly, has an input for an external microphone.
2. Microphone. Using an external microphone should be a priority. Lousy audio is the easiest way to lose the audience for your video. We usually tell folks to go to Radio Shack and get a basic lavalier microphone that will clip on to a shirt. Plug that into your Playtouch and you’re good to go.
3. Headphones. Headphones are not a must-have but definitely  worthwhile. If you have a simple camera in which the head phones share the same input jack with the external microphone, headphones won’t be an option. But if your camera has two separate jacks‑one for the mic and one for headphones–you should be listening to your audio as it’s being recorded (imagine your dismay if you spent a day filming only to discover afterwards that your audio wasn’t recorded properly!). Ear buds are fine. If you have only one audio jack, use it for your mic, but just run a test periodically by recording a bit of video and playing it back (using headphones) to make sure it sounds good.
4. Tripod. Nothing fancy is needed here. Most self-producers won’t be doing any crazy camera moves, so a basic tripod used for still photography is fine.
5. Soft light. For the slightly more ambitious, having a soft light is a nice addition. Self-produced videos usually rely on existing  lighting, most often fluorescent ceiling lights if you’re shooting in an office setting. Nearly all fluorescent lights cast a greenish hue. What’s more, lighting the top of someone’s head is rarely an attractive option. A soft light, such as a Diva-Lite by Kino Flo or a Lowel Rifa Light, allows you to illuminate your subject without much hassle and in a more flattering way.  If you don’t want to bother with lighting equipment, use daylight from a window as your light source. Having something reflective like a piece of white foam core to place opposite the window and bounce light to the other side of their face is also helpful.

Some say the value of the B2B white paper is slowly eroding under the weight of its success. White papers were once the simple, functional, unfussy marketing tactic of B2B. These days, so many businesses are pushing out poorly conceived and unprofessionally written white papers that some marketers are questioning the format itself.

Recent research says otherwise. The B2B Content Marketing 2010 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report revealed that 50 percent of marketers find white papers valuable. If you’re in technology, they’re even more important. According to the Eccolo Media 2010 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report, 83 percent of technology buyers say “white papers were moderately to extremely influential in helping them make their final purchase decision.”

So, how can you create white papers that excite and influence your target audience? 

One answer: Use technology to reimagine the classic white paper. Let’s explore two trends that are changing the way we think about this marketing tool.

Interactive white papers

Today’s buyers spend more time conducting their own research online before they contact a sales representative. They rely on content to gather information, gain corporate buy-in and make purchasing decisions. That’s why it’s vital to provide your prospects with information that addresses their concerns and encourages them to take the next step in the sales cycle.

Interactive white papers are emerging as a way for you to engage your audience, provide highly relevant content and stand out from your competition.

Here’s how they work …

A website visitor completes a form to request a white paper. The form may contain three to six questions about the visitor’s industry and role—not very different from the questions someone would answer to download a traditional white paper. Based on the visitor’s responses, however, the user will receive a customized white paper that focuses on his or her interests and concerns. For example, a white paper on B2B content marketing will contain different sections depending on whether the reader is the owner of a small business or a marketing director for a large corporation.

You can think of interactive white papers as the marketing version of “choose your own adventure,” where readers are in control of the content they want to explore.

“White papers are still the fuel that fires the marketing campaign,” says Tom Pisello, chairman and founder of Alinean, a company that develops interactive white papers. “However, many tend to be one-size-fits-all and too long. By adding interactivity, white papers can be shorter, more relevant and deliver the right content for their readers’ needs.”

Early adopters of interactive white papers report impressive results.

According to Alinean, its first campaigns have attracted 350 percent more prospects to a website and generated 120 percent more qualified leads than traditional white papers.

Ready to get started? Here are the top three things to consider when you develop an interactive white paper:

1. As with any project, start by defining your goals. Do you want to attract more leads? Support prospects already in your sales funnel? Build your company as an expert in a particular area? Having clarity about what you’re trying to accomplish will inform the level of detail and customization you want to provide.
2. Define the areas of customization you would like to achieve. Consider this from your audience’s perspective. What particular types of customization would be most valuable to your audience? For example, would your prospects prefer to be defined by company size? Role? Industry? All three? What sections of the white paper will you customize for each of these dimensions?
3.  Scope out your project. Providing interactivity may mean that your overall scope of work is larger. Prepare yourself by creating a content storyboard for your “choose-your-own-adventure” white paper. The storyboard will likely have some sections shared among all readers and others that offer detours to provide more customized, relevant content.

Interactive white papers are still in their infancy, as marketers develop new ways to use them and maximize their ROI. In the future, they will include more multi-media, social functions and peer-support options.

Video white papers

Since white papers often address complex topics, adding video can make your messages easier to digest. Here’s how a video white paper works:  

Viewers complete a short form embedded in the media player to access the video. Then, they can watch the video all the way through or jump to the most relevant sections. Links along the bottom of the player allow viewers to download a text version of the white paper, submit a question, complete a survey or share the content with their friends.

“A huge benefit of online video is the ability to track your results,” says Ann Roskey, vice president marketing and audience development, KIT digital, a provider of end-to-end video technology services. “You can see how long people watched and what segments they watched. This tells you how well you’re engaging your audience. You can’t get access to this information with a text-based white paper.”

Biomni, one of KIT digital’s clients, tracked the results of its video white paper and learned that the average viewer watched 81 percent of the content, and 76 percent of the viewers downloaded the text version of the white paper. These results suggest that video can engage your audience for longer periods, allowing them to learn more about your product or service than they would from a traditional white paper.

Video white papers are still a new concept, with marketers just starting to explore their possibilities.

“We’re always envisioning something new and exciting to do with the technology,” says Ginger Shimp, marketing director, SME marketing, SAP America Inc. “For example, we put together an interactive video for industries with 19 different segments. Branching technology guides prospects through a decision tree where they can explore solutions for either their own industry or a related one. We find that using video makes our message more entertaining and thus lowers the barrier to engage with SAP. The use of video is also more compelling and helps us capture our prospects’ attention.” 

A video producer explores the limits of DIY and the absolute importance of b-roll.

I never argue that all video must be professionally made. In many cases, creating your own video is in fact the best approach. But all of us also know that self-produced business videos can look … well, self-produced. Frequently they suffer from some combination of poor audio, awkward camera angles, unflattering lighting or odd settings (interviewees in cluttered offices or against a blank wall).

Many of these problems, however, can be easily avoided. So as you consider embarking upon a video project, you need to consider two things. First, should your video have a professional look or will a well-made, do-it-yourself video suffice? And second, if you are leaning towards the DIY approach, do you have the capabilities to do it well?

Think clearly about your market.

What are your clients’ or prospective clients’ expectations in terms of their viewing experience? What do they associate with you and your brand? Will you be able to deliver video that fulfills those expectations? 

Knowing what will resonate with your audience is key. If you sell consulting services to CEOs of mid- and large-size companies, your home office interview may not position you as an established, credible voice. But if you sell technology solutions to CTOs of smaller firms, then an informal, even campy video may be just right. (Remember, however, that “informal” and “campy” do not mean you can get away with poor quality sound and inadequate lighting. Bad lighting and sound makes video difficult to watch, and chances are good that your audience just won’t hang on for long.)

Define your purpose.

Is your goal to share information (as in a webinar) or is your purpose to create something more promotional in nature? If you’re trying to share information, self-producing might be a good option as long as you are able to capture audio well. Also, if your video will have a limited shelf life and limited audience, then self-producing is probably your better bet.

On the other hand, if you are interested in producing a promotional video about your company that will include multiple interviews, locations and a more complex storyline, then a professional can help you capture just the right brand experience for your audience.

Be honest about your capability and comfort level.

Many people think that if they have the equipment and staff to capture the footage in production, they’re all set. But a good video also depends on a solid messaging strategy in pre-production and expert storytelling in post-production.

Ask yourself: Do you have the comfort level to prepare for and conduct client interviews? If you are seeking client testimonials or case study material, will you be able to get the filming done properly the first time? If not, are you at risk of having to go back to your clients another time (or is that not even an option)? 

Self-producers have a tendency to capture a lot of material and throw it up on their websites, without paying much attention to honing their message. Once you have all the footage recorded, will you be able to edit it to be compelling and concise?

Think of where your money and time are best invested. Should your staff be spending the time to learn how to create video effectively or would their time be better spent on some other business-generating activity? 

If you can’t decide, do both.

Creating video professionally or on one’s own doesn’t have to be an either-or scenario. If you decide to film on your own, you may want to engage a professional to guide you on how to get the best outcome. I’ve seen a hybrid approach work well: A client brings us to record activities and interviews at a special, one-time event such as an annual meeting. (You don’t get a do-over for a one-time event.) Then the client shoots b-roll (see sidebar p.15) or supplemental footage independently. Finally, they bring us in to edit the collection of videos and various clips for a website and for a social media plan. There is plenty of room for a collaborative approach with your producer throughout the production process.

If you do decide to hire professional help, be sure to explain to your producer the look and feel you want. Do you want a news-style, man-on-the-street approach or a staged production? We often ask our clients to share examples of videos that they like and dislike to understand what they hope to achieve.