Getting our prospects to notice, open and read our emails is an art form.  It’s something we spend countless hours studying and optimizing.  Needless to say, when we discover something that significantly boosts our email performance we pay attention.  

Video has done exactly this. When marketers include a video in an email the clickthrough rate increases by more than 200% .  Not too surprising really since we all love video!  Brightcove’s Video Marketing Suite (VMS) is constantly evolving and now has made it easier than ever to start sending videos in your email campaigns.

From the Audience module’s “Publish to Email” screen, you can choose one of your landing page templates that you’ve created in Gallery . Next, choose which video you want to send, and Audience takes care of the rest. It even generates the thumbnail with a play button which you can resize in the UI.

Finally choose the the email campaign manager of your choice (Eloqua, Marketo, HubSpot, or Mailchimp for example) and audience will give you the embed code that includes the correct player, video, thumbnail with the play button on it — and the the link to the correct landing page. Copy and paste that into your email template and you’re done.  Kind of amazing isn’t it?

When you do all of this from Audience, that means your player is able to track each viewer by name/email address and report back to you who watched how much of which video. By doing this, you can group all of your viewers by how engaged they were and give each group the most appropriate response.  For example, you could invite your most engaged viewers to your next webinar while you continue to nurture the others.

Want to try this out? If you’re currently a Video Marketing Suite customer, this is already available to you.  So go play with it and have fun.  If you just want to try this out but aren’t yet a customer, we’ll be more than happy to set up a trial account to let you play too.  

To view our Partner blog, click here

With the growing amount of video on the web today, it is important now more than ever to get your content to stand out in a sea of video. A proven way to do this by adding captions to your social video content.

With social captions you can:

• Provide sound off video viewing for social  

• Optimize your SEO strategy

• Ensure your content is accessible for everyone

Provide sound off video viewing on social

Whether during your commute, at your desk, or on the couch, sometimes you just can’t watch videos with sound on. In fact, more than 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound! It is important to keep that in mind and optimize your social video content for sound off viewing. An easy way to do this is by adding captions to the videos you publish to social media.

Placing captions in your social videos allows your viewers to fully understand the dialog of each video you publish. Reading the captions as the video plays lets viewers get a full understanding of what is being said throughout the video.

Optimize your SEO strategy

Let’s start from the beginning, what is SEO? Search Engine Optimization, aka SEO, is the process of maximizing the number of web visitors to your website by ensuring it appears higher on the list of results returned by a search engine.

One of the best ways to optimize SEO is by adding closed captions to your videos, allowing your videos to be referenced as it plays. Since search engine bots are constantly crawling the internet, when you have closed caption files in your videos those videos will then be indexed and weighted in your search results. In fact, our partner 3PlayMedia released a case study that highlights how Discovery Digital Networks saw an overall increase of 7.32% in video views for their captioned YouTube videos!

Ensuring Video Accessibility   

Social media platforms as a whole still have a long way to go when it comes to accessibility. But Facebook and YouTube are starting to pave the way. By supporting closed caption files, they are empowering those with hearing impairments to fully digest and understand social videos.

The short story is that captions for your social videos can give you a leg up and expand your audience. Good news! Brightcove has you covered. We make it really easy to add captions to your social videos. See how .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Your organisation is likely already using video for external communications — your marketing teams are regularly creating and publishing videos to drive awareness, engagement and conversion online. But when it comes to communicating internally, organisations are often stuck using more traditional tools. In most cases, HR updates are still sent via email and training sessions often mean investing in sending employees to headquarters.

However, let’s consider the power of video for a moment. It’s about engaging and creating connections with your audience. So why wouldn’t your organisation be using it beyond marketing to help strengthen engagement with one of your most important audiences — your employees — while also driving business results, especially considering more than half (54%) of employees now expect to see video inside the organisation and producing video is more cost effective than ever? Whether you want to shoot and edit content yourself, or outsource the whole workflow to an online video specialist, you can do it all without a big budget.

If you’re not already using video internally, here are a few places to start implementing video effectively across your organisation.

Corporate Communications

As teams become more global and dispersed, video is a great way to keep everyone up to date on the latest company news, while helping them remain connected. It also ensures information isn’t lost in translation, with everyone receiving the same messaging at the same time. Live streaming internal meetings like CEO addresses, earnings calls, and executive town halls helps keep your team informed while also putting a personal face on company messages. Organisations like SAS , Smithfield Foods and Restoration Hardware are already doing this and reaping the benefits.

Deloitte is also championing this space. To humanise its global brand with its 244,400 employees, the company launched Deloitte TV Network, a video portal that’s become a place for employees and executives to connect on a more personal level. The page features videos of impromptu conversation between hosts and Deloitte management, giving employees a sneak peek into the everyday personalities of their leadership staff. The portal has been a huge success, with Deloitte reporting employee engagement was through the roof with a 75 percent play rate among company employees — a statistic that’s exceeded all initial expectations.

Training

Regular training is important for your team to grow in their role. But it can be a struggle to get everyone in the room at the same time. That’s where video comes in. Whether it’s live streamed or on-demand, video ensures a consistent message and training experience right across your organisation. It also ensures personalisation and human interaction is not lost.

But just delivering video is not enough. You need to create an experience that engages and can be internalised by your team. Adding interactive elements such as quizzes, polls or chapterisation to your videos can achieve this, turning a one way conversation into a two way dialogue. It also means every click and action is measurable. This allows you to assess how your employees are engaging with the content and plan your content with this in mind. By going beyond view data you have the opportunity to be personalised and highly-targeted as well as truly measure video effectiveness.

Samsung Electronics and Dunkin Donuts are leading the way here having built video hubs for their global workforce on everything from new skill development to product demonstrations.

Onboarding

HR teams, video is your secret weapon to reduce onboarding time and foster an emotional connection when welcoming new hires. A hub of on-demand content, such as a welcome video,  means new hires can jump online, and get up to speed more quickly and effectively. IT policies and procedures and even department overviews can make for helpful onboarding videos. You can extend this further, using it as an employee directory, giving each new hire an opportunity to introduce themselves to the wider team over video. This will work to help create emotional connections with new hires, introduce company culture and build trust and rapport with executives, while enabling self paced learning and reduced on site training costs.

Start Small

You need to remember your internal brand is just as important as your external one, so opportunities to connect disperse teams and truly engage all employees should be maximised. Start small by replacing a regular email communication for a video update and progress from there. Remember to also make the most of the analytics behind your videos. This will help you better understand your employees and better communicate with them through tailored content and formats.

To view our Partner blog, click here

Even though it’s technically springtime at Brightcove HQ in Boston, it’s been snowing and cold. So we’ve been indoors adding new features and cleaning up our user interface! Check out the updates below.  

Enhanced Upload UI – Progress looks good

Our video uploading is now built on new technology that will allow us to introduce new features to the market faster! Check it out now.

One of the first updates to come out of this is our enhanced Upload user interface. This lets you see the progress of your video upload above the fold. Users are now able to see the progress of their video immediately without scrolling down the page. You can also specify a folder and add tags to your uploads by editing the metadata fields at the top of the page.

NEW Player Editor – Hop on the Beta Bandwagon

The new Player editor makes it easier than ever to modify your video player and truly make it your own. You can select the editing options in the new tabbed structure, including a new feature that lets you change the shape and location of your “Play” button. As you make changes, you can see your player settings change in real-time. Interested in testing? You can easily switch to the Beta Editor by clicking the in-product button (shown in the image above). And don’t forget to leave feedback to let us know what you think.

Social Video Captions – The Sound of Silence

Now available in Brightcove Social is the ability to add closed caption files to your videos so that your viewers can watch your videos with the sound off on social channels. Additionally, by reading the captions as the video plays lets viewers get a full understanding of what is being communicated throughout the video.

Check out the three benefits we see with using social captions in your videos.

Live Stream On Your Website – No Need to Build Separate Event Pages

The Gallery Portal Live template is used more frequently than any other template and is designed for large live events where an entire microsite with its own URL is appropriate.

But what about smaller events? With the NEW In-Page Experience Live Template you can embed your live stream into your existing web pages, templates, and CMS all with similar functionality of the Live template such as event countdown and pre, during, and post-event states. Build a Live In-Page now!

Easily Embed Your Videos in Your Emails – Increase Open Rates!  

Brightcove’s Video Marketing Suite has made it easier to start sending videos in your email campaigns with the new “Publish to Email Landing Page” feature. We have seen that videos in your email campaigns increase open and click through rates. Now your prospects will notice, open, and read your emails in even higher numbers.  

Check out our step-by-step walk through !

Multiple Audio Tracks – Make translated or voice over videos  

Now available* in the Media Module is the option to upload and manage multiple audio tracks in your videos. Increase your video reach by supporting multiple languages, and adding commentary tracks or descriptive audio to ensure your audience understands the purpose of your video content. (*GA Friday, 4/27)

To view our Partner blog, click here

As the head of video production at Brightcove, I get asked all the time, “James, my customer is new to video and wants to know if they should staff up or hire an agency to start doing more with video. What should I recommend?”  My response is usually a long-winded “Well, that depends on XYZ factors in ABC industry, what their budgets are, how their marketing works, etc.”

Basically, there is no easy answer to this question.  BUT, there is a general equation I follow to determine if an organization should produce video in-house or outsource, and it all has to do with how much content you’re planning on producing and how much would it cost to a) outsource or b) hire someone internally.  Let’s dig into a few scenarios to see how this plays out.

Scenario 1: The one and done video project

Say you’re looking at a project that requires a few basic videos like product videos, interviews, or demos that you plan to leverage for a while – evergreen video content.  You don’t have a dedicated team of folks, but you have a few players who are willing to lend a hand and get the job done in terms of writing, direction, and production. For all intents and purposes, this video venture is a test of the content type and is budgeted accordingly.  

Solution: Outsource video production

What are the advantages of outsourcing vs in-house video production? I’m all for DIY, but when it comes to video there are some things you just don’t want to risk. Poor lighting, audio, or a lackluster concept may not be deal breakers for some audiences (thanks to YouTube for those expectations!) but they can leave potential customers feeling that the content is a reflection of the quality of your business. Especially if you’re thinking about video content for your homepage or a major marketing campaign.

In this scenario, I always recommend finding a vendor; either a solo freelancer or a production company. This approach will help you get your project off the ground and ensure you have the quality you need. These vendors have all of the capabilities in one place so they can help you write, shoot, and edit the content. And although the expense may seem high, the quality and success of the content you get out of the relationship will be worth it.

Scenario 2: You’re all-in on video

You’ve already determined that video is a cornerstone of your marketing. And now you’re trying to build a larger video program with product videos, interviews, demos, communications, and some big budget projects.  This means you’ll be looking at managing multiple vendors plus doing on location shoots as well as capturing footage on the fly.

Solution: Bring video production in-house

This is a scenario where you’re really going to start to see the benefit of in-house video production vs outsourcing, both from a management and budget standpoint. For this scenario, I almost always suggest hiring someone internally.  Hiring internal staff will help you meet a consistent demand for content. Here, there is a continuous need for internal and external content, that ranges from quick spots to more in-depth pieces. Having someone dedicated internally (like me) will enable you to write, shoot, and edit different types of video.

If you are starting out with video and doing simple interviews and events, then someone with less experience and technical skill would be fine. I’d find someone fresh out of school. This way, you can both learn and grow the program – but with a lower cost investment to you as you explore.

If you have more invested in video already, I recommend you look for someone or multiple people with more experience. Look for someone with serious technical chops, the experience to shape your video strategy, and the ability to keep things moving.

What we do at Brightcove

When I started, Brightcove was already doing enough content to warrant having an internal person.  The thing I looked at though, was the type of work we were doing and the quantity. We were doing lots of two camera shoots, and while I could manage the setup and the shoot, I knew I would be overwhelmed on set and not produce the best work I could.  So every day we had a shoot, I would hire a freelancer. Doing the math, I saw in 30 days of shooting (we usually shoot 1-2 times a week) I could have hired a part-time person or even a junior full-time person. So that’s what we did.

Over the course of a year, that person became a full-fledged member of the company and we were able to scale the operation to support the vast array of content.  Yes, there are extra costs of bringing someone in-house (like healthcare and other benefits), but the power we have not only as a production arm, but the institutional knowledge, and the relationships with other project owners is invaluable.  I don’t miss the days of having to onboard freelancers or spending hours a week just explaining what we do here.

Interested in hearing more? Check out our webinar , Do More with Less – Maximize Any Video Budget.

Or, hit up our blog for tips on how to build up a studio , see the gear we use at Brightcove , or catch the recording of our webinar where we cover everything from process to editing.

To view our Partner blog, click here

The sweat begins to pearl on your neck. Your heart is racing and everything is becoming a little blurry. You take a deep breath and move forward in your chair.

But instead of preparing to walk up to the stage and accept your Emmy nomination, you’re in the boardroom and the topic of conversation is about the company’s video production process. All eyes are on you and the team is waiting for an answer to the big question — How are we going to make more videos this year?

You may or may not have your speech ready to answer this question, but there’s no doubt you agree that video is an important tool and medium for marketing, especially in our digital-centric lives. When we think of traditional video, we think of blockbuster films and Super Bowl ads. However, thanks to technology and social media, video has become more accessible than ever — almost everyone has access to shoot, edit, produce, publish, and watch great videos online.

So how can you make impactful videos when you don’t have a huge budget, a large production team, and unlimited time?

In this blog post, we’ll discuss five ways you can start creating exceptional videos for your brand, without the Hollywood budget and set. Let’s start rolling.

Buddy Up to Your Budget

As you begin your video production process, the topic of money will be one of the first areas of discussion. Many of us think of a budget as a roadblock, but it can actually be advantageous. For example, if you have a small budget, you can be scrappier in your approach — and ultimately more creative — when brainstorming, identifying and hiring resources, and buying equipment.

“Identifying your constraints is very important. Find out what your budget is and identify which resources you can and cannot use from your team or from an external team. Understanding what you can’t do will help you decide what you can do,” says James Hamar, Video Production Manager at Brightcove.

By identifying your budget from the get-go, you’ll create a clear path for planning your basic video production process. From here, you can host a productive brainstorming session to scope out the purpose of the video, identify who or what you need in the video, and then purchase equipment and editing tools . Your budget allows you to set these expectations and holds you accountable to your plan and process–just like your best friend.

Ditch the Glossy for the Authentic

Once you get into the editing stage of your video production process, the sweating may return. But there’s no need to stress — if your video doesn’t have mesmerizing transitions of perfect B-roll footage, it doesn’t mean it won’t be a hit with your audience.

In reality, your audience prefers an authentic story about your company, team, and day-to-day operations. They want to know you are a real brand, with real people, successes, and challenges that they can relate to. And the proof is in the majority. In an international survey by Cohn & Wolfe , 87% of global consumers ranked authenticity above innovation and product uniqueness when asked what they valued in a brand.

For example, instead of constantly talking about your product or service in your videos, you can talk about your people, or even better, have them do the talking. That’s what we did here at Brightcove with our “Meet Your Account Manager” series , and it was wildly successful.

“Not everyone wants to hear your internal brand messaging. Sometimes they just want to meet the people who they will be working with,” says Kaitlin Bowes, Demand Generation Manager at Brightcove.

In our “Meet Your Account Manager” series, we had a conversation on camera with several account managers so they could explain their role responsibilities and why they love working with their clients. Instead of focusing on the capabilities of the Brightcove product, we gave our audience an honest and transparent look at what it’s like when you work with our team.

Got an iPhone? Start Recording!

Each version of the iPhone becomes more robust than the one before and the camera always gets an upgrade. The latest iPhones can now record footage from 720p all the way up to 4K. The sweet spot for recording and editing is around 1080 HD at 30 fps (frames per second). So what does that mean? Your iPhone can record similar quality video as an expensive dSLR camera. If you’re hoping to save on your marketing budget, but need to create many videos, then look no further than the device in your back pocket.

Need a full guide on using your iPhone for video? James Hamar shares more tips on how to shoot quality video content using an iPhone in this blog post .

Create Reusable Content

Luckily, your video production won’t conclude with a big weekend release like Oscar nominated films. As you’re shooting and editing your videos, consider the many ways you can use it and reuse it across channels. On shoot day, identify if you can get footage for multiple videos in order to maximize your available resources, like teammates, executives to interview, or products to feature.  

“Dig deep into your content and find all of the stories you can tell,” says James Hamar. “So instead of focusing on creating one 10-minute video, consider creating two 5-minute videos, or three 2-minute videos, that can be used time over time and in different channels or campaigns.”

We took this approach recently with a series of product demos in our trial experience. Typically we would create one sweeping product overview video that would cover the solution in detail for 5-7 minutes, but the challenge there is you lose a lot of flexibility. You have one mammoth asset you’ll put on one landing page and one or two emails. And, with shrinking attention spans we were seeing significant drop off in play rate and engagement.

For the trial experience, we decided to create five smaller product videos. Each video had a dedicated email within the trial nurture, but we were also able to use them on in-product landing pages, and because they were shorter we could leverage them on social as well. As a bonus the play rate and engagement scores improved, meaning more people were learning more about our products.

 
This approach can be applied to the promotion of your videos as well. “Think of all the channels where you can use your videos. If you’re producing this video for social media, can it also be re-used on a landing page? In an email? For a product launch campaign?” says Kaitlin Bowes. Don’t stress too much about over-saturation, chances are your audience is not going to see it the first time you post it.

Leverage Basic Video Production Tools

Video production can actually be simple. You don’t need a full production team to work on a straightforward interview style video for two months. Instead, consider teaching yourself how to edit the videos or take a short workshop on how to use popular video editing tools.

As video has become more popular, companies have sprouted across the landscape to make it easier for marketers to create quick and impactful videos. Here are a few, inexpensive tools you can use to create Emmy-worthy videos without the Hollywood headaches:

• iMovie: Apple’s simple video editing tool that makes it easy browse your clips and create trailers and stunning 4K-resolution movies.

• Adobe Premiere Pro : Video editing software by Adobe that turns raw footage into full-scale productions and videos. Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned pro, you can edit, adjust color, refine audio, and more — all-in-one seamless, integrated workflow.

• Final Cut Pro : Apple’s more robust video editing platform.

• Animoto : A simple video editor that create powerful, professional marketing videos.

• Wave.video: Wave.video is an incredibly easy to use online video maker for creating marketing and social videos in minutes.

If you don’t have the time to make your own videos, consider hiring a freelancer or a small team to complete the basic video production work. If your budget allows it, you can even engage a freelancer on a retainer basis so you can be flexible and creative with how and when you engage them in video projects

Before you leave that meeting thinking you need to be the next Steven Spielberg, remember that your basic video production can be stress-free. If you let your budget be your guide, lose the luster, create multi-purpose videos, and keep the editing tools simple you’ll quickly take the pressure off of you and your team. Next time the spotlight is on you, you can use this guide and explain with confidence that your videos can be exceptional, authentic, and revenue generating without the Hollywood team and resources.

Want to hear more? Watch our webinar, Do More with Less — Maximize Any Video Budget.

To view our Partner blog, click here