A great feature on the iPhone 4 is the ability to record HD video, and now with the iMovie App you can edit videos right on your phone!  Take a look at the application below for a peek into iMovie on the iPhone.

With the ability to record and edit HD video on such a mobile device and without requiring any other equipment you can pretty much produce your own video anywhere.  Imagine being able to send a personalized follow up video minutes after meeting someone!   This is a great way to get people to engage with you.  You don’t need to be a professional to record video, and now all you need is your phone.

If you’re planning on recording with the iPhone, here are a few tips and tricks to consider when recording:

• Only the camera on the back is an HD camera.  The front facing camera is not HD and is not widescreen.
• There is an LED flash you can turn on when recording video with the rear camera.  Great for low light areas or finding your keys under the couch.
• There is no stabilization feature.  Try placing it on something sturdy or holding it with your hand placed on something solid.
• The microphone is on the bottom.  If you are holding the phone from the bottom when recording you may be covering the mic and in turn muffling your audio.
• You will need a computer to pull the HD footage off the phone.  Email, MMS, and Mobile Me uploading will compress the video.
• You can add your own music when editing as long as it’s not Rights Protected.
• Remember to have fun.  You’re going to make mistakes, everyone does, and no one gets it right the first time.  Stay positive so when you do get it right you look positive and wont send the wrong message to the people watching your video.

Your Comments Are Welcome……SO COMMENT!

This is Part 3 of a series of posts on Tuning Video aimed at helping companies get more mileage from the videos on their website (Part 1 on Getting People to Launch Your Video is available here and Part 2 which starts to focus on Keeping Them In Your Video is here).  Typically, sites can expect to achieve 20–200% increase in conversion through the application of the techniques across this series of posts.

What video lengths and structures work well?

In the early web days, companies would fund websites that were simply well produced creatively and now they demand that the website looks good and it generates leads.  In order to achieve the second part, a huge optimization process was employed around site navigation and the introduction of calls to action that were seen by some as squeezing the creative process.  The ultimate result was that we all learned what the right balance was and where creativity could really have an impact.

Percentage of Audience that Drops Off with Video Length

Similarly, video is just starting this process.  Here are some initial techniques that we evolved while working with customers on over 200 videos in the last 12 months:

• Keep video segments short and snackable.  As you can see in the chart above, the audience starts to drop off significantly between 1 and 2 minutes.  I would focus on 60 seconds as a good target and if you go a bit long than that’s fine.  If you are doing a longer format (like a webinar), then offer the user a short teaser and then allow them to Opt-In to a longer video.
• Use the sandwich technique for opening and closing scenes around a core video which is the “sandwich meat”.  For example, a 10 second on-camera welcome followed by a 1 minute screen demo that closes with a 10 second on-camera summary with a suggested next step works very well.  If your video is longer, then you can alternate being on-camera and showing a demo to keep it interesting.
• Focus on making the video conversational and avoid heavy marketing language.  Another way to think about this writing for the ear rather than writing for the eye.  To test a script, try reading it out loud and timing it before you even get near the camera.  Anything that feels weird or is hard to say should be simplified until it feels like something you might say to someone across the table.
• Be very careful with transitions (fades to black, music interludes) and summarization language.  These are very dangerous points for user drop-off as they signal “it may be time to change the channel.”  Instead use teasers and calls to action to carry users through those juncture points.

What special things should you do if you are using interactive video?

Simply put, interactive video is video that employs interactive elements such as overlays, calls to action, or branching.  When working with these capabilities, think about the video as a video microsite when you are tuning.  Some key considerations:

• Don’t offer competing calls to action.  Any good video experience should direct the user to take a single next step whether that is to download a whitepaper, sign-up for a webinar, or choose from a set of additional materials.
• It is good to offer similar calls to action in multiple places.  For example, a call to action in the middle of the video offering a link to useful content could be followed a differently worded call to action at the end of the video that fulfills the same goal.  The other benefit of doing this is that first call to action tells the user they are in an interactive video and the second one is more likely to get clicked.
• If you are doing branching video, don’t exceed 1-2 levels of navigation.  Deeper is too confusing and not likely to be navigated.
• Don’t be afraid to offer multiple choices that lead to the same video.  You can learn a lot about how topics should be described to get the most clicks.

Summary

Keep these things in mind as you create and tune your videos and you can get higher engagement time which further educates your audience and prepares them for taking the next step with you.  In the final part of this blog series, I will talk about approaches for Driving Follow-Up Actions in your videos.

Whether you are getting started with making a business video or you’re an expert, it is important that you know how to measure your success.  Every video solution and almost every website analytics solution has some flavor of video measurement, but there are few standards.  In this post, I’ll try to cut through the noise and provide 3 simple tips for measuring.

We like think about video measurement similar to how you think about website measurement.  How many people came to your site, what did they do while they were there, and did they take one of actions that you wanted (i.e. signed up for a webinar, took a free trial, downloaded a white paper, etc.)?

1. Start by measuring the number of views

This is the most popular metric and also one of the most important.  Obviously, if you post a video on your site and you are getting very few views, there could be a problem.  Is it below the fold?  Is the call to action not strong enough?  Or, does the topic of the video not work in the context of that page?  For example, we see very few views of the customer testimonial video at the bottom of our homepage.  The biggest reason for this is that it is a customer testimonial and website visitors landing on our homepage are problem not ready for a testimonial quite yet.  When we’ve embedded testimonials on our pricing page, the number of views were much higher.

In the VisibleGains product, we measure number of views, but also the “Opt-In” rate which is a simple calculation of # video views/# page views.  This basic metric helps our customers to understand whether they are getting better over time or with different placements of the video.  If you use YouTube and Google Analytics on your site, the opt in rate can be calculated pretty easily using the number of video views from YouTube and the number of page views from Google Analytics.

2. Measure your viewers’ engagement with the video

Depending on your video solution, you will likely have a unique way of measuring engagement with your video.  They all pretty much do the same thing, but have different names and look & feel.  YouTube, for example, has the Hot Spots feature which show the most interesting (hottest) parts of your video.  Another visual is that a lot of the web analytics systems have an engagement graph where you can see where viewers are dropping off.

I believe these are interesting tools to use, but they are more complicated than needed for most business video amateurs.  We suggest you start out by simply measuring the average amount of time viewers are spending in your video.  With this metric, you can get a pretty solid understanding if the video is interesting.  Once you get some experience, it might help to dig into the Hot Spots or drop-off charts to further optimize, but we do not recommend them for most early customers due to their complexity.

3. Measure the success your video has on your website conversions

At VisibleGains, we always coach our customers to start with a video to help increase conversion.  The first time you make a video, it can be daunting, so we want to make sure that you can easily see if the video worked.  When video achieves a goal, it makes it easy to justify doing it again, both to yourself and your management team.

If you use VisibleGains or another video solution that has built-in calls-to-action and lead capture forms in the video, you should measure how many video views lead to a click on the call to action or to the lead capture event.  If your solution doesn’t include those features, then you can write custom reports in your website analytics solution to correlate conversions to video views.

Conclusion

Depending on your video solution, you will likely be overwhelmed by the options for measuring video on your website.  When you get more experienced, you can dig into all of the advanced features, but when you are just starting out, it is important to keep an eye on the simple metrics above.  For a good example of these metrics in action, check out this video on a landing page promoting an upcoming webinar.  This was a very easy to make and also had a very short life-cycle.  This made it easy to quickly understand the impact video could have on the customer’s key metrics.

P.S. If you are interested in some of the more advanced topics in this post, let me know in the comments and I will write an advanced video analytics blog post in the coming weeks.  Thanks!

This is Part 2 of a series of posts on Tuning Video aimed at helping companies get more mileage from the videos on their website (Part 1 is available here).  Typically, sites can expect to achieve 20–200% increase in conversion through the application of the techniques across this series of posts.

As discussed last time, there are 3 stages to tuning:

1. Getting People to Launch Your Video
2. Keeping Them In Your Video
3. Driving Follow-Up Actions

This post focuses on Keeping Them In Your Video.  The key questions that I am going to answer are:

• What is the mindset of the viewer that you need to connect with?
• How should videos start to avoid the dreaded bounce?
• What video lengths and structures work well?
• What special things should you do if you are doing an interactive video?

Given the depth of the information, I will cover the first 2 questions in this installment…

What is the mindset of the viewer that you need to connect with?

I believe that most online video viewing behaviors today are strongly biased by a visitor’s prior experience with watching YouTube videos, watching short video segments in the TV news, and using a traditional remote control to channel surf.  This leads to a few important tenets:

• Engage your audience quickly or you lose them
• Keep the material easily digestible, ideally in clear segments and sound bites
• Realize that visitors will naturally “lean back” when watching your video and if you are using interactivity, you will need to make it clear that they can “lean forward” and take control

How should videos start to avoid the dreaded bounce?

When you look at engagement profiles for video, you almost always see a chunk of the audience abandon within the first 15 seconds (see example done below).  This is just like a bounce rate that you might measure on a web page in Google Analytics and represents how well you did at engaging the visitor.  To reduce this impact to an acceptable level (5% bounce in 20 secs is a good target), here are some techniques:

• Do not open with a long musical fade in.  Unless you have chosen the perfect song for your target audience, they are not likely to hang in there.
• Use branding and promotional elements very sparingly at this point in the video.  The last thing you want is for the visitor to leave because they believe that the whole video is full of sales or marketing material that will waste their time.
• Get to the main point of the video as quickly as possible and make sure it is consistent with the promise you made in the call to action that launched the video.
• Use a real person looking into the camera to start an authentic conversation with the visitor (ideally they are an authority on the subject being discussed).  They don’t need to stay on camera long, but humans react to humans so get in there and connect with your visitor.
• Focus on educating your audience, not selling to them

Let’s look at an example:

• Here is a BAD experience for the visitor:
  • You offer a call to action for the video of “Learn more about how to do Fly Fishing”
  • The video opens with a logo from a fishing rod company and a 15 sec sequence showing the product in action on a river
  • A mysterious voice-over starts at 15 secs talking about the long history of fishing and the importance of having the right equipment…
  • The bounce for this video would be enormous and conversion would be limited
• Here is a GOOD experience for the visitor:
  • You offer a call to action for the video of “Learn more about how to do Fly Fishing”
  • The video opens with an expert fly fisherman looking into the camera and immediately saying “Hello, I’m so-and-so and I’ve been fly fishing for 20 years.  We are going to talk today about how to land your first fish.  Let’s jump into it…”
  • Later in the video, the product can be featured and the “host” can plug the product but not until after the viewer has got some value

Ok, my WordPress is beating my up about length so I will stop it there.  The next installment, Part 3 covers the remaining questions and is available here.

As always, I appreciate your thoughts and feedback.  This is a rapidly evolving space and there is so much to learn and share…

This is Part 1 of a series of posts on Tuning Video aimed at helping companies get more mileage from the videos on their website.  Typically, sites can expect to achieve 20 – 200% increase in conversion through the application of the techniques across this series of posts.

BACKGROUND

Over the last 18 months we have worked closely with a number of customers to tune their videos for traffic volumes ranging from 1000′s to 1,000,000′s of visitors per month. Although audience behaviors varied, we have found that staying focused on a few simple areas is key…

The three different focus areas above are not rocket science and are quite similar to how web pages are tuned, but I have found that people think of video differently until it is translated for them.  So here are some high-level thoughts on the first area of focus that may help…

GETTING PEOPLE TO LAUNCH YOUR VIDEO

The goal here (user clicks on video) is similar to optimizing for links in email, web pages, and ads but with some twists.  I think the two key questions are Where and How should video be offered…

Where should I offer video?
Videos can be offered anywhere in the user journey, but the key is to offer the right type of video at the right stage of building a relationship with your visitor.  Here are some guidelines:

• On Landing Pages
  • Users are there for a quick and focused visit so short videos that are conversion focused work best.  You may not get much engagement with a long video demo, but a teaser that shows off a cool feature might move them to the next step in getting to know you.
• In Blogs
  • Very short educational videos that encourage comments or sharing are ideal.  Not many visitors want to “sold to” in your blog so avoid highly promotional content.
• On Home Pages
  • Users want to quickly understand what you do so overview videos are better here.  Related to this, having a customer testimonial on a home page may NOT get much action because visitors want to learn more on lower level pages before they want to hear what another customer thinks about you.
• In a Resource Section
  • I think it is a complete waste of good content unless you are doing a good job of linking to those videos from elsewhere on the site.  Basically, you should not assume your visitor will navigate and find items that could be buried here.
• Elsewhere on the site
  • You should offer links to videos that address the mindset of the current visitor on a given page.  For example, if you are talking about the benefits of your product or service, then that is a good place to offer a product demo or customer testimonial.  It may take time to figure this out so employ A/B testing to help.

How should I offer video?
This depends on your site design combined with your audience and their experience in consuming video.  While there are some basic best practices, you start with something simple and then optimize text and imagery over time to see what works best for your audience on your site.  Here are some plato start:

• For Text in Video Calls to Action
  • Using educational language rather than promotional language will often get more clicks.
  • Also, video-oriented verbs like “Watch” are important.
  • Examples include “Watch this overview to learn more” or “Click here to hear from a customer”
• For Imagery in Video Calls to Action
  • Consider thumbnails that indicate the type of video to the user with a play button superimposed.
  • Examples include showing a Customer headshot for a customer testimonial, while a screenshot would work better for a demo.
  • Avoid generic video icons as they don’t always perform well

SUMMARY

Apply some of these simple approaches to your video and see how it enhances your metrics.

In part 2 of this blog series, available here, I cover ways of Keeping Visitors in Your Video so that they can fulfill the actions that you want them to achieve.

Hey, this is Chris from VisibleGains. When people think of video now they think of really expensive cameras and hiring really expensive people to create their videos.  That’s not the case anymore.  Cameras are getting smaller and easier to use all while capturing HD video. If you’re having trouble figuring out what you need and where you can shoot I’ve put this video together to show you what you need to do to get your shoots running quickly and easily.

If you need equiptment, you can purchase a Starter Bundle by clicking here.  This Starter Bundle includes, a camera, memory card, microphone, and tripod.  Here are two documents that cover everything in the video for you to use offline.  You can download:

Scouting For A Location – Download

Setting up Your Shoot – Download

Just Grab A Camera And Go!

On Thursday, May 27, many of us from the VisibleGains team went to the Rattlesnake on Boyleston Street for “Lean Into Spring with MassChallenge and Lean Startup Circle Boston”.  It was a packed room with 250 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, and other Lean Startup practitioners.  We’ve been practicing Lean Startup since the early days here at VisibleGains, so it was great to see such a vibrant culture of like-minded folks right in our backyard.

One thing I noticed was that there were a number of marketers from medium and large companies in attendance at the event.  The marketing department, across every company size, often has autonomy to try new ideas, interesting campaigns, new technologies, etc. like no other department in the company.  In selling to marketers, we’ve noticed that our product rarely has to go through the bureaucracy that other software products do.  Marketers are expected to innovate, and the ones that don’t will lose their job in 18-24 months.

The question is: How do you innovate while reducing the risk of failure?  I think one answer to that question can be found in the principles of Lean Startup.  Look at the graphic above.  Your job is to minimize time through the loop from an idea to a learning.  So, if you have a great idea for a new campaign where you’ll have to spend $30k to build the interactive microsite, develop a killer product demo, video some customer testimonials, etc., instead try to focus on the minimum that you can do which results in validated learning from your market.  What would happen if you bought some ads and nobody clicked through?  All of the work you did on the microsite would be a waste (and might get you fired).  In this case, you might be able to get away with a simple landing page that describes the offer, a few graphics that allow the visitor to visualize it, and lead capture form.  If you bought ads and nobody clicked through, you would have wasted about a day of effort and minimal company resources.

A nice side effect of adopting a lean, test before you invest, methodology is that you are expected to fail most of the time.  Most campaigns will be flops.  But when one of them works, you’ll have the resources and time to focus on them to get even greater returns.

Online video blogging expert Steve Garfield joined us recently for our live show.  Steve was a pioneer in video blogging before YouTube existed and he has been advising students and companies on his learnings ever since.  Steve has just published a new book called Get Seen, which is a practical guide for how online video can be used to drive business.

You can watch the entire episode below or navigate to topics you would like to watch including:

• A brief history of online video blogging
• Key Trends in Online Video
  • Casual Videos for Business
  • Personal Video Cameras
• Types of Video for Marketers
  • Press Releases
  • Customer Testimonials
  • Event promotion
• Frequently Asked Questions
  • Mixing Video Quality with your Brand
  • Finding a Place to Shoot in an Office
  • Flip vs. Professional Production

If you are interested in Steve’s highly informative book, you can learn more about where it can be purchased here.

In an earlier post, The Four Commandments of Shooting Effective Video, we discussed the importance of lighting, sound, background and traffic.  In this post, we’ll cover four more tips that will make you a better videographer and free you to do more (and more adventurous) videos for your business.  In this post we’ll cover basic elements of wardrobe, framing, recording and review.

Wardrobe – This is simple. The day before your shoot, tell your subject(s) to wear solid colors and avoid stripes and other designs that create harsh lines.  Lines, stripes and complex patterns can cause distortion when your video is being encoded and it can distract viewers.

Framing – Proper framing makes it much easier for a viewer to follow along with the video.  You should be aware of headroom, how much room is above the head of the subject and the edge of the video frame, and angle, which can be off-camera and direct-to-camera.  Below are some examples to help you understand the differences.

Here are some examples that illustrate the concepts described above:

Recording – When recording, you may have the option on your camera to record in full HD 1080P video.  For many videos this may be overkill.  If you’re using the Kodak Zi8 or similar camera, you can set the quality setting at 720P 30FPS (FPS= Frames Per Second). This still offers high-quality recording without requiring too much storage and increasing upload times (higher quality takes more storage space and can take longer to upload from the camera).  If you’re adventurous and are using a higher-end camera, it can’t hurt to shoot in higher quality, but be sure to monitor your on-camera storage so you don’t run out of space in mid shoot!

Review – Before your subject leaves and you pack up, take a few minutes to review some of the footage you just captured. Does the lighting look okay? Is the audio clear? Although spot reviewing your footage can’t discover all possible glitches, it can save you from discovering a complete wash-out later. A few minutes invested onsite can avoid an entire re-shoot later.

These tips are basic, for sure, but our objective is to get you started, not help you win film festivals. As you get more comfortable with shooting video you may experiment with higher-end equipment, remote lighting and more elaborate shooting techniques. Hopefully by then we’ll have posted some experts tips to help you on your journey to the next level.

Good luck!

Cecil B. DeMille was famous for flamboyant productions such as the Ten Commandments, with lavish sets that almost outshined the actors (which, in some cases, was actually his objective). How much of Cecil B. DeMille’s flamboyance should you bring into your productions? Let’s just say that in most cases less is more. In fact, if you’re just getting started, we suggest that you focus on the fundamentals of lighting, sound, background and traffic control. We’ll call these our “Four Commandments,” in honor of Mr. DeMille.

Lighting – Look for a location with good lighting that can be placed in front of the subject. If the subject is up against a wall, for example, be sure the room has more than one overhead light to avoid harsh shadows. Windows can bring in ambient light, but be sure the subject is facing the window to avoid the issue below (TIP: the brighter it is behind the subject the more light you’ll need in front).

Sound – New videographers ignore best practices for sound at their own peril. There’s nothing worse than getting home and discovering that your footage is marred by whirring, whooshing or extraneous voices you didn’t hear onsite. A little extra time in advance of shooting, however, goes a long way. If you’re in a quiet room without any echo, you may be able to get away with using the microphone built into the camera. Rather than take any chances, however, it’s better to have an external microphone on hand.  A lavalier microphone easily clips onto your subject and connects to your camera (be sure you have enough cord!). Ideally, the microphone should be 1-3 inches from the center of the chest.  Hide the cables by clipping them onto ties, button down shirts and jackets.

Backgrounds – Less is often more with your background. A cluttered background can distract the viewer and make your video seem amateurish. Removing the clutter, such as in the right-hand image below, immediately gives your video a more polished look. Note how the left-hand image has lines going through the subject’s head and reveals clutter behind. This is an easy fix by simply taking an extra minute to frame your subject through the viewfinder.

Traffic – Even seasoned videographers avoid high-traffic areas for video shoots. Your best bet is a conference room or office where you can shut the door.  It’s also a good idea to prepare signs saying “video shoot in progress” and, if possible, distribute an email to your company letting them know you’ll be filming.  And don’t forget about people and noises outside any windows. A bus going by or loud laughter in an office next door can ruin a “perfect take.” Be sure to anticipate all distractions and make plans to avoid them before you start.

Cecil B. DeMille was judged by his colorful sets and how well he could direct “a cast of thousands.” You’ll only be judged on how clearly your subject’s message is received by the viewer. By following these four commandments for lighting, sound, background and traffic, you may not win an Academy Award, but you will produce video that converts potential leads online.