This post is part of our series on progressive sales and marketing tactics.  Look for more posts like this one every Wednesday this month.

Much has been written about the conversion funnel, and this post is not going to rehash the basics.  Pretty much every analytics tool has some representation of the funnel, and most marketers we work with tend to know their funnel pretty well.  Even though it is the most common report that marketers use, there are some basic problems with it that cause problems for even the most seasoned CMO’s.

The funnel is a great tool to evaluate the success of a given campaign.  Look at the funnel for the example email campaign to the right.  Since an email campaign is a discrete event with a short lifespan, it is very effective to use a funnel to measure its success.  In this case, 250 out of 10,000 targets actually filled out the lead form on the landing page…pretty straightforward.

The funnel visualization starts to get complicated when you have a long conversion cycle between steps in the funnel.  It is not unusual for a B2B business to have a 180-day cycle time from the time that a lead is generated until the deal is closed.  Most companies use the standard Salesforce.com Leads -> Opportunities -> Customer funnel to measure their effectiveness across this cycle.  The problem with this funnel is that it becomes very difficult to understand the relative performance of your conversion rates over time.  You might not notice that you are closing less opportunities until it is too late.

One way to get a pulse on your conversion performance is by using cohort analysis.  The Wikipedia definition of a cohort is a group of people who share a common characteristic or experience within a defined period (e.g., are born, are exposed to a drug or a vaccine, etc.).  The most common cohort used by marketers is a campaign.  Using campaigns can be misleading because if you are getting different performance over time, you may attribute it to the specific campaign you are running rather than other factors that are contributing.  For example, say your company hired a rockstar sales engineer who developed a killer demo.  He brings in more sales, which in turn improves your overall funnel.  If you only look at the campaigns, you may get a false positive that your campaigns are working even though the sales engineer is the reason that those deals went through.  The same can be said for website updates, messaging changes, product improvements, etc.

The easiest way to get started with cohort analysis is to use date based cohorts.  In the example to the right, we are measuring a simple funnel but we also list key events that happened that month.  By doing so, we can look at previous months to see if there is a correlation with any of those changes to a change in performance.  In this case, you might realize that the new landing page designs set better expectations for the customer, which in turn helped the close rate.  If you were simply measuring campaigns, you wouldn’t have easily made that correlation.

Let’s look at the same graphic for the next month.  In this month, our overall leads to customers rate was the same, but we had less qualified opportunities.  The key events are that we had messaging changes that may have contributed to more leads, but we had our best sales rep resign.  From this analysis, we can hypothesize why we had less opportunities.  Was it the sales rep?  Was the messaging sending bad leads?  We are not 100% sure, but it is something we can easily test.

In conclusion, traditional funnel reports only tell you so much, especially when coupled with long sales cycles.  If you want to dig a little deeper into your funnel, it is helpful to use techniques such as cohort analysis to discover hypotheses on the movement of your leads through the funnel.  These hypotheses can be easily tested in future cycles and will help you to optimize your funnel over time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/newsbiepix/ / CC BY 2.0

If you were not among the standing-room-only crowd in Waltham yesterday, you missed a great panel discussion with Tim Bradbury, American City Business Journals; Joe Chernov, Eloqua; Judy Gern, Constant Contact; David Meerman Scott, best-selling author; and Dave Toole of MEDIAmobz.  Our own Cliff Pollan moderated the session.

The event, sponsored by VisibleGains, Business Wire and MEDIAmobz, and graciously hosted by Constant Contact, generated many insights about the use of video. In fact, there was so much valuable content that we’ll likely explore topics in more detail in upcoming blog posts.  For now, however, we wanted to recap some of the important observations from the event in the hopes that it will spark ongoing dialogue.

Here are seven things you’ll want to know right away:

Video is no longer a novelty; it’s a necessity. 100% of those in attendance have watched a business-related video. If you’re trying to sell to any of the more than 100 attendees who were in the room (or companies like them), video would be a great tool.

Video is the new literacy.  According to Dave Toole from MEDIAmobz, “we’re just seeing the beginning” of video storytelling. Brands are using it for new product introductions, customer testimonials and to capture real people using their products.

Video has proven power down the marketing funnel. David Meerman Scott underscored the ability for video to drive higher conversion numbers. It’s not just an awareness-builder, it’s a lead generator and sales closer.

Prospects who consume video convert at higher rates. Judy Gern from Constant Contact shared her company’s experience with video, revealing that prospects who consume video become customers at a much higher rate.

A company of authors is a boon for SEO. Joe Chernov from Eloqua said companies should encourage more content contribution, especially optimized video. More authors, including video subjects, within your company means stronger search performance.

Soon everyone will be video “talent.” Cliff Pollan predicts that someday soon “we’ll all be talent.” At one point we all learned Powerpoint to communicate.  Soon we’ll all learn to communicate better through video.

Video is key to the future of news distribution. Tim Bradbury and his team at American City Business Journals encourage businesses to add video to news they distribute. Joe Chernov agreed, providing the staggering metric that companies that embed video into their press releases get a whopping 500% more views.

There you have it, seven nuggets to ponder right away. We knew this panel would be interesting, but we had no idea how eager marketers are to incorporate video into the mix and how successfully many are already doing so.

To see more of the commentary during and after the event, please check out this hashtag on Twitter: #bwvidevent.

Did we hit our top three messages hard enough? Did we include enough mentions of our brand and/or product name? These are often among the first few questions marketers ask as they review a near-finished video.  But are they THE most important criteria for judging the conversion potential for video? We don’t think so.

If you want your video to convert, it must first engage, at least long enough for the prospect to receive your call to action or offer. And the more personal a video feels to the prospect, the greater the likelihood of engagement. So, does this mean your messages and brand/product mentions aren’t important.  Certainly not, but it does mean that if you fail to create a personal connection and engagement, those messages and mentions will likely go in one ear and out the other.

So how do you make a video more personal and engaging? After all, you’re only shooting one video, right?  Wrong, you should think about shooting multiple videos (very short segments) that, when stitched together, create a branching experience that will appeal to (feel personal to) multiple personas.  This doesn’t have to be highly complex or technical and can often be accomplished with some thoughtful up-front scripting and shot planning.

To get you started, here are three tips for creating more personal and engaging video:

Speak directly to your buyers – all of them. When you’re on a sales call, you don’t talk about IT infrastructure to the non-technical end user. Instead, you appeal to them by discussing their problem and how, in simple terms, your solution can solve it. When you shoot your video, create an inventory of short video segments that appeal to as many of the key constituents in an organization you’re hoping to convert.

Let the user control the experience. Once you’ve built an inventory of segments that will appeal to various viewer types, make it easy for them to control the experience. Non-linear branching, enabled by simple on-screen interactivity, accepts user input and gives the viewer a much more personal experience.

Create a social experience. Today, buyers are learning the ways of social media, which means they are accustomed to engaging with your brand and your employees in multiple ways. It’s how they validate their potential decision. So give them clickable elements on and around the video that allow them to fully engage. This could include links to supporting content online and links to social media profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. The more they connect with you and the person in the video the more personal the experience will feel to them.

In the end, messages are important, but meaning (to each potential online prospect) is even more important. By creating a more personal, interactive experience – one that mirrors a conversation instead of a mass market commercial – you’ll turn you video into a powerful conversion engine that pulls prospects all the way through to your offer and, ultimately, the sale.

To read about other tips for using video to convert online visitors to leads, please download our eBook, Best Practices for Using Video to Convert Visitors to Leads, here.

And be sure to come back to our blog for more tips and tricks.

Once you’ve shot your video, you’re probably anxious about the next “hurdle,” editing it. But it doesn’t need to be a hurdle at all. In fact, unless you’re submitting the video to the Sundance Film Festival, too much fussing is not only unnecessary, it can also distract potential leads from your core message.

For most business-oriented video, you’re better off with simpler formats, basic editing software and a few best practices. Even if your boss’s kid is home from USC’s Film School, resist the temptation to add unnecessary complexity, and instead focus on the message and the messenger.

If you’re just getting started with your video initiative, here are three tips to help you avoid overkill and get started successfully and (relatively) pain free:

Garbage in=garbage out. Every editor has a story about being handed disjointed raw video and being asked to transform it into a great finished piece. Sure, the best editors can perform miracles, but the cost and time required is too steep. A script template (how to promote an upcoming webinar, for example) can help you produce clear, concise footage from the camera that requires very little post production. Planning in advance will save you editing time later.

Let the camera be your guide. There was a time when generating high-quality footage required expensive equipment. And even then much work was necessary in post production to correct lighting and audio problems. Today, many easy-to-use HD cameras are on the market that can deliver excellent results with little practice. In most cases, you can upload the video and prepare it for your email campaign or website with very little post production.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Although many finished video pieces require only a little extra editing, sometimes a bit more work can increase impact. Software programs such as Camtasia, Jing and Animoto can help you easily add static images and screen captures to your finished video for a more professional look. You’d be okay without them, but they’re so easy to use you might as well give them a shot.

There are certainly other tips that will help your videos get better over time, but these three are a great starting point. If you think before you shoot, shoot with a good HD camera and take advantage of inexpensive, easy-to-use software to add a professional look, you’ll be producing conversion-worthy video is less than one day.

To read about other tips for using video to convert online visitors to leads, please download our eBook, Best Practices for Using Video to Convert Visitors to Leads, here.

And be sure to come back to our blog for more tips and tricks.

Conventional wisdom has been that smooth and polished talent in videos is critical to success. This has kept many businesses from getting started with video since talent can be expensive. It has also set a high bar for finished video that prevents many others from tapping their own employees for video. The game is changing, however, and today we know that prospects actually relate more to displays of genuine passion and expressions of real knowledge than they do to acting precision. In fact, suspicion that you’re being pitched by an actor can be a real turn-off.

Another mistake businesses often make is to train an executive – perhaps the CEO – to be the official spokesperson even though that individual may be further removed from the product and the customer. If the CEO is hands-on and brings genuine product passion, that’s great. But putting them in front of customers in a launch video just because they’ll “stay on message” may sacrifice authenticity and decrease conversion. The key question isn’t whether the most senior person is available, but who can best convey passion, knowledge and a customer connection. A modicum of video experience/talent is, of course, important too.

While there is nothing wrong with putting compelling executives on camera, don’t simply go to them by default. Here are three things to consider as you source video talent within your organization:

Who has experience on camera or working with video? This doesn’t mean that experience trumps passion or knowledge, only that it will make your life easier if the person is somewhat comfortable in front of the camera.

Who has expressed interest in getting involved? The camera loves natural enthusiasm and desire. If you have outgoing staff who want to be part of your video initiative, embrace them.

Who is most closely connected to what we’re trying to communicate? Surprisingly, people with genuine passion see beyond the camera and, in effect, speak directly to the target audience. This is great when it happens. Don’t presume a person in your organization won’t be effective until you seen them riff on something about which they care deeply.

There may be more than one talented video subject within the walls of your organization. Don’t be afraid to look beyond the obvious, however, because the right balance of natural video skills and passion may exist within people you least expect. Perhaps the only way to know is to get out there with a camera and check it out.

To read about other tips for using video to convert online visitors to leads, please download our eBook, Best Practices for Using Video to Convert Visitors to Leads, here.

And be sure to come back to our blog for more tips and tricks.

A few years ago, so-called “user-generated content” emerged. Today we now accept that blog posts, tweets and other nuggets of insight are trustworthy and, in some cases, highly entertaining. In the realm of video, YouTube not only made digital expression accessible to all, it forever changed the expectation for video content. YouTube proved that simply-produced and authentic video could be as, if not more, engaging than professional content.

Despite the popularity of social media (what is essentially evolved user-generated content), businesses were, until recently, reluctant to adopt the more freewheeling and often spontaneous sensibilities YouTube-style video. Today, however, erstwhile “corporate video,” often highly produced with b-roll, scripted actors and music, can seem disingenuous and inauthentic. Consumers – even buyers of technology and business services – have come to expect a more authentic dialogue. And this is good news for businesses that want to use video to engage and convert – authentic video can be easier and less costly to produce!

So, we are often asked, how much authenticity and simplicity is enough? After all, we’ve got we’ve got a valuable brand here, and we can’t risk undermining it. Although every company is different, we start with three simple rules for an effective video:

• Meet basic expectations for lighting and sound. Make sure that faces aren’t in shadow or direct sunlight, and be sure ambient noise won’t drown voices out. If you’re thinking of buying a digital video camera, consider one that has an external microphone jack.
• Feature real people from your business talking about subjects for which they are truly passionate. Don’t worry if they’re not Al Pacino. Do worry if they don’t convey authentic enthusiasm.
• Make the video more conversational and less scripted. Talking points are better than a formal script. Don’t let message perfection be the enemy of authenticity.

Some companies may have a budding Leonardo DiCaprio or a closet Apple Final Cut Pro editor, but you don’t need that level of talent to get started. You simply need to find your company’s comfort zone for quality versus expediency. It’s best to start small and experiment, proving to yourself – and your management team perhaps – that a simple, authentic video can actually convert online leads into sales. That’s reason enough to give it a try.

To read about other tips for using video to convert online visitors to leads, please download our eBook, Best Practices for Using Video to Convert Visitors to Leads, here.

And be sure to come back to our blog for more tips and tricks.

Video doesn’t have to be difficult or costly to produce.  Our mission of late has been to help businesses see this firsthand by starting slowly, measuring and then comparing BV (before video) and AV (after video). So, here’s a recently completed example to which many companies can relate: using a video app to drive higher webinar attendance. Building Engines was eager to try the simple BV/AV test. They were looking for new ways to draw people into webinars and adding video seemed like a cost-effective solution. For them, the goal was simple and easily tested – add a short video promo to traditional webinar promotion (through email) and see if it converts more attendees. So, instead of just sending an HTML email with a registration button, Building Engines included a video promotion with the email.  See below.

By clicking on the video to the right (in the image above), the prospect would go to the following landing page to get a taste of the event:

Click here to play the Video App.

So, did it work? Yes. The campaign kicked off with the email distribution just one week prior to the webinar. The company sent 11,000 emails to their house list, which typically returned a click-through rate of approximately 7%. This time, however, the click-through rate was 13.8%, twice that of its BV distributions. So how did the video app perform in this case? It was quadruple the number of registrants over the prior month and was the second highest webinar ever done by Building Engines. In addition, more than 65% of the attendees were “highly interested” during the actual presentation itself as rated by GoToWebinar’s engagement tool. But don’t just take our word for it. Choose what you would like to hear from Sarah Fisher below as she talks about parts of her first successful BV to AV experience.

There was a time when companies would spend considerable time and dollars to produce long “talking head” videos. In fact, many businesses still think of this style of video when they hear “business video.” That thinking is old school.

Today, a new formula is emerging that is based on conversion numbers, not artistic experimentation. A five-minute video of executives talking, featuring slick transitions and impressive graphics, may look nice, but it often doesn’t convert as well as a 90-second video with a strong call to action.

So, want a simple formula for creating highly converting video? Here it is:

10- to 15-second intro + 30- to 45-second overview/teaser + 10- to 20-second offer/ call-to-action

Sure, many digital marketers will experiment and try a slightly longer teaser or call to action, but the general guidelines are still useful. We’ve seen them work for clients time and time again. Whether you’re using video to promote an event, such as a webinar, a whitepaper or a product/service demo or trial, keep the formula above in mind and see your conversion numbers grow.

To read about other tips for using video to convert online visitors to leads, please download our eBook, Best Practices for Using Video to Convert Visitors to Leads, here.

OR Watch the video below to see an overview of the eBook:

Be sure to come back to our blog for more tips and tricks.

One question we often get is “why do I need anything besides You Tube for my video?”  With the phenomenal success of You Tube, this is a natural reaction.  As with most marketing questions, however, the right answer really depends on your specific goals.

Digital marketers generally have three high-level goals  – create awareness, engage prospects and convert visitors to leads.  The good news is that video can dramatically increase your results in all three areas.

You Tube is a great channel for achieving the first goal – it’s built for generating awareness.  Millions of people go to You Tube to look for relevant videos. Posting your videos to You Tube is an easy, inexpensive way to be discovered.

But engaging and converting prospects requires a more considered approach. Digital marketers typically spend a great deal of time and money to attract visitors to their websites, as well as optimizing that experience for conversion. To maximize your investment, you want your video content to be a vital part of that overall experience and conversion process.  Keeping prospects engaged on your site gives you more time and opportunity to convert them.

If, on the other hand, you send those hard-earned prospects off to You Tube, you may risk degrading their experience and lose everything you’ve already gained.  Yes, they see your video, but they’re no longer on your site, and you have lost control of their experience.  The prospect is now open to presentation of irrelevant content or, even worse, to content from competitors.

Once a prospect reaches your site, your goal should be to give them an experience that is tuned to their needs and enables them to easily take action that converts them from a suspect to a lead.   At a basic level, this requires interactivity and integrated calls to action.

Finally, whenever you do engage prospects on your site, you want to measure those interactions so you can constantly tune your efforts and programs to maximize conversion. Leading marketers are now successfully integrating their overall tracking and individual user actions within marketing automation (e.g., Eloqua, Unica, HubSpot, Marketo) and sales automation (Salesforce.com) systems. This ensures that the process of creating awareness, engaging prospects and converting visitors is properly executed and measured from start to finish.

Conversion is Key!

MediaPost’s Jack Loechner reported yesterday that 64% of respondents in the GetResponse “2010 Email Marketing Trends Study” didn’t use video emails last year, but plan to use in 2010. Wow, that’s quite a swing. Many will attribute this to general popularity of video, including the continue explosion of YouTube, but the real reason for such a dramatic shift is that video converts. More than 65% of marketers in the GetResponse study believe that video email marketing can have a moderate to significant impact on conversion. That’s impressive.

So how will marketers use video? What stuck out to us was practical application of video for product demos, customer testimonials and product offers. As we’ve been building what we call “video-enabled marketing apps” alongside our customers, we’ve repeatedly seen specific applications like this – what we call “apps,” emerging as important conversion drivers that are being added on to traditional marketing campaigns. Along these lines, we’re also seeing demand for apps that promote events (such as webinars), new content (such as white papers) and new products.

Interest in using video to improve conversion through traditional digital marketing tactics – as well as exploring new frontiers – is why we’re working to create pre-configured apps that step customers through the process of shooting video, adding interactivity (which the GetResponse study doesn’t mention, but we see as critical) and getting the app ready for email distribution and/or uploading to a landing page.

The GetResponse study comes as no surprise to us, but we love seeing metrics that support the value of video for business.