video case study for b2b marketing

8/14/2019 Video Case Study for B2B Marketing

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Santoso Thie & Asuthosh Nair

VIDEO CASE STUDY FOR B2B MARKETING


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

www.b2bento.com

Video Case Study for B2B Marketing

I. WHY PRODUCE A CASE STUDY

II. WHY VIDEO

III. DELIVERY

IV. WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD VIDEO CASE STUDY

V. SHOOT ONCE FOR MULTIPLE VIDEOS

VI. REAL WORD INSTANCES

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WHY PRODUCE A CASE STUDY

It's all about buying and selling, but when you sell something you can't simply push your product into the customer's face and

ask them to buy. Do you realize how much advertising is going on around us? With that much of advertising, the level of

openness is decreasing and the level of filtering is increasing.

Just think about it, 20 years ago when there was only one brand of toothpaste being advertised,everyone went "wow" and used that product. Today, when a dozen toothpaste brands come withclaims of dentists' recommendations, nobody cares.

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Customers are being very picky about what information deserves their attention.

When your customers clearly say, "No Touting!" - you had better not.

The marketing world, having realized this many years ago, gave rise to terms like

"permission marketing" and "thought leadership", where it is believed that you

have to influence the way your customers think and make decisions, and - with

their approval - lead them to buy your product. If you want to sell toothpaste, you

have to get them to agree that good teeth is very critical, and that choosing the

right toothpaste is a critical factor. What if they buy your competitor's toothpaste?

They are likely to not, because you have described "the right toothpaste" as

something that is pretty close to your product - even without mentioning it as so.

This is precisely where a case study helps - to lead your customer's thought

process.


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The motivation for a case study is simple - human nature finds it easier to believe in the

real and concrete. When there are witnesses and proofs, and when they can learn from

others' experience, the judgement becomes easier. When one doesn't have any experience

about something, one would use others' experience as consideration; and similar collective

experiences would be the most convincing.

A case study is the way to present the facts based on others'experience - a report in one way and story-telling in another.

It has been around for a while, usually in the printed form. However, with recentadvancements in communication media, the video case study is a major enhancement to

the traditional way of doing things.

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WHY VIDEO

When we cannot have face-to-face communication, it is

better through video because we understand a lot of

things through facial expressions and body language. Thishelps to build a strong connection between the messenger

and the audience. And this is one of the main reasons why

using video for case studies is a better way. When there

are so many things fighting for our attention, time is a

valuable commodity. To communicate more efficiently

and effectively would always have a positive effect in your

marketing efforts.

Besides the fact that a video touches most of our senses, it

also helps establish an emotional connection. With the

right execution, video can amuse, excite and inspire. Not

only can it make the audience understand and agree, they

could be led to believe strongly in and be moved by the

message. This is exactly the aim of marketing: not just to

inform, but also to move the customer to act in our favor.

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DELIVERY

DVD video is a familiar format to all. It is a fairly common practice to give away DVDs with brochures at seminars and

marketing events. But this is not necessarily the most efficient way to spread the message. As technology enhances the way we

communicate, you can now send video to an email inbox, have it hosted on a server and link to it, or (as is becomingincreasingly popular) embed it in your website. You can put it up on many popular video sharing sites like YouTube, or share it

on social media sites like Facebook. Your video can now travel without limits and you can start getting ready for a global

audience. Localization could be the next consideration so that people in China, East Europe or Africa can understand the

message clearly.

When we talk about digital video - compared to text or PDF files that you send viaemail - it sounds demanding. But it isn't. Just like a boat cruising on a river - with

many things to carry - would it be too big for the stream of data? Of course it would

be bigger than text or audio, but we do have bigger rivers nowadays too.

By the end of Q1 2009 there were 429.2 million broadband subscribersworldwide. Over the 12 months to the end of Q1 2009, 63.5 million newbroadband subscribers were added worldwide, representing 14.8 per cent oftotal subscribers.

World Broadband Statistics: Q1 2009, Fiona Vanier, June 2009, Point Topic Ltd

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And you need not worry about the size of the "ship", as

with continuous improvements in digital media, video file

sizes are getting smaller with ever increasing quality.

Now that we have a great medium for delivering themessage and a captive audience, let us look at how to

make a great video that would effectively communicate

your message.

The number of users viewing video-sharing sites such as

YouTube has almost doubled since 2006. It is found that

62% of adult internet users have used video sharing sites,

and watching video online outranks many other online

activity such as social networking (46%), downloading

podcast (19%) or sharing updates (11%)

There is no better time to get a bigger ship, fully loaded with all the potential of digital media!

Video Social Network Podcast Twitter

Source: Pew Research Center's Internet

& American Life Project, April 2009

The comScore 2008 Digital Year in Review (comScore) confirms this with their finding that onlinevideo viewing accounted for 12.5% of users total time spent on the Internet in November 2008,up from 8.5% the previous year.

Source: http://bit.ly/1hSplS

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http://bit.ly/1hSplShttp://bit.ly/1hSplShttp://bit.ly/1hSplShttp://bit.ly/1hSplS



WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD VIDEO CASE STUDY

A case study should essentially be objective and sincere. The main message should come from customers, partners and other

stakeholders not in your company or marketing team. Well, at least the audience should have that impression. Positive

messages would come from those who benefited most from the deployment. Obviously you would want to push a positivemessage, so pick a winning case or best practice. Find customers that have positive experience with the solution or product,

and ask for their support. Their words though ought not be scripted, and sounds better when uttered naturally. It should be

more human and less technical, to cater to a diverse audience. It should focus more on their experience - how the product or

the service helps them - and not about how good the product is. Some companies make the mistake of having their own CEO,

Product Manager or Marketing Manager featuring in the video, raving about their super product. If possible, avoid involving

your own staff. Use them to provide information (such as technical specifications), and not to make any judgements, such as

this is good!.

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Keep references to the product subtle, and do not oversell

it. You should focus more on the benefit enjoyed or

problem solved by the customer. Like in the earlier

example: if you want to sell toothpaste, get yourcustomers to agree that a clean mouth is very critical and

that choosing the right toothpaste helps - instead of

saying how good your toothpaste is. You cannot

hypnotize them to buy the product, but you can expect to

direct the way they think about the situation and the

problem, and to agree with your solution.

That is not an easy job! And that's why it is critical to have

good planning, but stay flexible as much as you can.

Creativity is required most when flexibility is needed, e.g.,

when you have to change the story flow to fit the quotes

you get from the interviews. To understand the process

better, please allow me to share the process flow of video

case study production in our team.

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(I) Needs Analysis: Understand the background, understand the situation, and

understand the objectives.

(II) Resources Analysis:Who will be involved in producing the video? Who will be

featured in the video? Most of the time this is when production costs can be gauged

as well.

(III) Pre-production Storyboarding & Production Planning: The production

team starts to plan the video flow. How it should begin, when the message should

kick in, how it should close. Who will be interviewed and about what, and who

should appear first and who follows. With a clearer idea of content and messaging,

the creative director would also plan for the music and overlay (B-roll) shots, the

editing style and the overall look and feel of the video. At the end of this process,

the creative brief and interview questions would be distributed to relevant people.

(IV) Production: Lights, Camera, Action! This is when the director should be most

engaged, as no one would like a re-shoot. The interviews are best done as if they

are a natural conversation, relaxed but confident - and not as a scripted question-

and-answer session. The interviewee looks slightly off-camera as if talking tosomebody seated next to it. As much as the interviewer should stick to the planned

interview flow (with prepared questions), he or she should be flexible and decisive,

to pick up a chance to build up another flow based on the response. He should be

intelligent and creative enough to ask unprepared questions if there is chance of a

good story build up, without applying too much pressure on the interviewee.

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(V) Post-production storyboarding and Video Editing:A detailed storyboard is built using the interview transcript. It

does not always have to be exactly like the planned storyboard prior to filming. Some good quotes might surface, and

some facts or interesting point of view might emerge that was not considered previously. If they can be used to build a

better case study, so be it - as long as the team sticks to the objectives of the production. The creative juices of the video

production team should be in full flow during this process too. Cut, retouch, colour grading, effects, music and sounds are

all essential ingredients. How much footage should be used, and how long should the final video be? There is no common

standard for this, but a common best practice is:

10 - 15 seconds of pre-roll (or some call it bumper)

40 - 60 seconds of introduction (where you have the problems or situation defined)

100 - 140 seconds of key messages (the core that has to convince the viewer)

30 - 50 seconds of closing (summary or call to action)

Three to five minutes would be a good duration, and this would also be how long people would watch a video onlinebefore they get distracted or bored. If you have plenty for their plate, then split them into smaller plates. Have a series

with each video focusing on specific topics. That way you would also have better penetration as your audience will

have the flexibility with their points of interest.

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SHOOT ONCE FOR MULTIPLE VIDEOS

Obviously you would have spent some effort and resources in making the video. Your

audience will appreciate this too, it will have a different impact from simply reading

a case study and watching it come to life. Since time and money has gone into its

making, you might as well grab the full benefits of it. We started this whitepaper with

marketing as the aim of a video case study, but it does not end with that. You can use

it for management training, market study or even documenting a success story.

Optimize the production so that the footage can be used for other purposes. For

example if you arrange a question list for an interview, slip in some other questions

that produce some great quotes, that you could use in other marketing initiatives.

Slip in some technical questions and expect the engineer you interview to give a good

analysis of the situation. Use it for executive presentations material, and re-edit it for

training purposes.

When it comes to return on investment, your organization would require numbers

and statistics. We can measure how many times the video has been watched, how

long it was watched, at what point the user stopped watching, and even the most-

watched portion of the video (if they are given the ability to jump to certain points). We can also have questionnaires at the end of the video to garner audience

impression. Some viewer information can be retained, such as location or system

configurations, and sales leads can be generated using such data.

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REAL WORD INSTANCES OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF VIDEO CASE STUDIES:

A market leader in the enterprise space, Cisco wanted to bolster their awareness as

a Small and Medium Business-friendly technology vendor as well. They

encouraged their partners to bring forward solutions designed for SMEs and bring

them to the front line of small businesses around the world. The first few success

stories in each region were documented as video case studies, and featured on

their campaign main site. As more and more success stories emerge, they keep

updating the site with the latest case studies, covering various businesses and

regions. When small business owners watch these videos, they are convinced by

the message - Cisco is the perfect solution for small business.

Check out cisco.com/smb

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http://www.cisco.com/smbhttp://www.cisco.com/smb


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IBM is building on a fact everyone agrees on, that today the business

environment is challenging on many fronts and companies need

dynamic infrastructure to be successful. They need to push the idea

that IBM has the solutions and services that help customers meettheir objectives in the current business atmosphere. Again, it's a

space on the main website (http://www.ibm.com/us/en/) linking to the

campaign site (http://bit.ly/3mjiPE) with video case studies featured on

the main page. Within 3 minutes, they deliver what their customers'

challenges were and how the success story evolved.

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http://bit.ly/3mjiPEhttp://bit.ly/3mjiPEhttp://www.ibm.com/us/en/http://www.ibm.com/us/en/


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Although most of Adobe's products are meant for designers or multimedia

programmers, they know they must see beyond these people. They have to

convince the decision makers from manufacturing, healthcare, education, and

even government. They do have customers from this field, and they have nice

stories to tell - indeed they have plenty of "video testimonials" and "success

stories" for each of their products, nicely served at the product sites. For

example, you can check the stories about Adobe Flash here: http://bit.ly/29AfVa

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http://bit.ly/29AfVahttp://bit.ly/29AfVahttp://bit.ly/29AfVa


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Many more example abound. In fact almost all successful companies have their "customer stories" on videobesides the usual

PDF files or web sites. And the trend is moving along with the growth of social media - you can easily find video case studies on

blogs, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Try a search on YouTube about your services or solutions with the additional keywords of

"customer story" or "customer testimonial" or "success story", and check if your competitor is there! What would be more

interesting is how many times it's been viewed. Hopefully, their video case study is not that well executed, in which case you

can do something about it because you have read about what makes a good video case study.

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Video Case Study for B2B Marketing 16 / 16

We are a team of consultants who see marketing programs, campaigns and projects through from

conception and planning to execution and final delivery. We provide innovative marketing & communication

solutions for Hi-Tech & Telco companies using interactive digital media (IDM) and social media. We

understand the nuts-and-bolts of our client products & service oferings and know how to best present

these to the intended audience. Established in 1997 we have more than a decade of experience in deliveringresults to major corporations such as Cisco Systems, HP, IDC, IBM, Singtel, Datacraft, Arbor Networks, CMP

Asia and CNET Asia.

GETIT COMMS

B2B marketing requires a diferent approach from conventional B2C marketing. In fact the B2B marketing

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