Training, Support Video, Internal Communication
Although these aren't exactly marketing videos, they improve organizational effectiveness, productivity and the bottom line, as well as your product.
Training - Online video is a great and highly efficient way to train, whether for service, support, sales, personal development or management. Online video replaces expensive classrooms.
JIT (Just in Time) Learning – Sounds like my college major! Contextual training videos are becoming very popular on the web. ‘How-to’ videos, video manuals, on-site video reference, quick assembly demos, and other types of video are being used to supplement or replace traditional training. Mobile video will increase the popularity of this type of video. We’re not talking long how-to videos, but short step-by-step. Each step is a brief video. Perhaps the video only shows how to hold the alternator bracket with the left hand and how to approach the mounting points with the right hand – a video worth its weight in gold if you can’t describe the technique in words or a simple drawing. Bonus – the video probably cost less to produce than the drawing!
Post Sale Support and Maintenance videos, or, “Now that’ I’ve bought this, how do I use it?” No one reads manuals. NO ONE. So save thousands in post sales support – not to mention printing costs – with creative, informative assembly, installation and maintenance videos for your products and services.
Internal Communications
Departmental Promotion – Why not a video explaining what your department does? The larger your corporation, the fewer the workers who understand the role of every department. More importantly, who appreciate your department. Make it easy on them! Create a fun – or at least entertaining – video that also explains what the hell you guys have been doing all these years, and why you’re so damn important to the rest of our operation. Internal videos should highlight business plans, new business activities and achievements. They can improve knowledge transfer and lead to more effective communications. They are also a great way to show off your local hero’s.
Event/Conference and Trade Show Communications. You spent how much going where? And for what? The cost of knowledge to beneficiary ratio is exorbitantly high on these junkets, er, tradeshows. In other words, a lot is spent, few use. So share the knowledge if not the wealth. Capture the presentation, demos, interviews, commentaries, etcetera – on video for all to see.
Employee Orientation – Here’s the scenario. I once worked at a television station where a receptionist received – and through away – a ratings diary. (!) We were bludgeoning one another for ratings points and here was an employee who did not know what we did for a living!
Employee orientations should be interesting, informative, and provide an efficient way to get staff up to speed. It’s also a way to communicate company history, structure, procedures, policies and behavior codes. (After all, who’s reading all those employee handbooks at the bottom of the desk drawer or locker?) Idea: Give away one free employee handbook with each viewing of the employee orientation.
Health, Legal & Safety – In today’s litigious society, supplying an easy-to-understand safety and training video for products, processes and procedures is a great way to minimize accidents and lawsuits. Package the video with the product, plus clearly label where it can also be found online.
Dennis Dean is an Emmy-winning video expert, communications consultant and Managing Partner of Dean Group Media. Email him at dennis@deangroup.com
