A powerful marketing and education tool is at your disposal. According to a report by Adobe, marketers worldwide find this type of content has the best ROI. Need another hint? Research firm Aberdeen Group found that companies using this tool experience 41 percent more web traffic from search than those who do not use it. Do you know what this marketing magic bullet is?
If you guessed video, then you’re correct. Video has swept into town, declared itself the new sheriff and is kicking out those who don’t comply. Bad comparison, but you get the idea — it’s time to embrace the new video culture or face the consequences.
Drawing on Inspiration
While making professional videos seems daunting, PSDA member company Flesh Co took the challenge in stride, creating its series of popular whiteboard videos. These short, one- to two- minute educational videos feature a narrator explaining a specific topic — such as barcodes — while an individual draws images to illustrate the narrator’s point. Roger Buck, director of marketing at Flesh Co, explains the idea to launch the whiteboard videos was pure poetic justice: It came from watching a video.
“I’m a marketing person, so it’s hard to capture my attention,” he says, “but I was sent a video — created by the company that makes the software we ended up using — and it was very engaging and educational. Somewhere a light went off in my mind after I realized I’d been viewing the video for seven minutes.”
Buck found a few more videos online and sent them around the office, asking: “Did this capture your attention like it did mine?” And the power of the videos spoke for itself: His colleagues couldn’t look away, either. Buck did his homework, finding a local company with the software that could create these educational videos. The company produced the first six, but after experiencing positive feedback and more demand, Flesh Co wanted to produce more and faster. It decided to invest in leasing the software itself.
How to Whiteboard
The video software comes with a full library of images. For certain videos, however, Flesh Co has to take a hybrid approach to educate customers on specific custom forms. This involves using stock imagery from the library, as well as loading in images of actual Flesh Co documents, hand drawing them and speeding up the video to match the narration.
Flesh Co also relies on a support professional who helps choose images from the library and even draws images herself to provide that extra touch. “We have to take the message we are trying to get across, and we write the content with a grid outside each statement saying which image we want,” Buck says. “A lot of people only use what is already there, but we decided to break the rules.”
... And Scene
The ultimate purpose of these videos is to provide a different way for customers to learn about custom forms. “These are short snippet educational videos,” Buck explains. “When people come to us, they ask one of two questions: ‘What product line should I use’ or ‘I need to learn about applications in health care,’ for example.” The beauty of these videos is Flesh Co can dive deep into specific niche areas, answering questions about specific verticals. Another winning aspect of this series: They add humor into otherwise rather dry topics.
To get the word out, Flesh Co employees added links to the company’s YouTube channel in their email signatures and in banner ads. Buck says that they have experienced a significant number of clicks, and distributors have reached out to him asking about the whiteboard videos. “We stirred up buzz and that’s what we wanted to do. We wanted to talk about traffic citations and vertical markets, for example, and have some fun at the same time.”
