Scott Design

More and more technology business utilize videos on their websites to tell their story. Common types of videos include a welcome/elevator pitch from the CEO, a description of the technology by the top product evangelist, customer and partner testimonials, and recent tradeshow presentations. All of these make sense and if done well, can help educate and persuade the type of visitor who might not plow through web pages of text to understand what you deliver.

Here’s another idea to add to the video mix: Create a video to answer your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

Your sales reps probably report back to the CEO, VP of Sales, and CMO, describing all the tough questions and objections they are hearing from potential customers. Hopefully, you’ve taken that information and used it to adjust some of your product positioning for web pages and PowePoint presos—marcom pieces that can be updated reasonably fast. However, Flash-based product demos and collateral are not something that can be updated as fast.

A video FAQ can be updated relatively easily by videotaping short segments showing your representatives (top sales reps, the CEO, product evangelists—doesn’t have to be the same person) answering the most commonly asked questions. Post the video responses on the site in an easy-to-find section. Be open and honest about objections that you are hearing and clear the air about them right on your site. You know that these questions are going to be asked any way, so why not answer them early in the buying process.

Don’t worry about having super high-quality video. Site visitors are now used to seeing less than professional quality video. As long as the sound and lighting are decent, site visitors will enjoy quickly and easily hearing a company rep answer these questions. It doesn’t need to include an corporate glitz or razzle dazzle…just straight talk from your organization.

Set up a “video day” each month, where a few new video segments are taped. Segments can be very short – less than a minute in most cases. Swap out segments that lose their relevance with the newest, most urgent issues. The best part of the video FAQ is the relative ease of keeping it updated. Best of all, potential customers will appreciate your honesty and preparation…it will show you are thinking about their business challenges.

Tags: video, web development

This entry was posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Marketing, Technology . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.