Friday, August 22, 2008

Video Views

Online video marketers win customers with webinars

After the past year of experiments with online marketing video, some winning formats have emerged. One may surprise you — the long-form webinar. One company that is having success with it is HubSpot Inc., a Cambridge startup that sells an inbound marketing application and services.

HubSpot’s marketing department has produced 12 monthly webinars so far. Today this program is one of the company’s top five sources of new customers. The first event attracted about 300 participants and now the audience has grown to more than 2,000. Marketing vice president Mike Volpe did not anticipate these results. “I am very surprised. I thought we would get 50 people for the first one. And I never expected we would attract thousands of people, ever.”

Volpe attributes the popularity of his webinars largely to the usefulness of the content to the small and midsize businesses that are prospects for HubSpot’s inbound marketing system. Subjects included SEO 101, Blogging for Business, Social Media 101, Website Redesign Tips for Marketing Results, and PR in a Social Media World. Volpe describes them as “useful topics for our audience, no sales pitch or (Hubspot) demos — just tactical advice you can use the same day to do your job better.” And, he said, participants seem to like the way the webinars cover the topics in depth. According to Volpe, more than 70 percent stay in the hourlong sessions for at least 45 minutes.

HubSpot records the events, creating videos that are then posted to its website, its blog, and to social networks including its Facebook business page and personal profiles. It also promotes its videos on social news sites StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit. As a result of such marketing and social networking, Volpe says people even talk about their webinars on Twitter as the events are in progress.

HubSpot has also produced other types of online video — one featuring its co-founder, CEO Brian Halligan explaining why he started the company. Looking at that video on YouTube, a broadcast veteran (such as this author) might find the less-than-broadcast-standard lighting quality to be distracting. But Halligan’s passion for inbound marketing and for his company is obvious. The video makes it easier for people to get to know and trust Halligan, and therefore HubSpot.

To Volpe, the production quality of his videos are of secondary importance; what matters more is the quality of the information. Says Volpe, “I would rather have 10 videos of good content but average production quality than one video of good content and good production quality — and given the cost of professional video, that 10-to-1 ratio is about what you can get for the same amount of money.”

Volpe’s new experiment is www.hubspot.tv — its own live “TV” show delivered on the Mogulus platform. As Volpe notes, “Unlike 15 years ago, where it would have been nearly impossible for a startup to have a live show about marketing, this is not only possible but free today.”

Educational online video can be an effective tool to help just about any company’s marketing program and sales. But those who wait could be at a disadvantage. After all, if one company’s videos do a great job of covering the market’s topics, how many other sources will the audience need or have time to watch?

Denise de Murcie is a media specialist and director of brand management for Liberty Medical Supply Inc. She can be reached at ddemurcie@gmail.com.