The Long and Short of Video in the sales and marketing process

A hot topic of late in many of my discussions including an earlier conversation with the partner management and enablement team at SAP Italy as well colleagues in the Solution Marketing team in SAP Global Marketing has been around how long should a product demo or marketing video be.

Traditional wisdom says that no more than 90 seconds to 3 minutes at the most – but a lot of people I have had that discussion with are talking about video for the prospect who is not aware of your solution or not yet engaged in a buying cycle.

My experience has tended to show me that it really does depend on where you are at in your sales cycle and what you (and your prospective customer) are looking to achieve as the result of producing (or viewing) a product video.

If you want to reduce your sales cycles and put your potential customer in an ideal position to educate themselves about why your solution is worth looking at then I recommend using longer videos that show your solution in some detail – think about the core things that you show in every presentation. Why do you show them?

Chances are its because its the stuff that every potential customer says they want to see.

So put that up front and make it available via a platform like Demos on Demand (www.demosondemand.com) and YouTube  – make it easy for your potential customer to view that content when and where they want to.

That way , when you need to spend face to face time with your potential customer, they’ll be well educated on the basics and can just focus on the missing pieces specific to their business…you’ll reduce your pre-sales effort, cost and experience shows me (based on feedback from potential customers) that your prospects will appreciate being in control of the discovery and evaluation process.

Now some of this flies in the face of traditional thinking but new social media platforms, the rise of blogging and the advent of YouTube and the demand for content that educates has changed the dynamic – certainly in the US, UK and here in Australia where I am based. And I am hearing from other countries that the move is on to self qualification and self education – your customers want the information when they want it – and they will like and trust you when you make it easy for them to get it.

Whats your view – have you tried this approach and whats your experience been? – I’d love to hear from you with your view so please leave me a comment or reach out via Twitter, Facebook, Linked In or email.

Richard