Flash Software Demo Shows Promise
B2B Product Launch: (Higher Ed. #2)
We’re lucky. Smartware can be sold by our subject matter experts through WebEx demonstrations and telephone follow up – no travel required.
The remaining challenges, I hypothesized, could be addressed in part by a web-based product demonstration. Thus far, this tool is showing promise. Here’s what we did….
Challenge #1
The live (WebEx) demo of Smartware is a serious time commitment (1-2 hours), and we do it for one prospective institutional subscriber at a time. To make the most of it, we need to assemble the right audience of decision makers/influencers, and ideally, these folks will have some pre-existing knowledge of Smartware. When they do, their questions are better and we advance further along the buying process during the WebEx.
Alternatively, when the bulk of the audience is being exposed to Smartware for the first time in the WebEx, the prospect tends to require repeat demos in order to surface and address each decision makers’ issues. This adds time and cost to the sales process and over-taxes our experts.
Challenge #2
The demo is a serious time commitment. I said that already. And we are asking our champions to assemble a crowd of decision makers that generally includes their bosses. At times, this is too big of a step this early in the sales process. The champion needs a taste of what’s to come before risking personal credibility on a lengthy live demo.
Challenge #3
We want to teach our market about Smartware – each and every one of our 6,517 prospective institutions. And we want to do it quickly. We therefore need scalable alternatives to the live demo that offer substantive, quality content and move prospects down the sales funnel.
A Promising Solution
I have been watching the evolution of Flash promotional videos, and I think they hold a lot of potential for certain types of products.
A company called AngelVision has done a nice job of developing a persuasive three-minute Flash infomercial called an Impact Movie. They have great pass-along value (by email and CD) and offer a couple of calls-to-action at the end with response forms built right into the movie. Price – approximately $10,000.
For Smartware, I needed a lot more substance (and length). Our audience is willing to invest the time, but they want to be engaged and educated by what they see.
I also wanted to use the piece to expose our audience to the Smartware inventor. She is articulate, approachable, credible, and generally an ideal spokesperson for the product. I aim to elevate her status in the industry to that of “thought leader.” AngelVision Impact Movies use only animations. I wanted a personally narrated tour featuring our expert.
To further narrow the vendor candidate pool, I wanted to be able to track utilization of the video. How many times is it opened? What content to viewers watch the most? What content do they skip entirely? How long do they spend with the video? Are they viewing via our Web site or a CD ROM version of the video that they received at a conference or through direct mail?
I found a company called Ingage Interactive in Durham, NC. They make Flash videos that they refer to as Interactive Direct Marketing. And they had the technology and skills to create the narrated, interactive tour I had envisioned.
We developed the script for what ended up to be a product tour (demo) of approximately 27 minutes in length (broken into seven titled chapters).
In the Ingage offices we filmed our expert in front of the green screen, and Ingage imposed her upon various screen shots from the Smartware application (think of a Turbo Tax product tour).
We used three calls to action:
1. Request a live demonstration.
2. Join the Smartware community. (open to all prospects)
3. Send this Smartware tour to a colleague.
In addition to their production capabilities, Ingage offers a tracking technology that answers all of my questions (see above) through a Web-based dashboard that they host.
It turned out to be an impressive finished product that we offer through the Smartware Web site and on CD ROM distributed at conferences and by direct mail.
Results:
We have been using it for approximately one month, and here are our results:
1. The Smartware tour is viewed in whole or in part by approximately 12% of the visitors to our web site.
2. It is a little early to say with certainty, but it appears that approximately 15% of prospects that pick up the CD at our booth exhibit (at conferences) open the CD and take the tour.
3. The conversion rate from the online tour is approximately 5% (Recognize that many viewers are using the tour to prep for a live WebEx that has already been scheduled. So we can’t base our opinion on results purely on the conversion rate.)
4. The conversion rate from the CD is approximately 18%.
5. The problems I listed at the start of this post have been largely addressed.
6. By watching utilization statistics, I can see that the tour should be trimmed to 20 minutes or less, and I know which content to eliminate based on the least viewed chapters. (The tour allows people to watch the chapters in sequential order or to skip to the chapters of greatest interest. Breaking the content up in this way has provided insight into the aspects of the software that command the greatest interest early in the buying process.)
As for the experience with the vendor, Ingage Interactive, it was positive, and I would recommend them. Their team could not have been more friendly or accommodating. Their production skills are very good. And their tracking technology is simply slick.
My only criticism of them is their reluctance to offer definitive best-practices advice relative to copy, story-boarding, interface design, and call-to-action. With the number of projects that they have under their belt, I feel certain that the knowledge is there. They just need to be more forthcoming with it.
For those clients who know what they want (as we did in this case), I can confidently say they offer an outstanding value.
B2B Lead Generation, Flash, Software Marketing
