Part 1: How to Create a Winning Video Delivery Strategy
Series Overview
Hi there,
This will be the first part in our series about How to Create a Winning Video Delivery Strategy. The goal is to provide a solid framework for developing a Video Delivery Strategy. You should feel empowered to take action to build streamlined systems and repeatable processes, especially for recurring video activities.
“Video is hard”
Common End Result of the “Frankenstein” approach: How many of these issues have you experienced?
Pixelated videos
Buffering issues on playback
Upload limits: “This video is too large.”
File transfer limits
Bandwidth limits for playback
Expired links
Privacy issues
Important videos buried in email, Slack, text messages, etc
Video is extremely powerful, but it's actually a very challenging medium. Individuals and organizations often end up with this Frankenstein approach when they're actually dealing with video.
If there isn't a methodical approach to video delivery, these are some of the common issues that come up. There are a variety of reasons which we will discuss.
Part of the root cause is that many common solutions people use for video aren’t actually purpose built for video. Therefore, a lot of these limitations start coming into play.
Video as a Communication Medium
Video is an extremely powerful communication tool.
The acceleration of video, especially during the pandemic, has exploded, and it's not going anywhere. Cisco estimated that 82% of all Internet traffic in 2022 is going to be from video. At the end of the day, video is one of these extremely powerful communication tools where you can hear tone of voice, you can actually see a person’s face, and more. But as you know, with great power comes great responsibility. :)
So it is extremely important to develop a video strategy because many of us were thrust into the world of remote work, and you might be running remote teams.
You likely have remote teammates and might be hiring associates all over the world.
Challenges Summary
We want to break down the challenges. Some of you may already know them, but we want to start with a good foundation and answer the questions: “Why are we even talking about this?” and “Why is this even relevant?”
Whether you know it or not, you're actually generating a ton of video. You might be doing Zoom meetings, doing video on Google Meet, maybe using Microsoft teams. You're generating video for team meetings, sales calls, marketing videos, training videos, product demos, webinars, and more. So you're actually generating a ton of content.
However, after talking with folks, the actual process for organizing and delivering this content is broken and inefficient. For most individuals and organizations, there's not really a system in place.
There are a lot of things that you and your team have to focus on, like supporting one another, bringing in sales, raising money, making sure that the product is actually meeting a market demand, etc. So a lot of times a video strategy isn't really top of mind.
Like many people you find yourself with this Frankenstein approach. When you're dealing with video, you're dealing with some combination of Dropbox, Google Drive, YouTube, Vimeo, Loom, Zoom, and others. This isn't an exhaustive list by any means, but a likely reality of what you're dealing with when you actually think about generating content, delivering content, trying to access content and things of that nature.
Challenge #1: Create
So on the creation side of things you can probably identify with one or more of these services that you use on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to generate content.
Zoom
Loom
Vidyard
Slack
YouTube
Marketing videos / product demos
Recorded livestreams
Professionally produced content
Mobile
DSLR
GoPro
When you actually think about it, the way you're generating video is probably more than just through one medium. This isn't an exhaustive list, but you can probably identify with some of these services.
So what are some of the solutions that we can address? How do we actually start taking action?
Solution #1: Create
Assess your video ecosystem
What services, systems are you currently using to generate video?
What can you cut, consolidate, etc?
“When things don’t add up, start subtracting.”
Ask yourself what are the current tools that you're using and what do you actually need to use? Then instead of trying to look at what tools you should add in or what services you should pursue, you may consider a different approach by thinking about what can you eliminate.
Are you using any services right now that might be redundant or maybe only one person in your company is using it? So really doing a holistic assessment of what you are actually using and what you can potentially cut.
A great quote to consider is: “When things don't add up, start subtracting.” So as an approach, instead of trying to think about it like, “Oh, I'm using Loom right now, but I should be using Zoom” or where you’re using Zoom and you feel you should be using another service. A new consideration is looking at what are you using currently, and assessing what's working and what can you actually eliminate from your system to try to simplify things.
Next Steps
We will continue this series in a week or so with Part 2 and discuss the challenges and solutions for Editing to create a winning video delivery strategy. Thank you so much for your time!
Sincerely,
Michael
