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HOW FITCH LEARNING USED VIDEO IN FINANCIAL SERVICES

bsp-admin-1 on December 4, 2024

BRIGHTCOVE SOLUTIONS HELP DRIVE ATTENDANCE, SCALABILITY, AND DIFFERENTIATION

As a global provider of employee education and professional development for the financial services industry, Fitch Learning helps accelerate employee training and education for its customer base. In fact, Fitch Learning services 80 percent of the world’s top 20 banks, all by offering classroom instruction, online learning, and customized training solutions to meet the learning, regulatory, and certification requirements for clientele across their respective organizations.

Several years ago, Fitch Learning sought to refine its business practices and create more convenient learning solutions for customers and prospects. As part of this change, the company converted most of its classroom curriculum to online content, a large part of which is video. Victoria Green, Fitch Learning’s Global Recordings Manager, says the benefit of blended learning with video assets is that it allows users to participate in class and review content online at a time convenient to them. Enhancing the learning experience from that of a traditional classroom.

Today, Fitch Learning utilises video across a majority of its learning products, and its catalogue includes over 10,000 hours of video-based content. The organization makes more than 200 lectures and classes available via live stream and on-demand each year. In 2015, the company partnered with Brightcove to securely deliver these video sessions to users across the globe with exceptional quality.

Since using the Brightcove platform, Fitch Learning has continued to expand its online instruction and boost customer conversion. That’s because many of those interested in a particular piece of educational content can attend an introductory live stream information session that explains class structure, digital delivery and the benefits of Fitch Learning’s approach. With Brightcove’s cutting-edge technology delivering these high-quality, user-friendly videos to prospects, Fitch Learning now enjoys increased success.

BRIGHTCOVE BRINGS ACCESSIBILITY, CONVENIENCE, AND SECURITY TO VIDEO TRAINING

Before we had the Audience analytics module…we couldn’t track who was watching what. This is no longer an issue following the implementation of Audience with its detailed viewer analytics.

VICTORIA GREEN

FITCH LEARNING’S GLOBAL RECORDINGS MANAGER

Fitch Learning boasts an impressive roster of B2B and B2C financial clientele. The former includes large investment and global banks, while the latter consists of self-funded and bank-sponsored individuals. Though the two differ in regards to service needs, both rely on Fitch Learning’s custom blended solutions and online video learning.

The company currently uses the Brightcove video platform to manage, host, and deliver course content to customers throughout Africa, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, and the Americas. Fitch Learning also uses Brightcove’s Live solution to stream course lectures, conferences, and introductory informational sessions to customers and prospects alike. Complete with key features like cloud DVR capability, live clipping, interactive chatroll, and live-to-VOD asset creation, Brightcove Live gives viewers an opportunity to participate in an uninterrupted, collaborative learning environment with a real classroom feel. Live’s DVR functionality, in particular, has shown to be a favorite among viewers, as it offers the flexibility and convenience e-learners are looking for.

“A lot of people find the DVR feature useful,” says Green. “They can just pause the live stream while they answer an urgent call or attend a meeting, catching up when they return.”

And with security being such a large concern for its financial services clientele, Fitch Learning relies on the Brightcove platform to provide technology necessary to meet customers’ high security requirements.

“Firewalls are always one of the largest concerns when delivering content in our industry,” says Green. “Using Brightcove as our video platform makes our video content more accessible to clients, as the provider is widely used for corporate video.”

AUDIENCE ANALYTICS HELP STREAMLINE THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Fitch Learning also leverages Brightcove to generate brand awareness, reach potential customers, and engage viewers with e-learning solutions. For its B2C clientele, Fitch Learning combines livestream video and VOD content.  Videos such as “An Introduction to Fitch Learning: Feeding Potential” use Brightcove’s Audience module to track every stage of the customer journey.

With Audience, users can connect Brightcove’s video analytics to their CRM platform, which then provides critical marketing data to sales and lead generation teams. For Fitch Learning, this data is critical to accurately identifying qualified sales leads and initiating customer acquisition.

The customer journey begins with a sample video, event, or live stream information session giving curious prospects an overview of Fitch Learning’s platforms and learning solutions. The video session itself is hosted on the company’s website, using bespoke web pages or Brightcove Gallery’s Live Event template, which gives audiences a completely custom-branded viewing experience. Interested parties can only access the live event after completing a contact form, and that information is forwarded to Fitch Learning’s Salesforce CRM. This way, the company knows exactly who’s watching the live stream. Following the session, Fitch Learning creates on-demand video content from the live event and posts it on its website.

Then, using Brightcove’s Audience module, staff can view individuals’ viewing behaviour, including how long viewers watch and what other kinds of content they’re consuming on the site. This gives Fitch Learning a much better understanding of prospects’ interests. After considering the data, they’re able to tailor content to the individual.

“We track attendance, not only on the page, but on the video itself,” says Green. “Before we had the Audience analytics module we had to track attendance on a third-party platform, so we couldn’t track who was watching what. This is no longer an issue following the implementation of Audience with its detailed viewer analytics.”

Besides supporting and streamlining sales efforts, Audience also optimizes Fitch Learning’s marketing initiatives by synchronizing data with the marketing automation platform, Marketo. As Audience captures video viewing analytics and feeds the information into Marketo, Fitch Learning is able to transform these raw numbers into valuable, actionable insights.

“This is a really good example of the differences Audience makes in terms of tracking, understanding user behaviour, and learning how we can improve the customer journey,” says Moray Souter, Head of Digital Marketing for Fitch Learning. “Previously, we knew some videos had 300 views each month, but we didn’t know who was watching them. This is what we are looking to really know, understand, and then utilize in the future.”

INCREASED ATTENDANCE AND SCALABILITY FOR FITCH LEARNING

Since adopting the Brightcove platform and making considerable use of its Live solution, Fitch Learning has boosted its numbers across the board, from viewing attendance, to user experience, to customer conversion. The company’s success with the live solution indicates just how powerful the medium is. Because of this, Fitch Learning has expanded its use of live stream content, and has simultaneously increased video content, for existing online and blended courses.

In addition, Fitch Learning has optimized video production by partnering with existing clients to create highly tailored, client-specific course content. In doing so, the company is now able to provide exclusive educational content other e-learning services can’t offer. Says Souter, “We’re looking at using information we receive from Marketo and Brightcove to serve content to people we wouldn’t necessarily be able to access.”

HOW DENTINAL TUBULES BUILT A PREMIER E-LEARNING RESOURCE

bsp-admin-1 on December 4, 2024

VIDEO DRIVES RAPID BUSINESS GROWTH AND BUILDS AN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

Dentinal Tubules is the e-learning destination for over 30,000 dental professionals around the world. Founded in 2009, the online portal leverages video content to meet the needs and requirements of a range of dental professionals. Dentinal Tubules provides video lectures, professional articles, discussion and study groups, and livestreams dental procedures. The website also includes online tests, which enable dental professionals to meet Continuing Professional Development (CPD) or Continuing Education (CE) requirements necessary to maintain their professional licenses. Dentinal Tubules has become the premium online educational resource in the dental field, offering a wide variety of solutions to its large user community.

“We’ve leveraged video to build a business,” explains Dhru Shah, BDS, MClinDent, M Perio RCSEd, Dentinal Tubules founder, who also maintains a thriving dental practice. “We are successfully breaking barriers by introducing video technology to bring innovation to the dental industry.”

“We use video to expand dentists’ access to continuing education,” continues Dr. Shah. “Dental professionals need to meet continuing educational requirements to maintain their practicing license, but it is very difficult and expensive to take time out from the office to attend lectures. I created Dentinal Tubules as a learning portal for all things dentistry.”

UNIQUE BREADTH OF VIDEO CONTENT BUILDS A LARGE, VIBRANT MEMBERSHIP

Dentinal Tubules boasts the largest library of dental video production content in the world, offering over 1,000 videos with approximately 30,000 to 40,000 minutes of video content. “We have a wide and unusual library of content, covering lectures, dental procedures and surgeries,” states Dr. Shah. “In fact, we were the first online dental portal to livestream lectures and surgical procedures though our brand, TubulesLive. If anyone wants online dental content, Dentinal Tubules is recognized as the place to go.”

BUILDING AN ONLINE DENTAL COMMUNITY

We chose Brightcove Video Cloud to power our e-learning portal because we wanted to provide a brilliant online experience for the dental community.

DHRU SHAH

CEO OF DENTINAL TUBULES

Dentinal Tubules monetizes its video content through annual subscriptions. Currently, 2,000 dental professionals subscribe to gain unlimited access to the video library, live streams of dental procedures and lectures though the TubulesLive portal, and earn their CPD or CE certification. “We have study groups located throughout the world who meet online, watch the videos, and discuss the content.”

In addition, an expansive network of more than 30,000 members, known as “Tubulites” utilize Dentinal Tubules’ free membership to access forums on the website. Once they are engaged, “Tubulites” typically upgrade to paid subscription to access the full range of video content. “As soon as they join us, they realize they are part of a wider community with access to all this excellent online content, which the website delivers in convenient and flexible ways,” states Dr. Shah.

LIVE STREAMING DENTAL SURGERIES AND LECTURES

Dentinal Tubules is constantly innovating, providing a broader range of engaging content to meet the unique needs of its subscribers. Three years ago, the company began streaming two to three live events each month, including lectures and surgeries that ranged from one to three hours in length. “Livestreaming dental surgeries is of enormous interest to dentists, but it is also fairly complex to produce,” explains Dr. Shah. “We do our own video production using multiple cameras to capture the surgery from a variety of angles, because we need to see around the dentists’ hands while they’re working in the mouth.”

The company recently added TubulesLive to stream interactive clinical discussions connecting lecturers with international study groups. Participants can type in questions and get answers in real time. “We have as many as 400 people participate in each discussion,” notes Dr. Shah. “In dentistry, that is a phenomenal number of people to bring together. It is particularly exciting for us, as these dental professionals are located around the world.”

In addition to its live streams, the company continues to produce 10 to 13 videos per month, prioritizing new content based on the information dental professionals need to meet CPD and CE certification. Dentinal Tubules then creates additional content based on user feedback.

CREATING A VIRTUAL CLASSROOM TO MAINTAIN CRITICAL CERTIFICATIONS

This year, Dentinal Tubules has taken the virtual classroom a step further with its GroupWatch application, designed specifically for professionals who are using the service to complete their required hours of continuing education. “It’s a group learning application, which enables participants to watch a video, participate in discussions, share ideas, and complete tests online, as a group. The application takes attendance; and, when they complete the coursework, participants receive their CPD certification together,” continues Dr. Shah. Dentinal Tubules maintains the attendance and test data on its website.

A STRONG TECHNICAL PARTNERSHIP DRIVES BUSINESS GROWTH

“We chose Brightcove Video Cloud to power our e-learning portal because we wanted to provide a brilliant online experience for the dental community,” states Dr. Shah. “We convert all content into high-quality HD files and upload to Brightcove. With Brightcove’s technology, we can click and create VOD from our live streams very quickly.”

“More video content leads to more subscribers,” concludes Dr. Shah. “Within the next two to three years, we expect to have 10,000 subscribers and 100,000 members. This is very big for the dental market.”

As a small but rapidly growing company, it is important to Dentinal Tubules that Brightcove is cost effective. “Brightcove offers the maximum number of renditions and provides the greatest number of streaming hours for the money,” notes Dr. Shah. “They also provide us with a great deal of expertise and support. Online video is a very dynamic field, and the support we get from Brightcove is very important as our video cloud grows.”

As for next steps, Dentinal Tubules is planning on increasing interactivity, expanding to more devices, and pursuing new revenue opportunities with dynamic ad insertion. “Our analytics show that more and more people are accessing our website via mobile apps on phones and tablets,” notes Dr. Shah. “We also want to integrate more advertising into our live streams in the same way as a live TV show.”

HOW AUSLAN EDUCATION SERVICES SCALES LEARNING IN MINUTES

bsp-admin-1 on December 3, 2024

Auslan, short for Australian Sign Language, is the primary means of communication for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Australia. Ever since the Australian bushfires of 2019–2020, when interpreters were put on TV during alerts, interest in Auslan has grown tremendously across the country.

However, due to an ongoing teacher shortage, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools needed their language specialists to assume traditional classroom teaching positions. Add to that the lack of qualified Auslan teachers to begin with, and you can start to imagine the significant challenges Australian schools faced.

VIDEO MAKES EDUCATION ACCESSIBLE

To meet the growing needs of Australian schools, Auslan Education Services (AES) was founded in 2021 to teach children Auslan through video lessons. The comprehensive seven-year program is curriculum-aligned and accompanied by a teacher planner that guides teachers through each lesson.

“I knew a lot about Auslan and how to teach it,” said Paula Grimmer, CEO of AES, “but not how to put it in videos or how to produce any of that.”

We just go into Brightcove, find our template, duplicate that page, change the name of the school, set up the grade levels, and that’s it. It’s so easy.

PAULA GRIMMER

CEO, AUSLAN EDUCATION SERVICES

AES started out in a bedroom with a homemade green screen and videos distributed via USB drives. But as the positive feedback and interest grew, they knew they needed a more sustainable approach. A friend of Grimmer’s who worked for the New South Wales Department of Education recommended Brightcove.

“Because he worked for the Education Department, I knew any platform they used would have to be safe for education,” Grimmer explained. “So I contacted Brightcove and we had a meeting. I told them ‘I know nothing, you’re going to have to help me with everything.’”

BRIGHTCOVE MAKES VIDEO AVAILABLE

AES needed a way to give schools their own dedicated video pages that were customized to fit their grade levels. With easy-to-use templates and single sign-on security, Brightcove Gallery was just what they needed.

Starting with templates Brightcove helped create, AES was able to streamline the process to make it both easy and efficient. Grimmer remarks, “We just go into Brightcove, find our template, duplicate that page, change the name of the school, set up the grade levels, and that’s it. It’s so easy.”

When videos are uploaded they go straight to playlists, which are then added to collections on the pages. “It only takes a few minutes,” says AES Media Manager, Luke Parker. “I’ll create the collection, link it to the playlist, and it’s done. Probably takes as long as it took me to say that.”

Not only are the templates and collections easy to use, the schools agree that the video pages are equally user friendly and easy to navigate.

AES MAKES EQUALITY ACHIEVABLE

Initially, AES planned to offer their program locally in Victoria and secure five schools who wanted to incorporate the video Auslan lessons. Instead, over 30 schools enrolled in their program within their first year.

Today, AES has scaled to over 155 schools across Australia, in Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania, Queensland, New South Wales, and elsewhere. They’ve produced over 500 videos with plans to produce and distribute over 2,800 lessons.

“We really couldn’t get our online lessons out to every school that we do without Brightcove,” concludes Grimmer. “They are our connection to dispersing our content to schools near and far all over Australia.”

With Brightcove’s help, AES is fulfilling its mission to get Auslan in every school and level out the communication barriers between deaf and hearing people.

GATED VIDEO CONTENT: GETTING STARTED

bsp-admin-1 on December 3, 2024

Gated content has long been effective at acquiring leads, but the rise of gated video has renewed debates about when and how gating should be used. While some have boldly declared the “death of gated content,” those claims feel premature—similar to past predictions about the demise of radio or email. What’s clear is that the question isn’t whether to gate at all, but rather how to choose what content to gate and what not to.

There’s compelling data to support a more thoughtful approach. Demand for gated content has increased by 77% between 2019 and 2023. But before you gate every asset in your library, it’s important to recognize that you risk alienating visitors if the content doesn’t meet their expectations. In fact, 71% of B2B buyers left feeling disappointed by the value of gated content, often because it’s too generic or lacks real insight. So, the challenge lies not in whether to gate content, but making sure that what you offer is truly worth the exchange of information.

If you regularly test and reevaluate your gated written assets, you’ve likely learned a lot about the kind of content that works best for your audience. But if you’re unsure how to apply the same principles to gated video content, it’s worth taking a closer look at what makes a strong asset.

What Is Gated Video Content?

Gated video is video content placed behind a digital gate, such as a lead form, to prevent public access. It requires visitors to provide information—typically their name, email, and/or company details—to unlock videos for viewing. Gating is used to attract engaged prospects who are actively seeking, or open to receiving, information or insights about a specific topic. The goal is collecting valuable data to nurture these leads through targeted marketing and sales outreach efforts.

Gated Content Attributes

While there isn’t an exact recipe for perfect gated video content, the most successful assets typically share these three attributes:

  • Exclusive. Gated video content should provide something unique and valuable that users can’t find anywhere else. If viewers feel tricked by recycled or easily accessible material, it can be counterproductive and erode brand trust. On the flip side, exclusivity can increase the perceived value of your content while also strengthening your audience’s connection to your brand.
  • Expert. The video should showcase deep industry knowledge or specialized expertise. Often, the people accessing your gated content are potential leads who are actively evaluating your company. Demonstrating your thought leadership helps build trust and confidence as they move through the buyer journey and compare your offerings, and your brand, to competitors.
  • Exact. The content should be laser-focused and address specific use cases, problems, or solutions that your prospects are dealing with. Remember, capturing contact information is only part of the equation. It’s showing that you truly understand their industry and challenges and have the expertise to offer real solutions. This goes a long way in converting prospects into customers.

Gated Video Examples

  • Webinars. Webinars, whether live or on demand (VOD), are among the most commonly gated video formats. They should be focused and drill down into specific niche use cases or address industry challenges as opposed to broad, high-level demos that cover general features.
  • Interviews and panels. Featuring respected industry experts in interviews or panel discussions can be compelling enough to make a prospect agree to give their contact information. The key is that the content must provide exclusive and focused insights. Proprietary research often works well here. For example, a gated video could feature an analyst breaking down fresh data from your research and offering actionable takeaways for individual sectors.
  • Case studies. While case studies are typically considered later-stage content meant to nurture leads, high-profile studies can be effective for generating them as well. The trick is to evaluate the potential impact. If the case study features a well-known brand and demonstrates strong, quantifiable results, it may be worth gating. However, you should also consider whether it may be more strategic as an ungated piece of content that can be used as an awareness asset.

How to Gate Video Content

  • Choose the right form type. For live content, like webinars, landing page forms are typically the best choice. For VOD assets, use in-video forms to allow viewers to provide their information without ever leaving the viewing experience.
  • Set up interactivity. If you’re using an in-video form, start by accessing your video platform’s interactivity module. For example, in Brightcove Interactivity, you’ll create an interactivity project and click the “Add Lead Form” button.
  • Copy and paste the form code. Select the form you want to use from your CRM or marketing automation platform (MAP), then copy and paste its code into your interactivity project. To maintain data integrity and streamline lead management, make sure your video platform integrates with your CRM or MAP. For example, Brightcove integrates with Eloqua, Salesforce, Marketo, and HubSpot, allowing you to use pre-existing forms instead of building new ones each time from scratch.
  • Edit gate timing and embed. Decide when the form should appear in the video and resize the form as needed. Once you’ve customized the timing and appearance, you’re ready to embed the form into the video.
  • Automate lead forms. For large libraries of gated assets using the same form, you can automate adding lead forms with Brightcove. Just create a new interactivity template instead of a project, and follow the preceding steps. Then, you can apply the template to other videos by setting a tag. Now, instead of manually creating forms for each video, simply add the proper tag to it and the lead form will be added automatically.

Where to Gate Video

Pre-roll Video Gating

Pre-roll gating is generally not recommended, but there are exceptions. It works best when the expectations for the content are already well-established, such as with high-profile expert interviews, exclusive data reveals, or popular annual releases.

Avoid pre-roll gating in most cases, especially for on-demand webinars. Webinar content and viewer expectations can vary significantly, and gating too early often attracts lower-intent leads who are merely curious rather than seriously interested.

Mid-roll Video Gating

Mid-roll gating is effective for most types of content. It follows a “try before you buy” approach that draws viewers in and sets expectations by providing a sampling of the content. It also attracts higher-intent leads since viewers have engaged with some of the material and then show further interest by providing their information to see more.

Avoid mid-roll gating for marquee assets that you plan to segment and heavily repurpose. By keeping the content private, you preserve its value and exclusivity for the most high-intent prospects.

Post-roll Video Gating

Post-roll gating works best for content structured with a pyramid approach where the most impactful conclusion or solution is delivered at the end. Examples of this could be case studies or certain interviews and panels that analyze a data set or study with the key takeaways as a conclusion.

For most content, post-roll gating isn’t ideal. Few assets naturally save their most important information until the end, and trying to force this structure can risk losing leads who might otherwise be engaged.

Gated content can be an effective marketing tool when used strategically. Just remember that not all content is worth gating. Your audience is willing to exchange their information for exclusive content, but they’re expecting that content to be high-quality and relevant to their needs.

By understanding how to select content and how to set up lead forms, you’ll be prepared to leverage the growing demand for gated video.

HOW INSPIRING INTERNS STREAMLINED RECRUITMENT PROCESSES

bsp-admin-1 on December 2, 2024

SHORTER, FOCUSED PROCESSES INCREASE RETENTION RATES TO 85% AND DRIVE 30% REVENUE GROWTH

There are few things more stressful than a job search – both for applicants and employers. For new graduates with limited work experience, finding that first job in a competitive market can be particularly difficult.

Inspiring Interns, the UK’s leading graduate recruitment agency, is disrupting the status quo, using video to transform a traditionally lengthy, impersonal ordeal, into a short, personal, and effective hiring process. In 2009, Inspiring Interns introduced an innovative recruitment program anchored by the Video CV, a new concept designed to pair graduates with jobs in an impactful and accelerated way. It is changing the way applicants interact with potential employers, leading to a better matching process and higher retention rates.

“Video sets our company apart from other recruitment agencies, and the Video CV sets our applicants apart from the competition,” states Ben Rosen, Inspiring Intern’s founder and CEO. “It can be difficult to stand out in a competitive job market. The Video CV enables applicants to inject their unique personality into an otherwise faceless process and demonstrate their communication skills, professionalism, and passion.”

VIDEO EXPEDITES THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

Over the past five years, Inspiring Interns has placed more than 5,700 graduates, with almost 85% receiving offers of full-time employment at the end of their internship. The agency credits the Video CV with matching the right applicant to the right job. Unlike a one-dimensional paper CV, video enables applicants to showcase their personality, to bring their strengths and skills to life and highlight the contribution they will make to the business. For most companies, hiring is a top priority, but there are risks associated with the traditional interviewing and hiring process. Inspiring Interns has demonstrated that those risks, such as losing a candidate due to a lengthy process, can be reduced by using video.

Brightcove Video Cloud forms the foundation of our Video CV program. We can upload new Video CVs quickly and easily, and clients can search our database easily by skills and industry.

BEN ROSEN

FOUNDER AND CEO

Rosen also stresses the importance of video in shortening the decision-making process. Video CVs are helping employers eliminate screening interviews and move directly to face-to-face interviews, helping to make the entire process considerably quicker, without compromising quality. In some cases, the applicant is called for an in-person interview as quickly as the next day.

Each Video CV is about one minute in length, and Rosen reports that within about 12 seconds employers get a sense of the applicant. In contrast, it takes between two to four minutes to read through a paper CV to determine if an applicant is qualified. “With a Video CV, you can get an idea of the applicant’s personality and style and if they will fit into the culture of your organization,” states Rosen. “Employers have told us they hired people they might not have hired if they just considered their paper CV. But what they saw on video really impressed them.”

VIDEO ENABLES APPLICANTS TO CONTROL THE MESSAGE

At any given time, Inspiring Interns hosts approximately 500 Video CVs on their website, and each Video CV stays on the website until the agency places the applicant. Inspiring Interns provides applicants the option of filming their Video CV at home, on a laptop computer or tablet, or on their mobile device. They can also come to one of the Inspiring Interns’ three production studios located in London and Manchester, UK, where their team produces about 100 new Video CVs each week.

“Video CVs fit with the way Millennials communicate,” adds Rosen. “They are comfortable with mobile devices and social media. Video makes applying for a job more interesting and personal. Plus, Video CVs encourage applicants to focus only on the jobs that are most relevant to them, instead of applying to a multitude of jobs online or to jobs, which may not fit their skills. The Video CV helps drive the applicant to be more selective.”

Inspiring Interns uses Brightcove Video Cloud, the leading online video platform, to publish videos on its website, social media pages, and in email marketing campaigns. The company posts a daily ‘candidate of the day’ on its LinkedIn page and posts links to candidates’ videos weekly on Twitter and Facebook. “We’ve seen great engagement across the platforms, including a candidate that was hired after somebody saw her video CV on LinkedIn,” states Rosen.

“Brightcove Video Cloud forms the foundation of our Video CV program. We can upload new Video CVs quickly and easily, and clients can search our database easily by skills and industry. It easily scales to meet our peak demand period, from July through October, when we receive an influx of applications from new graduates.”

The Brightcove platform also helps Inspiring Interns grow and incorporate video into other areas of the recruitment process. They are currently helping companies develop video job specs that provide applicants with more insight into the company. “Video job specs make the job come alive. It can show the employees and office space, and what they do on Fridays,” explains Rosen. “I see a big shift in the way companies hire people, not just recent graduates. I want to turn the Video CV into a smorgasbord of content for a variety of people to showcase their skills.”

Today, more than 2,000 companies use Inspiring Interns, and the company is seeing 30% growth in revenue year over year. “We started this company solely as an online video recruiting model; this wouldn’t have been possible without a reliable online video platform,” concludes Rosen.

HOW A LUXURY REAL ESTATE BRAND SCALED PERSONALIZED VIDEO

bsp-admin-1 on November 12, 2024

One of our customers is an established luxury brand with thousands of real estate brokers around the world. They have robust digital asset management and advanced data warehousing systems in place, allowing them to easily create personalized content. Everything from print to digital could be produced globally, on brand, and at scale, with relevant details about individual listings and agents. However, they couldn’t connect this to video production.

Personalized video at the agent level was where they saw true potential. They had been successfully using video for years, hosting 3D videos and property tours on their website. Not only did it produce higher conversion rates, ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, their buyers wanted more and more of it. If they could add video production to their existing technical capabilities, they could expand from a few home office marketers to thousands of video-empowered brokers.

After exploring a number of video creation tools, many of which were startups, they found that none met their requirements. Some tools gave users too much control, which could potentially turn their premium brand into a commodity, while others charged per video, making expenses unpredictable. Most importantly, if the solution didn’t work, they couldn’t risk building it only to rip it out months later. They wanted a reliable, trusted partner that could provide both the scale and the customer service their program needed. That’s when they turned to us for help.

CREATING A SCALABLE VIDEO SOLUTION FOR VIDEO SELLERS

Our real estate customer needed a video solution that allowed their sellers to create customized content while adhering to brand standards. This would grant franchise owners the flexibility to insert text and visuals tailored to their markets, such as new agents, listings, or market data. In sum, they had four primary requirements:

  • Brand control
  • User control
  • Ease of use
  • Technical flexibility

Brand control hinged on our platform’s video editor, which, like other tools, can expedite content creation through templates. But the differentiator was it could give sellers the freedom to create their own unique videos from distinct brand templates and footage that fit their markets.

As far as user control, our customer needed to get their real estate agents into our system without compromising their brand safeguards. Through our account provisioning and user management capabilities, they set the system up so only certain users could access the video editor or upload new content.

Imperative to both brand and user control was ease of use. Like many companies, our customer has a diverse workforce, with some more native to digital media than others. Adoption was key, so the solution needed to be intuitive and accessible. Using our platform with their branded templates, their agents could create their own personalized videos in a matter of minutes. And thanks to single sign-on (SSO), their Brightcove accounts would be automatically created with the proper permissions through the use of their company logins.

All of these requirements needed to be met without disturbing their existing tech stack. They already had a sophisticated system in place to create personalized content; they simply wanted to add video to it. With our extensive library of APIs and integrations, they could implement video production capabilities without disrupting the daily operating rhythm of their sellers.

BRINGING A VIDEO SALES SOLUTION TO ALL ENTERPRISES

Our customer can now empower thousands of their real estate agents to become video sellers. With Brightcove’s new solution, they can build on their successful sales program with the type of content that has proven to generate more conversions: video. Whether they distribute these personalized videos to buyers directly or through their social media channels, they can engage customers, increase conversions, and drive revenue.

As a leading video engagement platform, this request represented more than an opportunity to serve one of our customers. It demonstrated a clear market need. A major real estate company can’t be alone in its struggle to scale video across thousands of global sellers while maintaining brand integrity. Clearly, there must be others who wish a solution like this existed for them, too.

To meet the needs of enterprises around the world, we added a new solution to our portfolio: Brightcove Marketing Studio for Sales. Using our award-winning video technology, this new solution was built with sellers, for sellers. Just like the solution we built for our realty customer, it includes everything sellers need to create custom branded video content. From franchise owners to independent agents to distributed sales teams, companies of all types can scale video without having to be experts in production.

With Brightcove Marketing Studio for Sales, you can empower your sales force to create videos to reach and engage their customers like never before. Set your sellers apart with scalable, personalized video, built on the platform trusted by the world’s top enterprises. Contact us to learn more about Brightcove Marketing Studio for Sales.

OTT CHURN: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

bsp-admin-1 on November 5, 2024

OTT churn is a constant battle in the SVOD industry. By Q3 2023, the churn rate for OTT services reached an all-time high of 50%, meaning one in two users left their subscriptions that quarter.

Facing this challenge begins with understanding the reasons subscribers churn, from genuine dissatisfaction to unintended credit card declines. Combating it requires individual strategies that are based on subscriber and engagement data and tailored to the different types of churn.

WHAT IS OTT CHURN?

Churn rate is the percentage of OTT subscribers that cancel their subscription or let it lapse. This is the number of users that left the service in the last 30 days divided by the number of total paid subscribers.

Churn Rate = Canceled subscribers in last 30 days/Total paid subscribers

Churn is a primary indicator of the health of your business and how successful you are at retaining your existing customer base. A critical KPI, customer long-term value (LTV), is often calculated by dividing average revenue per user (ARPU) by churn rate.

LTV = ARPU/Churn Rate

Brightcove calculates LTV slightly differently by incorporating historical data and applying a retention curve.

Regardless, most businesses spend a lot of money and effort recruiting new customers, so retaining them with a low churn rate is essential to running a successful subscription service.

TYPES OF CHURN

To better manage your OTT churn rate, it’s important to understand how customers leave a service. Typically there are two types of churn:

  • Voluntary churn. Customers who intentionally choose to cancel the service. For example, those who binge the entire series that they signed up to watch, then leave.
  • Involuntary churn. Customers whose service is canceled due to failed payment methods or natural expirations that are not renewed. Understanding the reason cancellations happen will help you focus retention efforts in the most productive areas. Furthermore, it may also help you avoid payment vehicles or gateways that are less effective at processing payments or retaining customers.

Below is a graph from Brightcove Subscriber Insights that allows you to view the impact of voluntary and involuntary churn and identify trends or anomalies that lead to spikes:

lost-customers-per-dayFig. 1 – The Lost Customers Per Day Insight shows voluntary and involuntary churn modeled over a period of time.

HOW TO REDUCE VOLUNTARY CHURN

High voluntary churn usually reflects a higher dissatisfaction with the service. Gathering feedback from both active customers and those choosing to leave can help determine the cause of their dissatisfaction.

CANCELLATION REASONS

  • Price. An increasing factor for OTT subscribers is cost. Consumers want a good value and SVOD services need a return on their investments. Between changes in sports licensing costs and declines in program production, setting the optimal price point for your service isn’t easy. Keep in mind that the pricing model is more than just your monthly recurring fee. Offering a trial period as well as coupons or promo codes enables you to reward loyal viewers or incentivize viewers who may not renew.
  • Content. Having a compelling, regularly refreshed content library is essential. If your library is stagnant, viewers will assume they have seen all the content they might like.
  • Experience. If your content is hard to find, your app performs poorly, or your service frequently buffers, users are going to spend less time on your platform. Low engagement times or notable QoE impairments are a good indicator of negative experience and potential churn.

RETENTION TACTICS

Understanding the reasons subscribers cancel allows you to be more targeted in how you message and promote content, ensuring they’re receiving maximum value for the price. It also enables you to be more effective with your save and win-back campaigns.

For example, knowing the videos they watched and their favorite genres allows you to educate them about a new season, a show in the same genre, or a similar class. However, when building campaigns, be sure to look beyond video views per title for opportunities. Dig into how the audience is engaging with the title before including it in your campaign; otherwise, there’s a risk of promoting a video that isn’t holding the audience’s attention.

Coupling OTT churn numbers with engagement metrics allows you to be more predictive and take action to save customers. Brightcove Subscriber Insights allows you to look at data through many dimensions.

For example, you can look at heartbeat metrics (video views per day, audience size per day, etc.) over time and get a view into the engagement of your subscriber base, which will help find indicators of churn. Another way to look at that data is to view the engagement over the lifetime of your subscribers. You can use this metric to monitor the percentage of users coming back on a monthly basis over the history of their subscription. If those percentages go down, you could be headed for a problem and will need to take action to re-engage your base.

customers-by-subscription-lengthFig. 2 – Keeping track of weekly and monthly engagement of your subscribers over time is helpful to find indicators of churn.

HOW TO REDUCE INVOLUNTARY CHURN

Reducing involuntary churn may seem more difficult, but there are some tactics you can employ. For example, there are two categories of payment decline:

  • Soft decline. This usually means the credit card is expired or over the limit, the customer is late in paying the bill, etc. Developing retry mechanisms that wait a day or so to reprocess the card may resolve the situation. Furthermore, it allows you to retain those customers with minimal financial risk and without interrupting the customer’s experience. There are even services that can detect prepaid cards and reduce these kinds of failed payments.
  • Hard decline. This usually means the credit card is lost or canceled and has very little to no chance of being successfully retried. You are better off employing a dunning process, where you immediately and directly communicate with the customer to let them know of the problem and have them take action to maintain their service.

The type of response should inform your method for retrying a card or re-engaging the customer.

HOW TO PREVENT CHURN

One of the best ways to reduce OTT churn is to identify “at-risk” users and stop churn before it starts. Every subscriber type, even those who have been active for a long time, can swing from “safe” to “at risk” if engagement levels drop. But two particular groups pose a greater risk than others: users who are either idle or inactive.

It goes without saying that these users are already disengaged from your offering. This could be for a number of reasons, and truly understanding subscriber engagement is half the battle when it comes to mitigating the risk of losing them. But knowing what action to take also means knowing what makes these user groups different from the rest.

IDENTIFY IDLE AND INACTIVE USERS

Idle and inactive are two of six subscriber categories based on their engagement status that you can find in Brightcove Subscriber Insights. This means we identify at-risk subscribers based on their account activity rather than relying on metrics such as total number of streaming hours or total views that don’t tell the full story.

  • Idle users. Those with no views in the last four weeks but at least one in the prior eight weeks.
  • Inactive users. Subscribers with no views in the last 12 weeks but at least one in the last year.

It may be tempting to immediately re-engage both user types and remind them of the value your service brings, but idle users need to be approached very differently to inactive users. Otherwise, you’ll run the risk of triggering the churn event you’re trying to avoid. Instead, you can use data-driven insights to personalize the re-engagement experience and increase the likelihood of winning them over.

RE-ENGAGE IDLE USERS

Idle users have the greatest risk of voluntary churn. One of the most common reasons why they’ve fallen idle is that they’re not seeing enough value from your service. In other words, they may have finished watching the blockbuster content that lured them in but haven’t explored the rest of your content library after that. Or they’ve watched the vast majority of your lead assets and now mistakenly feel they’ve seen everything your service has to offer.

You’ll want to take action fast, so knowing what content will have the desired effect is key. This means polling your content consumption data to understand what other users like them, who have watched the same blockbuster content they have, gravitated to next and what assets held their attention most.

This is easy to do with Brightcove Subscriber Insights. Using insights from Attention Index and Content Explorer, you can accurately identify assets that would help lure idle users back into the fold based on what they’ve watched from your service so far. Also, consider identifying the hidden gems that idle users haven’t seen but would be interested in. This is a powerful way to demonstrate the broader value of your platform.

This data-driven analysis should inform your targeted outbound marketing efforts. From there, approach idle users just like any other marketing campaign. Curate a tailored re-engagement funnel spanning push notifications and email outreach and guide them to content personalized to their interests, pulling them back to the re-engaged category.

It’s also worth considering how frequently you reach out to these users. In our experience, the lifetime value for idle subscribers is 30–50% lower than engaged users. If your standard outreach cadence is every three or four weeks, try increasing your messaging to idle viewers to once a week until they’ve re-engaged fully.

RE-ENGAGE INACTIVE USERS

Inactive users are different. Often, they were drawn to your service for something specific. This may have been an exclusive show or the sports season you had rights to. Either way, the outcome is the same: These users have become inactive but have seemingly forgotten to cancel their subscriptions.

Inactive users tend to have a higher lifetime value than idle users, reflecting their longer tenure with the service. But putting them into a high frequency re-engagement funnel could just as easily remind them about a subscription they didn’t know they still had.

A better way is to treat inactive users as if they’ve already unsubscribed. Don’t just add them to your existing marketing efforts. Instead, run a win-back campaign when new content they’re interested in becomes available (e.g., during the run-up to new episodes of the TV show they binged on or the start of the next sports season).

IDENTIFY AND ENGAGE PRE-RISK USERS

Another highly successful way to prevent churn is to directly engage users before they become inactive or idle. For example, you can use Brightcove Segment Sync to identify users who recently finished a series or season of content or a heavily promoted event. Then, you can immediately reach out to them through email or in-app messaging to promote new content before they lapse.

There are other tactics you can use to reduce and prevent OTT churn, but the most effective ones require a harmonized dataset combining subscription and revenue events with video views and metadata. The story your data tells should be presented clearly where your key actions are evident and easy.