There’s something about the idea of going to space that sparks our imaginations and stirs our emotions. If you’re like me, the idea of going to Space Camp has always been a childhood dream. Space Camp is a place to explore, discover, push the boundaries of what we know and what we are capable of. While I didn’t get to go to space camp as a kid, I did get to go this week – although it was a space camp of a different kind – video marketing space camp to be exact! From inspiring speakers to hands-on video workshops in the training studio, Space Camp had something for everyone and anyone touching video in an organization. There was even a real astronaut there (THE real astronaut, Chris Hadfield), space food, and a space suit direct from NASA.
Here’s a recap of the 48 hours I spent at Space Camp this week.
The First Steps in Space
As Day One kicked off, nearly five hundred Space Campers descended into the general session area and were met with larger-than-life images of the galaxy brought to life on a seventy-five foot screen, all while dry ice rolled in across the floor. It really set the stage for an out-of-this-world couple of days.
When the smoke cleared, Michael Litt, co-founder and CEO of Vidyard took to the stage, encouraging attendees to adopt a beginner’s mind: to be open to exploring, discovering, and pushing the boundaries of their marketing knowledge. Michael talked about how the universe of marketing, and the role that video plays in it, has changed dramatically over the last twelve months.
Next in the pilot seat was Sourabh Kothari, who helped inspire marketers with the (inter)stellar work he and his team are doing at Cisco. I walked away from his session armed with his secrets for creating amazing video content. His number one tip: invest the time in script, and place a focus on storytelling. While ‘storytelling’ is all the rage (and a huge buzzword these days), the craft of telling stories well, in Sourabh’s opinion, often gets overlooked. Sourabh asserted that the quality of your video output isn’t a function of quality of your camera or how much money you spend on an agency, but on the quality of your writing and the strength of your team! Does your script tell a story? Is it authentic to your brand? These are the questions you should be asking yourself before ‘what camera should I buy’.
Wrapping up the morning was Colonel Chris Hadfield, former commander of the International Space Station. This session ended with the crowd on their feet and left the audience with chills. Chris described in beautiful detail what it’s like to leave our planet, orbit the earth at 17,500 miles per hour, live on the International Space Station, walk in space, and re-enter the atmosphere, hurtling towards the ground. But what really resonated with the modern marketers at Space Camp was hearing how Chris used art to bring the science of space travel down to earth. He talked about using media like Twitter, video, and music to connect with people around the world in real time about what he was experiencing in space. What I found particularly interesting was how the media available to him had changed dramatically over the three space flights he took. While he started out taking pictures on 35mm film and having to wait weeks before he could share that content down on earth, he ended up sharing pictures in real time, or live-streaming right from his iPad. Chris brought this point home by connecting his use of video in space to the opportunity that video offers today’s marketers: the chance to tell their stories in an authentic and engaging way to millions of customers and prospects around the world.
Before passing the shuttle controls back over to Michael, Chris treated the audience to a song off his upcoming album, and even played a few licks of David Bowie’s Space Oddity – the song that he recorded on video in space and that has since been viewed over twenty-six million times!
Bringing it All Back Down to Earth
The afternoon on day one was just as exciting as the morning. After a rationing and refuelling break (a.k.a. lunch), attendees started to learn how to bring the big ideas discussed in the morning sessions back down to earth.
The afternoon general session had Matt Heinz leading a terrific panel with marketers from Act-On, LinkedIn, Cetera Financial and HapnApp to talk about how these organizations are using video and what the future of video marketing might look like. One common theme across the panellists was their excitement to be able to deliver more personalized video experiences…but more on that in just a moment!
Rich Kline, VP of Solution Engineering at Salesforce, paid a visit to talk about how video and video analytics are used by solution engineers to scale demos, speed up deals, and focus on the right opportunities.
Day One also included a series of breakout sessions, hands-on training and video production workshops that allowed attendees to go deep into topics like: building the business case for thought leadership, measuring and maximizing the impact of video throughout the funnel, aligning your video strategy to each stage of the buyer journey, and how to produce creative video at scale and on a budget.
The Video Marketing Awards
Last on the agenda for Day One was the 2015 Video Marketing Awards (VMA) presentation. Unlike other awards that focus on just the creative work, the VMAs celebrated organizations and marketers using video to drive real business results and ROI. VMAs were handed out in eight categories that ranged from best-integrated video marketing campaign to biggest bang on the smallest budget. Award winners took home beautiful V-Bot VMA trophies along with a Canon Powershot G7x (along with bragging rights, of course). Stay tuned on our blog next week for a recap of all 8 VMA winners!
After a jam-packed Day One, all of the space campers needed to recharge a bit!
Day Two: The Future has Arrived
After a long trip through space and time to see what the future of video marketing holds, Vidyard’s very own intrepid astronauts Michael Litt and Devon Galloway returned to earth on Day Two of Space Camp to show marketers what the future of video marketing holds. And what they shared was out of this world (yes, I said it!).
Michael talked about how live events are playing a pivotal role in today’s B2B marketing strategies, and how marketers are looking for new ways to share those experiences beyond the limitations imposed by space and time. This led up to a very exciting announcement – Vidyard’s introduction of a new Live Streaming solution to allow marketers to stream video content while measuring viewer engagement. There were three features of Live Streaming I loved in particular (yeah, sure I’m biased). The first is how easy it is to set up compared with other live stream solutions. The next is that live streams are recorded automatically so that when a live streaming is done, it’s immediately available to view back in the same player. The last is that you can add an email gate during the live stream. This allows the viewer to develop an interest in the content before being prompted to enter some more information.
From Vidyard Live Streaming, Commanders Litt and Galloway turned to talking about how you can identify and measure viewer engagement. In another exciting announcement, Michael and Devon introduced a new Event Builder that will allow video marketers to add new email gates and forms pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-playback. Vidyard’s new Event Builder makes this easier than ever before, and allows marketers to capture new data points beyond email, like company name, job title, phone number, and more.
Michael and Devon also rolled out a new Vidyard feature called the Individual Contact Center. Devon described this feature as turning video analytics on its head. Whereas before video-viewing history was looked at on a per-video level, the new Individual Contact Center allows a marketer to go in and see all the video-viewing data for a single viewer, all in one place. This makes it possible to see what videos a prospect has watched, and how long they watched each one, allowing a marketer to better gauge their interest and intent to purchase.
Next up was an exciting announcement that moved video out of the realm of marketing and into the world of sales. Vidyard for Sales was introduced as a way to help sales reps get the right video content in the hands of the right prospects at the right moment. It breaks down the silos that exist between sales and marketing by making it easier for sales reps to find video content created by marketing and sales engineering, and then send that to a customer or prospect right from Salesforce. Reps are then able to measure and track how their prospect engages with that video content, right in the contact record. Talking to people after the session, I could see that they loved how Vidyard for Sales would help their organizations to scale the use of their best demo people. They were also excited about how this could speed up deals by making it quick and easy to send follow-up information after a sales call. And many saw the opportunity for this to help make sales teams more productive by allowing reps to quickly spot and focus on the best, highest potential opportunities.
The last announcement for the morning was, in my opinion, the most exciting of them all. Personalized Video from Vidyard makes it possible for information about the viewer (like their name, email address, company name, or job title) to be woven right into the content of the video itself. Michael introduced this new feature as a way to help cut through the inbox clutter we’re seeing today, and help build stronger one-to-one relationships with prospects on a mass scale. While this is incredibly cool, it’s not just a party trick. Michael went on to talk about how Vidyard saw a 16x jump in click-through rates on their email campaigns when including a video with a personalized thumbnail! It’s no surprise that Personalized Video got space campers buzzing on Day Two.
Day Two also saw Heidi Bullock, VP of Demand Generation at Marketo take the stage to talk about the importance of delivering the right message at the right time. In her session, Heidi gave the audience a rare, behind-the-scenes look at how they approach lead-scoring and content marketing at Marketo.
What followed on Day Two were another 25 breakout sessions, hands-on workshops, and training sessions! I’m just glad that all of the breakouts were recorded and will be available online because there was no way to be able to get to everything I wanted to see.
The Intergalactic Takeaways
So what were some of the key takeaways for me from Space Camp?
First was the importance of story. As more marketers compete for our attention with video, a well-told story will be the key to driving engagement. Whether it was Chris Hadfield talking about creating videos that you yourself would want to watch, or Sourabh talking about the importance of good writing, many sessions came back to the central theme of writing and telling stories authentic to you and your brand. Many of the speakers talked about the importance of authenticity, being yourself, and putting yourself in the shoes of your intended audience by asking yourself ‘would I want to watch this’?
Second was the ubiquity of video across the organization. It used to be that video was reserved for top-of-the-funnel brand assets created by marketing. Not so at Space Camp. From the diversity of the attendees and speakers to the sessions themselves, what was clear is that lots of people care about video today. Sales is making videos. HR is making videos. Training and support are making videos. Everyone is making videos! This is exciting, but it’s also scary for many as it means that companies needs to start thinking about video as a strategy, not just an isolated tactic.
From talking to other video marketing astronauts in attendance, there was a clear consensus that Space Camp was unlike any other marketing conference. It’s hard to put into words, so you’ll just have to wait for the recap video next week…or better yet, come on next year’s mission. It’s only T-minus 365 days away.
This is Space Camp Counsellor Gadway over and out.
The post Space Snacks, Real Astronauts, and Video Marketing: My 48 Hours at Space Camp appeared first on Vidyard.
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