You’ve been tasked with the job of helping your team with technology adoption. You need them to start incorporating video email software into their workflow. There’s a chance you were involved in all of the meetings leading up to the decision. You could have even tried out the product during the pilot. Unfortunately, you also might be learning about this product for the first time.
New technology can be extremely intimidating for you and your team. According to a Forbes Insights and PMI survey of more than 500 executives, more than a third—38%—of respondents say their employees see change as too much of a threat [Forbes.] This might be because they know that they can successfully do their job with the current technology that they have in place. They are worried if they add a new process into the mix, that they will be much more likely to make a mistake. [WSJ.]
Employees also fear technology because they worry it could replace their jobs. A Pew Research study reveals that 48% of experts “envision a future in which robots and digital agents have displaced significant numbers of both blue- and white-collar workers” [Pew.] But there are important, differentiating things a robot just cannot replace: Your smiling face, your attitude, your conviction, and the relationship you stand to create. No matter how automated our work lives get, personal relationships will always win. Video is your team’s chance to bring themselves back into their faceless communication, and the sooner this fact is realized, the better off your team will be. And it’s not just a fad, there are many companies that have been using video email for years now and they will never go back to the way things were before they implemented this solution.
Even so, we understand the predicament you’re in and we want to come alongside you and help you get your team to successfully adopt BombBomb video email. Below you’ll find seven tips on how to get your team excited about video, and see the results that they need to see in order to help them realize its ROI, and continue to use it daily.
Video Technology Adoption Tip 1: Get Your Team Behind the Movement
Video email software is so much more than just a way to save you and your team time, and get you more business. It’s your opportunity to work past faceless, digital communication, and put your true authentic selves back into your messaging. Think about it. How many times you have sent or received an angry text message or email that you know would have never happened if you were face-to-face with that person? Hiding behind a screen makes us act less like ourselves.
When you first introduce your team to video email, make sure they fully understand the video movement. The power of authenticity. The opportunity that they have to make their email inbox fun again. Because it’s their true selves that will attract these clients, improve their customer experience, and in turn land them more deals. Video is just there to help them get that face-to-face interaction.
It would be even more helpful for you if you could get individuals from your C-Suite to back the video movement, and help you introduce it to your team. Adoption of a new form of technology is a big change for your organization. When researching change management we found a survey by Forbes Insights. According to the survey, “84% of employees surveyed view CEOs as champions of change, the driving force behind a culture that supports organizational agility and embraces new technologies. C-level technology executives also can play a role in digital transformation success: Eight in 10 respondents credit COOs and CTOs for recognizing the importance of the role of change management in disruption.” [Forbes.]
Video Technology Adoption Tip 2: Use your partner as a resource
As soon as you are handed off to your Customer Success Manager, make sure you work to establish a solid relationship with them. Good software companies will make sure that both your Enterprise Account Executive, and your Customer Success Manager knows and understands your team’s specific top level goals. Your Customer Success Manager is your biggest supporter. They want you to succeed and they will equip you with the tools you’ll need to be successful. Ask them for specific use cases that will help your team meet their goals. See what type of personalized training webinars they can provide you.
According to Forbes, “80 percent of your results will likely be driven by just 20 percent of the features and functionality” [Forbes.] When working with your Customer Success Manager, make sure they begin by only focusing on the features that can help you meet your specific goals quickly. Take the features one step at a time. Once your team gets more familiar with these features, expand your horizons.
Video Technology Adoption Tip 3: Integrate video email into your current systems
High caliber video email systems should all have integrations with many of the software solutions that your teams are already using. For example, at BombBomb we have thorough integrations with Gmail, Outlook, Apple, Android, Salesforce, Outreach, and Zendesk to name a few. These integrations make it easier for our customers to use our product because it’s not as much of a disruption to their workflow. In most cases, your Customer Success Manager will be happy to help guide you and your team through how to setup your integrations.
We also have a ton of support videos and articles on how to install each of these integrations. You can watch them all below. If you’d like to see all of our integrations, click here.
Video Technology Adoption Tip 4: Start with Pre-Recorded Videos
The number one reason why people struggle with video is because they just feel uncomfortable on camera. This is totally understandable. We all have to move through this hurdle in order to push past the fear and see the benefits of video email. We have a ton of great content around this topic that we definitely recommend checking out (including this webinar.) But one of our favorite, easy to implement tips that we tell our clients is to do is start with pre-recorded videos.
In most cases, all people need to see to start successfully using the product is results. The first time our customers receive a response from their clients about how much they loved their video, or they successfully land a deal with video, or they even coach a client through a hard to explain situation – they will see the benefits of simple video, and push through their fear faster.
Have your team create simple videos around common topics they often handle. This can be an introduction video to that can be automatically sent out to a new inbound lead. Or an instructional video on how to use a specific product or feature. It could even be a video that shows how to sign digital documents. Have your team spend time creating three videos that they can reuse over and over again, and send those out alongside their text emails.
Do you have videos you’ve already produced? This is a great opportunity to test out video. Simply embed those pre-made videos into your emails and systems, and wait for the results. As soon as your team gets a response, or sees success from the pre-recorded / pre-made videos, they will see the value in video emails, and feel more comfortable sending personalized messages.
Technology Adoption Tip 5 : Let your A Players get personal
When you are first tasked with getting you team to implement video, start with a small group of users. These users should definitely be your top performers that have a strong influence in your organization. Getting these team members on board first will help you “coach others on how to use the tool to their benefit” [HBR.]
These influencers don’t even have to be technological wizards. In fact, it’s probably more helpful if you choose people who will have to overcome a bit of fear in order to use the product successfully. That way, they can speak to pain points that your other team members will feel from direct experience.
It is SO important that you do everything you possibly can do to come along these influencers to make sure that they are successful. Your A Players will become the initial users that if onboarded successfully, can eventually become “references and internal case studies when you move forward to subsequent phases of deployment ” [Forbes.]
Video Technology Adoption Tip 5: Celebrate small wins
Once you have your influencers onboard and seeing success, celebrate the small wins that they begin to see and broadcast them to the organization. So let’s first start out by defining what a small win would be with video. To start, celebrate number of videos sent. The more videos your team sends, the more likely they will be to get the positive reaction they need to keep sending videos. In your morning meetings, ask your team to report on video count alongside their other KPIs and applaud the influencers who are really using the product.
Once your team is sending videos – then get them to better understand video tracking. At BombBomb we track email opens, link clicks, and plays. Have them keep an eye on their dashboard to see their total number of videos sent, email opens, and plays. At BombBomb, we know that one way we can help our customers see more success, is by giving their customers the ability to give them instant positive feedback with ease. Through our Re/Actions feature, your video recipients will be able to “heart” and respond quickly to your video inside the video itself. A positive Re/Action is a great small win to celebrate!
Video counts, initial positive replies (re/actions), understanding tracking and analytics video plays, best animated thumbnails, share excited replies.
Video Technology Adoption Tip 6: Broaden success to the entire team
This is the moment where the success you see from your A players will really come into play. Once they are seeing success from their videos, and have bought into the technology, you can expand the product to the rest of your team. But make sure you’re prepared first.
Meet with your A Players and go over the videos they’ve sent. What types of videos are they sending most? Which videos have gotten the best response? Create a library of these videos that your team can access when they start incorporating video into their workflow.
Another great tip is to create a space (like Slack, or a LinkedIn or Facebook Group) where your team can communicate positive video responses with one another. It can be something as simple as “Wow Alli – I love the fact that you took the time to create this personalized video for me. Thank you so much!” Or even something as elaborate as a celebratory video reply. BombBomb has a “reply-with-video” feature that will allow your recipients to actually respond to your videos with a video – even if they aren’t using our services. These videos and responses will motivate your team, and help them feel proud of the customer experience your company is providing.
Video Technology Adoption Tip 7: Incentivize usage
This is a simple way to get your team excited about video quickly. Incentives of course will take some resources in order to make them successful, but once your team is using video, seeing results, and saving time, it will be well worth the investment! The quickest way to do this is by awarding prizes for highest weekly video count.
A more creative way to incentivize your team is to ask them each to submit their top video each week. At the end of the week, call a team meeting and watch the videos together. Ask the crowd what they believe made this video successful. How could they implement these strategies into their videos? Then have the entire team vote on their favorite video and give out a gift card or another exciting prize to the winner.
You can use this same process for animated GIFs. These GIFs are automatically created in BombBomb as the first 3 seconds of your video and they run as a loop. These GIFs are important because they will help increase your team’s chances of their videos being opened or played. Think about animated previews and thumbnails as your new subject line. It’s how your team will be able to get more attention. Below you’ll see some of our favorite, and most successful animated GIFs. Introduce these GIFs to your team and challenge them to create their own. Just like the video quality contest, have the entire team vote on their favorite video and give out a gift card or another exciting prize to the winner.
Want to Implement video with your team?
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