I’m currently doing some work for a small company out of Indiana who created a wicked cool marketing tool. This needs to be checked out by any business that uses or creates video.
Most companies understand the concept of uploading the annual company video to a YouTube account. And anyone who watches TV commercials understands the value of a message that is well-communicated with video.
But since 2005, a small team of computer science grads from Purdue have been helping tech-savvy companies use web video as a communications tool, but only for private correspondence between groups or individuals. The company is Covideo and the service they provide is video email.
Covideo’s customers primarily use video email for four things:
1) Help teams solve complex problems when they’re working apart from each other (i.e. interior designer emails a painting issue to the carpenter).
2) Help executives humanize their messages to employees (CEO sets the record straight on a controversial issue).
3) Help business development people make their pitches more personal (An utility company shows a prospective partner their new facility).
4) Show customers that everything’s going ok (a dog kennel shows a family their pet is doing fine while they’re away).
Most video people think of movies and TV commercials as the ultimate application of video. But with production costs becoming more affordable than ever (tracks in our production music library start at $9.99), why not consider on making good videos designed to be used only within a “closed funnel of communication”? Most of us have received more than a hundred emails just today. But I’ll bet none of those emails has a thumbnail image inside that points to a personalized video saying, “Hey, Mike. Just wanted to show you what we’re up to today at XYZ firm (cue awesome production music track).”
That’s pretty cutting edge.
The next time your video client asks you about ways to market your video. Definitely consider mentioning video mail to them.
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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 17,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com. 
