Video is one of the most effective marketing tools today, yet many associations haven’t yet harnessed it to their best advantage. One widely held belief is that producing professional-quality videos is complicated, time consuming, and expensive. But it doesn’t have to be!
We sat down with Terry Nawrot, CEO and co-founder of VideoRequest, to learn more about how associations can create and deploy professional-quality videos for a wide range of applications — without spending an arm and a leg.
Before VideoRequest, Terry spent 12 years as the COO of Informz. iMIS was the first product Informz integrated into its platform, and that began Terry’s work with associations. When Informz was acquired by Higher Logic in 2017, Terry and Joe Tyler, Informz’s CEO and founder, left to start their own company. That company evolved into VideoRequest, which provides associations with a platform that makes creating and using videos easy and cost effective.
Why Video Is So Important for Associations
Video is one of the most effective means of communication on the internet. Because video combines imagery, audio, and text, you can share a lot of information quickly and effectively. The brain processes visuals thousands of times faster than text, and people retain those messages at a greater level.
Video offers an ideal vehicle for telling your story as well as putting a face to your association, which builds confidence and trust as people get a truer sense of your association’s mission, the people behind the organization, and those who benefit from it. “Videos are so strong, and relatable, because you can see the person’s face and their authenticity,” says Nawrot.
How Associations Use Video
Most businesses make their first foray into video with testimonials, but that only scratches the surface of video’s potential.
Support Membership Recruitment and Retention:
- Catch the attention of potential members with videos that share the association’s story, mission, and benefits.
- Streamline new member onboarding with videos that demonstrate your online member portal and all that can be done through it.
- Add a personal touch that new members will appreciate by sending a welcome video from your executive director. And send thank-you videos to express your appreciation for your members and teams and tell them how much you value them and their efforts.
- Reach out to lapsed members with videos that remind them of the benefits of membership and encourage them to rejoin.
Drive Event Promotion and Follow-Up: Videos provide a huge opportunity to increase event attendance and keep people engaged. Power up with video before, during, and after the event:
- Ask speakers to create videos with a quick synopsis or overview of their presentation, and then share those videos over social media and during pre-event registration.
- Reach out to specific attendees to introduce yourself and invite them to meet up at the event.
- Encourage exhibitors to create videos about their offerings, which you can share to let attendees know what they can expect to see. Here’s an example of what you can create to ask exhibitors — it’s only one minute long.
- Capture your chats with attendees during an event, both between sessions and on the tradeshow floor. These make engaging videos that can be used to promote future events.
- Encourage attendees to make their own videos and submit them for use in future promotions or post-event wrap-ups.
After your event, you’ll have plenty of on-site videos to use to show off everything that happened. And be sure to send thank you videos to sponsors, exhibitors, speakers, attendees, and even the venue that hosted you! Here’s an example of a thank you video.
Build Awareness: Wherever you share information about your association online, you can include videos.
- Create videos about everything — your mission, celebrations, upcoming events, and accomplishments (and those of individual members!). Share them on your social media pages, the association’s blog, and in its newsletter.
- Send video updates or newsletters to stay connected with current members and keep them up to date on what’s happening. Here’s an example from Michele Morgan, executive director of the iMIS Users Group — see how much information she shares in just four minutes.
VideoRequest Helps Associations
The benefits of using video are boundless, but if you’ve already had a less-than-stellar experience trying to produce videos, consider how VideoRequest overcomes the obstacles of making high-quality videos.
- “I’m not comfortable on camera.” With VideoRequest, you can turn a written testimonial into a video through the text-to-audio feature and layer the voice over a static image. Or have the text appear over an image — or multiple images.
- “I’d like to be on camera, but I get flustered when the camera starts rolling.” Use script prompts and teleprompters to practice before recording and refer to during recording, so they don’t lose track of their thoughts.
- “I don’t know what to say.” Start with questions to answer and begin a conversation. Then use ChatGPT, which is integrated into the platform, for help creating a script.
- “I don’t have the right equipment or setting.” All you need is natural light, either outdoors or by a window (to the side, not behind the person being recorded), and a cell phone or a fairly new laptop. Most of these devices have a good camera and mic for recording, and if the location isn’t picture perfect, VideoRequest provides virtual backgrounds that can be substituted.
And everything, from the audio to the lighting to speech blunders, can be tweaked in the editing process.
Use Video to Help Your Association Thrive
Creative and engaging videos are the ideal way to communicate with your current and potential members, sponsors, and other stakeholders, and using them can help your association flourish.
With the right tools, anyone can easily and cost-effectively record and edit high-quality videos your association can share through email, social media, newsletters, and other outlets. If you’re looking for help, you can find out more about VideoRequest through their website, or visit them at an upcoming association conference.
Is your association using video as part of its marketing or communications strategy? We’d love to hear about your experiences.