Wordtracker’s smart use of video for sales support.

 Why doesn’t every company do this?

Wordtracker is a UK based company that develops web tools to help website owners identify key words and phrases to incorporate in their website to attract visitors. I recently signed up for a free seven day trial of their service. Like many web-based services today it is well designed, relatively easy to use and given the right amount of time and patience I could probably make good use of it. Having limited amounts of both I was very impressed to see that the initial ‘welcome to our service’ email notification also included an invitation to receive seven consecutive once-a-day mailings that would provide me with video-based tips on how to make the most out of this service.

I am currently on day two of my four minutes a day training and so far I am very impressed.  This is a great way to help people get the most out of a service and an even better way of gently moving them along the buying cycle. I wonder why every company doesn’t do this?

It’s easy to do, it provides tremendous value and I’m certain that it helps move people along the adoption curve. If you consider the cost of  creating post sale (or in this case – during sale) video-based help and training compared to the cost of everything that has gone on before it – the research , the development, the marketing etc. this last mile of effort could have a relatively huge affect on the final purchase decision. Or put another way – contrast the cost ratio of creating this support media (probably 1/100th of one percent of the total cost of the service) compared to the conversion rate (I would guess that this extra bit of training / support / nudging moves at least 10% of those considering buying after the trial to actually making the purchase) then creating these types of sales support services seems to be a no-brainer.

I remember many years ago doing some usability testing for a web-based service that a customer was using and being shocked that this particular user was only aware of about 50% of the capability of the service. They were ecstatic to find out that the service actually provided a whole lot more value. Then I wondered how many more people there were just like this customer. We decided to create and distribute post-sale material to ensure that every user was making the most of the service.