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Hello Method Users!
Thank you for taking the time to read a new iteration of our weekly Method Blog posts. I’m fairly new to the Method blog, but as a member of the Community Support Team, you may have had the pleasure of speaking with me already ;)
Today, I will provide a 'How-To' on something that a few Method:CRM users have contacted Support about during setup: importing Customers and Contacts into Method:CRM using the built-in Method Import/Export tool.
It’s quite common for new Method Users to have a spreadsheet containing the Customers information they wish to bring into Method. Well, this is how to do it!
Customers and Contacts within Method
To begin, I want to touch on the relationship between Customers and Contacts within Method, as this will help you understand the process involved in importing your external lists.
Each Customer must be assigned a Contact - when you add a Customer from within Method, you’re also creating the main Contact for that customer at the same time! While it’s possible to have standalone Contacts in Method, it’s recommended that you assign any of these wayward Contacts to a Customer.
What this means is in order to import your Contacts into Method, you first need to import your Customers. If you currently have one giant list containing all your Customer/Contacts, it would be helpful to separate them into two lists: one for Customers, and one for Contacts.
Now Let’s Create and Import Some Customers!
To start, I will glance at the “New Customer” screen in Method to give me some hints on what fields are mandatory, and what other fields I might want to use when importing.
You can see above that we are required at minimum to include the Customer Name and Contact fields (note that the Customer Name field on the New/Edit Customer screen is actually the “Name” field in the Customer Table). With this information we can modify our Customer list to include all wanted and mandatory fields. Make note that I did this example for a QuickBooks Desktop account, if using QuickBooks Online, the “Contact” field is no longer mandatory, however “First Name” field would be.
Here is an example of our Customer Spreadsheet, for a Desktop account.
Now that we have created our Customer List, we can use the Method Import/Export tool to import this into the Customer Table (again, refer to this article on importing/exporting).
Awesome - we are done with our Customer List. Below is what my updated Customer grid looks like:
Now let’s tackle our Contacts.
To start, take a look at the Edit Contacts screen in order to figure out what fields are required, and what other fields we want to include when importing. Screen shot below:
As you can see from the above screenshot, the only mandatory field for a Contact is “Name”. You are probably thinking “Okay, so how would just adding a value to the “Name” field link my new Contact to an existing Customer?” That’s easy - it won’t. If you were to add a Contact from within Method using the New Contact screen, you would do it through a Customer record.
Because of this setup, Method has some magic going on in the background, linking your Contact to the Customer you already have open. What’s great is that this really isn’t magic: Method is simply writing to one additional field for each Contact in your Contacts Table, “Entity”. The “Entity” field for the Contacts table is actually the “Full Name” field from Customer table. If you take a look at the New/Edit Customer screen, this is the value at the top of the screen.
Side note: the “Full Name” field is actually the “Name” field from the Customer table, plus the value of the parent Full Name field. I am not going to expand on this right now, but it’s worth knowing if you will also be dealing with “Jobs of Customers”.
All right, let’s create our Contacts list.
Check out the image below: it’s an example of the mandatory fields, the magic field (Entity), and some other common Contact fields. Because I only created two Customers in the above step, I am importing these eight contacts to these two Customers:
When you are happy with your list, go to the Method Import/Export tool and import those Contacts (as you did with the Customer list earlier).
That’s it!
Hopefully you have wandered back to your Customers and Contacts List screen and noticed that your Records count at the bottom left-hand side of the grid has increased. If not, make sure to refresh your grid by using the refresh button at the bottom-right side of the grid.
I will mention one last item: although I didn’t discuss importing Leads into Method, the process is virtually identical to importing your Customers. The only difference when dealing with leads is that you must import your Customers List to the “Customer Leads” table when using the Import/Export Tool.
Thanks for dropping by! We hope you found this post useful. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them as comments below, or you can always ask some questions through our Community Forums, or tweet us @MethodCRMSincerely,
Socialize with the Method:CRM Team!
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On behalf of the Method Team, I’d like to wish everyone a happy holiday season! May your holidays be filled with love, joy and laughter as you celebrate the season with your loved ones.
If you plan on reaching The Method Team during the holidays, please take note of our holiday hours:
Tueaday, December 24th (Christmas Eve): Office will be closed after 4:00pm EST
Wednesday, December 25th (Christmas Day): Office Closed
Thursday, December 26th (Boxing Day in Canada): Office Closed
Tuesday, December 31st (New Year’s Eve): Office will be closed after 4:00pm EST
Wednesday, January 1st (New Year’s Day): Office Closed
Have a safe and joyous holiday season, and we'll be in touch in the New Year!
Lynda 
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Allo and Happy Holidays!
Wow! Not only have I not blogged in a while, this will be my last blog of the year! Have I been working on things? Yes! I have! And I will hope to get them out before the year ends.
However, I need to share a video with you! A Happy Holiday video that Alex, the documentation guy, made with me! Alex decided he wanted to get in on all the video tutorial fun so we did a joint one:
It was a lot of fun to make! I think my office mates were wondering why we were yelling in the next room.
Anyway, what is coming up? Well, I am working on new Field Service videos and I am hoping those will get done before holidays hit! And we are also converting the webinars that required the GoToMeeting codec to normal youtube videos!
What does that mean? Remember the webinar page that we had (which has now been moved to the help center)? Well, a few of those videos required a codec in order to be viewed. We’re converting them so that you can now view it on YouTube and not worry about downloading and installing anything on your computer! Huzzah!
For a sneak peak, we've converted all the Customization Webinars and they are now available as a playlist on YouTube.
 Soon you will not need the Codec to watch our Webinars!
Anyway, we’ll definitely keep you posted, and follow @MethodCRM on Twitter or Facebook because they always announce things that are happening!
Take care, and I hope you have a great winter holiday!
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Rebranding a company is one of the most exhilarating and challenging aspects of running a business. If you get it right, it brings an intangible aura to your business (think Apple). If you get it wrong, it’s hard to fix and you won’t win as much business as you could have. Strong brand = greater trust.
For Method, rebranding was a process that started with understanding why you, our customers, choose to do business with us in the first place. Why do you trust us? What benefit did Method bring to your small or mid-size business?
What we learned, from speaking with many of you, is you go through a journey with Method.
Often, you’ll start a free trial because you use QuickBooks and you’ve heard Method’s QB sync is amazing and our Support Team is outstanding. But that’s just the beginning… once you start using Method and seeing the time you save when your financial data and CRM data are in perfect harmony, you then start some simple customization. That’s when lightning strikes. You see how easy it is to customize Method with drag and drop tools (yes, no code required!) so that your CRM matches your unique workflows and business needs.
John W. from Dean Markley (maker of guitar strings) gave us an example of this. He told us how a senior executive at his company now saves 3 to 4 hours a day (yes - 3 to 4 hours every day!) because they were able to automate tasks and reporting that used to be done manually. Many of you gave similar examples of how customizing Method has made you and your team so much more efficient.
And here’s the thing about customization with Method’s platform. There are no limits. It’s endless. The possibilities are infinite. That insight from you, our customers, lead us to our new logo:
Ron, Method’s Ambassador of Awesome Design and the creator of this logo, says:
“We wanted to bring in the idea of infinite possibilities without having a separate icon, and we wanted that connection right inside the word “Method”. We achieved it by connecting the “o” and the “d” as an infinity symbol. In terms of color, we chose the dark blue because our customers see it inside the app all day, so it has to be easy on the eyes, and it’s a calming colour. This darker, warmer shade is also different and stands out from the cooler blue that’s popular on many of today’s websites.”
What do you think of Method’s new brand? We’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below, or tweet us @MethodCRM.
In my next post I’ll talk about the principles we used to redesign our new website and how you can leverage them for your business. In the meantime, please Take a Tour and let us know what you think.
We hope 2014 is full of possibilities for you, your family, and your business.
Happy Holidays!
Jamil
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Hello fellow Method users,
I’m happy to announce that report screens are now live in your Method accounts! We have added report screens for Leads, Customers, Activities, Opportunities, and Cases for both QuickBook Online and QuickBook Desktop users of Method.
The new screens have three options for reports Quick Report, Advanced, and Custom.
QUICK REPORT
This option generates a report with pre-defined filters. For example, the Leads Quick Report will give you a list of the logged-in user’s active leads, and the Activities Quick Report report will give you a report of the logged-in users pending activities due on or before today.
ADVANCED:
Depending on the type of report you’d like to generate, this option gives you the ability to add grouping or additional details to your report (Step 2: Add Reports Details). It also gives you the ability to add filters to the report (Step 3: Add Filters)
CUSTOM:
Allows you to choose a report (Step 2: Choose Custom Report) and apply the filters options built into the screen (Step 3: Add Filters) to the selected report. For example, if I created a custom Opportunity report I would be able to select it and apply filters to it.
These reports will give users an easy way to extract data from Method, and can also serve as a blueprint for creating additional reports and reporting options tailored to your specific business needs.
Hope you enjoy the reports!
Cheers,
Michael
Connect with us!
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If you’re a small business owner, you are most likely involved in almost all aspects of your business, which can often result in an overloaded email inbox. In fact, for many business owners, the inbox has gone from being an effective means of communication to a huge source of day-to-day anxiety.
If you get into the office and your first thought is “Oh no, I don’t want to open my inbox!” it’s time to change the unhealthy relationship you have with your email. Here are some strategies that are worth considering.
#1: Manage Communication Expectations
In our world of instant communication, it’s easy to feel obligated to get back to someone right away, but that doesn’t have to be the case with email. Consider that by replying to an email immediately, you are setting a precedent that says you are perpetually available to anyone at any time of day. If you have a systematic approach to your inbox and managing your email (which means prioritizing messages and getting back to them in due course, not all at once) not only will you reaffirm that you’re a busy business owner (which you are!), but you will also manage expectations for communications in the future.
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh said his inbox “felt like a never-ending treadmill”, so he developed the Yesterbox System, where he primarily focuses on the emails he received the day prior.
#2: Stay Out of Your Inbox
In his book The 4 Hour Work Week Method Timothy Ferriss calls email “the greatest interruption in the modern word”, and promotes an avoidance strategy when it comes to your inbox. Ferriss recommends only checking your email twice per day: once at noon, and again at 4pm. And, interestingly enough, he also advises to never check email first thing in the morning - which is exactly what you do, isn’t it?
If you’re interested in testing out this strategy, try an auto-response email template to advise people of your process. In this “Out-of-Inbox” notification you can also provide a way of contacting you in the case of an emergency (but who really uses email in the case of a real emergency?)
"Thank you for your email. I only check my email twice a day, so I appreciate your patience in receiving my reply.”
#3: Establish a Healthy E-mail Culture
Is your team using email as an instant messaging tool? If they are, it’s no wonder you’re feeling overwhelmed! Limiting how email is used within your company is a great way to cut down on inbox overload. Studies have shown that productivity tends to go up when your employees are using instant messaging or internal social network programs (like Skype or Google Chat) instead of email for real-time communication. Don’t be afraid to encourage a “less is more” email policy - everyone’s inbox will benefit.
#4: Avoid Open-Ended Questions in Emails
If you are arranging a meeting time, don’t ask open-ended questions in an email that might result in unnecessary back-and-forth. Instead of writing “Let’s meet this week - when are you free?”, try being more proactive so only one response email is required: “Let’s meet this week. I’m available Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday between 2pm and 5pm. Let me know if any of those times work for you, and if so, which one.”
#5: Embrace the FYI
If you are sending someone an email with the intent of informing or sharing something, start your subject line or the first sentence in the email with “FYI” (for your information) and end your email with “NRN” (No Reply Needed). This can really become a saving grace in avoiding multiple replies when you’re sending something to your whole team.
#6: Unsubscribe or Use Unroll.me
If your inbox is full of subscription-based emails or spam, simply search “unsubscribe” within your account to find all the senders to unsubscribe from. You can also create an account with Unroll.me, that rounds up all subscription-type emails for you to either unsubscribe from or decide on the frequency of your Unroll.me Daily Digest.
#7: Stop Sending Emails
The simplest way to reduce the number of received daily emails is to encourage your team not to use email. At your next team meeting, propose a reduction in the use of email, or maybe just send everyone this funny workflow - I’m sure they will get the hint :)
Do you have your own techniques for avoiding inbox overload? Tweet at me @MethodCRM
Until next time,
Lynda
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Every year I run a hockey playoff pool with some of my friends (yeah, yeah, we like hockey in Canada). As the amount of people in the pool grew each year, it became increasingly hard to hold a live draft. It was impossible to have everyone in the same place, at the same time (or even online at the same time)!
Naturally, to address this pain point, I made an app in Method. I created a Hockey Pool portal and gave each of my friends access so they could log in and draft a player when it was their turn. No hassles! Here’s what it looked like:
 My
Awesome right?!
Everyone in the pool can log into their account, and see their own Statistics, their own Team List, their own Draft Order, and they can manage which players they want to pick next with the On Deck feature.
I’ve included a grid that filters out players that have already been selected, and the Draft Player button only works when it’s actually your turn! When it is your turn, the Draft Player button opens a pop-up window, which looks like this:
The Draft Player button on this screen not only drafts your selected player to your team, but also removes them from the Players Remaining grid, removes them from all decks, adds them to the pool’s draft order (which can be generated as a report), sets the next user’s turn, and even sends them an email notifying them that it’s their turn!
In order to set this up, I imported all of the player data I needed into a new table that I called NHLPlayers. I used fields such as Goals, Position, and Team. In order to keep my hockey data separate from the rest of Method, I also created my own users table called HockeyPoolUsers.
Here is where I stored the data for my hockey pool friends such as Email, UserName, and Password. The cool thing is that these are not Method users, just users for my Hockey Pool portal, so no additional licenses are needed!
This is not only great for hockey, but the same principles could be applied to make an NFL football pool (for all our American friends). It doesn’t stop there either. I feel like I’m only scratching the surface because so far my app can only manage the draft.
My next goal is to use a Call Web Service action to update all the real time player stats and pool standings with the click of a button! Is this possible? I’m not sure, because I haven’t found a web service yet that will send me the data.
When I find one, you’ll be the first to know!
Jason
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Greetings Method Community!
This week I hope you'll find time to take a break from your hard work, relax with friends and family, and enjoy all that Thanksgiving has to offer.
I asked my fellow Method friends what they were thankful for, and altough many voiced their gratitude towards various foods, what everyone here expressed the most was how grateful they were for you - our customers and resellers.
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving and if you need us, we' ll be here this week during regular office hours . 
From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU for choosing Method CRM as your Customer Relationship Management platform!
What are you most thankful for? Tweet me at @MethodCRM - I'd love to hear from you!
Until next time,
Lynda 
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Hello again Method users; it’s Alex (your friendly neighbourhood documentation specialist), here again with more good news for those of you pining for some down-to-earth Method support. I’m pleased to announce that even more documentation has recently been added to our Help Center (courtesy of yours truly), including a full section detailing Campaigns, and a section we're calling Common Lists. The articles in this section focus mostly on transaction-related screens, including how to create and edit Invoices, Estimates, Sales reps, and Sales receipts, plus a whole lot more.
But why put these in a separate section when almost everybody accesses those screens through the Customers tab, a savvy Method user may ask. Well, savvy Method user, since you’re so savvy you’re no doubt aware that all these screens can be accessed from a variety of different places throughout the Method environment. But not every user is quite as savvy as you (at least, not yet!) A user who regularly accesses estimates from the Leads tab, for example, might not think to look for our Estimates documentation in the Customers section of the Help Center. So, we’ve given a whole section of the Help Center over to these screens in the interest of making it easier to locate the information you need, when you need it.
And on that topic, I’d like to bring up something else. During my time here at Method, I have learned a great deal about CRM and what it means to small businesses. My father was (and still is) a small business owner, so I have some idea of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs striking out on their own. I sincerely believe (and not just because it’s my job) that Method offers extremely useful solutions for small businesses of all stripes, and I want all our users to be able to make the most of these solutions.
To that end, I entreat each of you to get in touch with me (yes, me personally) with your questions, comments, and feedback regarding our documentation. If something doesn’t work, or doesn’t make sense, I want to hear about it! If something made your life easier, I definitely want to hear about that (writer’s ego, you understand), but joking aside, I want to make sure your experience with our technical documentation is as smooth and helpful as possible. And that goes for videos too: Errol and I can only improve our service to you if we know what’s working and, more importantly, what isn’t.
So feel free to drop us a line anytime at documentation@method.me. We will respond to you just as fast as we can (and that’s pretty fast). We look forward to hearing from you!
All the best for a happy November,
Alex Krueger
Documentation Specialist
Method CRM
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This is a guest blog by Advanced Certified Consultant and Method Solution Provider, Mark Crews.
The Cloud Consultancy team is just back from the 1st Method Solution Providers (MSPs) Retreat, adeptly run by Scaling New Heights. Over the course of the retreat, we had a chance to preview the next generation of Method, and participate in many jam-packed, cutting-edge sessions presented by the Method team, as well as other MSPs. We loved the chance to informally network with our fellow MSPs and spend three days immersed in Method. The best part though, was getting to see the future of Method CRM.
Joe Woodard and Paul Jackson, Method’s CEO, kicked off the retreat with keynote presentations. Paul coined the concept of “frankensteining” or putting together a business system made from many different applications which may or may not work well together. Naturally, Method is the antidote, since it can provide the functionality of many different apps, and reduces the number of moving pieces. Paul unveiled the new Method logo, which incorporates the infinity sign, reflecting the infinite possibilities of Method. Finally, his keynote included what we were all waiting for, a sneak peak at the new version, known as V2, and a timeline for its release. Method users should be excited to know that V2 Mobile Beta will be available soon.
The developers at Method have been hard at work on the next generation platform over the last year, and it shows. It’s built on a proprietary markup language using HTML5, taking advantage of the latest in web technology. For the first time, Method screens really are true web pages, with all the power that implies. The User Interface (UI) is greatly simplified, which will lead to easier adoption for new users, and it is slick and fast. Of course it is responsive, allowing designs to work equally well on any device: mobile, tablet, desktop. Under the hood, we have all the great drag and drop design tools that have made Method such an awesome platform for creating custom applications, but V2 goes even farther with some advanced filtering and expressions, which gives us more power as developers. Method gave all the attendees a demo account to play with V2, and the designer is as slick as the user interface, making it a joy to use.
The sessions then broke up into two groups - new Method Solution Providers training for Method certification for the first time, and a post-certification track for advanced developers. Paul and his team presented topics ranging from Marketing to UI Design to Advanced Report Designer tricks, and many of the sessions included peeks into the capabilities of the new version. Throughout all sessions, the Method team reiterated their core vision for V2 - rapid, responsive, and a radical new approach to business software, which seeks to unify all the different areas of a business - marketing, sales, accounting and management reporting - on one platform.
We also had some great joint sessions: Selling Method, an open forum sparked by a conversation with three long-time MSPs, Robin Hall of VARC, Matt Raiser of Tech in the Field and Gale Kirsopp of Kirsopp Consulting, and Consulting Legalities, presented by Joe Woodard. Cloud Consultancy really enjoyed participating in the Advanced Think Tank, where the post-certification group had a series of open discussions led by different MSPs: Database Naming conventions, using Method on QBO vs QB desktop, UI design principles (led by Carol Oliver of Woodard Consulting) and a continuation of the selling discussion (led by Robin Hall).
Those MSP’s who missed the retreat should be able to access some of the presentations in the MSP only V2 forum. Three days went by very quickly! Thanks to the Scaling New Heights team, Joe Woodard, Ardel Strother and the ever capable Wendy Rohrssen, the event was a great success and return on investment for everyone who attended. We can’t wait for the next retreat, but in the meantime, we have V2 to assimilate and look forward to implementing, soon!
Mark Crews
Cloud Consultancy
Mark is an Advanced Certified Consultant and Account Manager for Method CRM, accorded “Guru Status”. His experiences have garnered the Method CRM Partner of the Year and Community Excellence awards. Mark is also an avid music fan and the founding member of Cloud Consultancy, which was born when he found partners who share his passion for software development, cloud computing, Method CRM, and just having fun.
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Allo, and welcome to Method’s weekly blog! Or is it bi-weekly now? I’m not sure! Anyway, today is Halloween so a few people from Method dressed up. (I dressed up as a cat because my daughter wanted me to wear ears.)
 Like our T-Shirts?
Also, I recorded myself pretending to be a cat with Alex, who dressed up as ‘Grumpy Dad’ because his son kept him up way later than should be legal.
Of course, you probably aren’t here to watch cat videos, or at least, you don’t reference this blog as a source of cat videos. What I do have for you are more tutorial videos!
In this series, we take a look at Cases. In fact, I help Bob Crenshaw through a problem he is having with his pen. I’ve heard that this is one of my more tame videos, at least that’s what the folks around the office says, so judge for yourself!
Anyway, they’ve been handing candy out at the office, and this is not really good for lack of will, so I guess I’m going back to the kitchen to get some. I hope you guys have a great weekend, and hey, tweet me your costume at @Method_Elumir!
I hope you have a great day, bye bye!
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Hi there again, it’s Adam from the Support Team. Today, I’m going to talk about Sharing.
Now I don’t mean the sharing you were taught in school, like sharing your Halloween candy. You should always share your Halloween candy - especially with me! The sharing I’m talking about relates to how you share your Customers, Transactions, Activities and other records in Method. As an Administrator for your Method Account, you can determine how your Method users access and share records with each other. Isn’t that great?
In Method CRM, most records contain an “Assigned To” or a Rep field. These fields designate who these records belong to and are used to determine how they are shared throughout the Method Account. When you edit your Users (found under Customize > Users), in Step 6 of 10 of the Edit User wizard, you can determine which Users can see which records. Also note that your Customers are assigned Sales Reps, and in order to assign them to a Method user, you must first link your Method users to a Sales Rep. This can be done on Step 1 of the Edit User wizard.
To explain the options available, let’s assume we are setting up our Method account with 4 Users. Firstly, we have an Administrator, let’s call him Adam, who can access all records. Secondly, a Manager (Joe) who can access Adam’s records as well as those of his two staff members, and the two staff members (Sidney and Tim) who will only see their own records.
Let’s first look at the setup for Sidney and Tim. Each member will have nearly identical settings. See the screen below for staff member Sidney’s setup:
I’ve set Sidney to see “Empty Records” and “Missing Assignments”. This will allow her to assign Customers and other records to herself or another user if the records are unassigned. I’ll set the other Users with these options also. I’ve also left “Share All Records” unchecked. If this was checked, Sidney would be sharing all of her records in Method with every other User.
Below are the sharing permissions I’ve set for each Method user as they relate to Sidney. Notice that Adam, the Administrator, can access Sidney’s records since he can access everything as an administrator; however, Sidney (staff) cannot access Adam’s. Next we have Joe, the Manager, who can also access Sidney’s records, and again, Sidney cannot see Joe’s records. The last user is Tim. He is set to share “none”, so that he cannot see Sidney’s records and Sidney cannot see his.
To set Tim up as a User (the other Staff member), the same settings would apply.
Let’s next look at Joe. Since Joe is a Manager, we want him to see his two staff members, Tim and Sidney, as well as Adam’s.
Notice that the setting for Adam says “Full: Joe and Adam share with each other”. This means that Joe and Adam can see each other’s records. Next, for Sidney and Tim, Joe can access their records, but they cannot access his. This is likely already set, since you have previously configured this step when setting up Sidney and Tim.
Finally, let’s take a look at Adam, the Administrator. We want Adam to access everyone’s records, but only have Joe access Adam’s. See below:
For the three users, Adam is set to access their records, with only Joe set to Full Access. Again, this will likely already be set while you were setting the permissions for the other Users. Remember, as an Admin, you can change these settings any time, as your business needs change.
If you have any questions, please post in the comments, our Forums, or send us a tweet @MethodCRM!
Did you know that we are also up for the PwC People's Choice Award? To help us get on the Vision to Reality Award night podium, click here to vote for Method CRM on twitter.
Until next time!
Adam
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It may not yet be New Years Eve, but we’re popping champagne at Method HQ!
Thanks to you, our Method CRM community, we are finalists in the PwC Vision to Reality Awards.
As you may have read in our previous blog post, it was really exciting just to be short listed, so you can imagine how thrilled we were to see our name as one of the PwC 2013 Finalists. But at Method, we're always striving for more - on November 7th, PwC will be be presenting the People’s Choice Award and we’ve got our eye on the prize.
We appreciate your support in making Method CRM a finalist and we would REALLY love your support in getting the People's Choice Award. PwC will determine the winner of the People's Choice Award directly through social media votes using the hashtage #V2R.
To help us get on the Vision to Reality Award night podium, click here to vote for Method CRM on twitter.
Thanks again for your continued support.
Until next time,
Lynda
  
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It is no secret that video is a proven and effective way to communicate with current and potential customers, so I was excited to attend Space Camp, an information-packed video marketing conference put on by Vidyard.
The one-day conference consisted of a lineup of impressive speakers, awesome networking, amazing food, and even life-sized Star Wars posters to go right along with the space theme!
I insisted the Jamil, Method's Marketing Director, strike a pose with Han Solo - he was a good sport
The true highlight of Space Camp however, was the informative presentations from an impressive lineup of speakers, including:
The event’s speakers were enthusiastic, had proven metrics to demonstrate their points, and also had some great one-liners and analogies on video marketing.
Here are some of my favourites from the day:
Michael Litt, Vidyard’s CEO, kick-started the day with this statement alongside some pretty impressive stats proving that a ‘play’ button on a website, or google search, yields the most clicks. With all the emails, texts, tweets, etc that we all read everyday, it’s no surprise that a visitor to your website would much rather watch a video on your product than read about it.
Michael reminded us that, while it is essential to have video as part of your marketing strategy, it is important to monitor where you’re sending your prospects or customers to watch your videos. He recommended embedding your video directly into your website with pop up calls-to-action (CTAs).
Michael also emphasized that video content can also be interactive. He recommended using registration pages, surveys, and polls to keep your audience engaged. Even better, if you’re promoting your product or service, have a CTA within the video when you’ve introduced a particular product, to take the viewer directly to the product’s web page. CTAs at the end of videos are also really important, since viewers who make it to the end of the video are your most engaged audience and are more likely to purchase your product or service.
Jon Lucas and Andrew Askes, Founders of Arc Media, made the argument that if all you have is a smart phone, you can create great video content. I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first, but came around to the idea when the Arc Media guys showed the original video for the Pebble Watch, which was shot using an iPhone and generated millions of pre-orders. Sure, it may seem intimidating to create a video, but you don’t have to take out a second mortgage to create video content that is professional, authentic, and captivating to your target audience.
Ian Hutchinson, Vidyard’s Marketing Specialist, challenged the group to think of our videos as more than just website content. Especially in the world of small business, there’s no question that your company’s website is the storefront and first point of contact for your brand. By having video on your website, you’re bringing leads into your “store” and presenting them with an engaging sales rep that can present your product/ service all while you’re having dinner with your family or catching up on sleep.
Lastly, almost every speaker at Space Camp asked video measurement questions, such as:
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What are you doing to discover where your viewers are coming from?
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Are you aware of how long most viewers stay on your videos?
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If viewers are not staying on to watch your video in full, where are they dropping off and why?
The importance of measuring your video content was a hot topic during Video Space Camp. A platform like Vidyard helps companies measure the engagement and success of their videos with intelligent video analytics.
All the presenters at Space Camp gave us lots to think about and actions for Method’s own video marketing initiatives. A big THANK YOU to Vidyard and all the speakers for sharing your insight and experience.
Are you currently engaging in video content marketing? If so, how's it going for you and your business? Let me know in the comments section below or tweet at me @MethodCRM.
Until next time,
Lynda
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Hi there Method friends!
This weekend is the Canadian Thanksgiving, so the team is getting excited to eat delicious food, give thanks, and spend time with friends and family. Support will still be available on Monday if you need us.
We wanted to take this opportunity to express our utmost appreciation and gratitude for what we are most thankful for everyday here at Method HQ - you, our customers.
From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU for choosing Method CRM as your Customer Relationship Management platform!
Until next time,
Lynda
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