How Even Salesforce Got it Wrong.
Content isn’t King. It’s the Court Jester. Just ask executive buyers. 62% told told Forrester that much of the content vendors provide is useless. Three years ago, Doug Kessler called out the crappiness of content, yet it is still being produced en masse. It can’t just be blamed on the inexpensive work of the inexperienced. Even big budget productions fail. Even Salesforce falters. Yes, even Salesforce.
I spent a few hours watching some of the big budget Salesforce Customer Success videos on their website. I chose this American Express Customer Success to illustrate the importance of clarity. It takes a full minute and a 3 seconds to identify the narrator, who only then gets to the point of the video. A minute and three seconds is an eternity to watch something in utter confusion.
1. Storytelling 101
When telling a story in 3 minutes or less, setting up the “main character” of a narrative needs to take place immediately, ideally in the first 8 seconds. The audience should know who is speaking and understand why they are listening to this person who will set the stage for the rest of the story.
2. Get to the Point FAST
We are 1/3 of the way through the story and we haven’t been properly introduced to this main character who turns out to be Greg Keeley, EVP Global Corporate Payments for American Express. Keeley's role is to share the good news that that 62,000 Amex employees were empowered by a Salesforce platform because it offered scalability and real time data sharing. Why wait so long to share it?
3. Show me. Don't tell me.
At this point, I/we/the audience expects to see or hear a personal story that backs up Keeley’s statement. Instead, another disembodied head pops up. This time it’s Barbara Agoglia, VP/Head of Global E2E Marketing. “It really does feel different now to me. There’s a fun and an energy to it that’s amazing,” she says without explaining how or why. Also, because there are no specifics, Agoglia’s sentences are wallpapered with generic corporate images. There is a disconnect between what Agoglia is saying and what we are seeing. That's never a positive thing.
Here’s an example of ‘Show me don’t tell me’ done right. In this customer success video, Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry talks about the way Salesforce platforms allows the company to ‘speak social.’ As she describes how she video chats with the organization once or twice a week, we actually see corresponding images that allow us to witness that interaction. When Ahrendts calls the platform one of the biggest uniters of the culture, you believe her because you’ve seen it in action. Success!
4. Find authentic voices.
This is not hard to do if you spend a little time pre-interviewing possible subjects. The contrast between the Amex and Burberry video demonstrates this point. Burberry’s CEO doesn’t sound like she had memorized lines or is sticking to talking points. She knows her stuff and it it flows. Unfortunately, the Amex talking heads sound a little too scripted. This detracts from the first hand perspective the videos purport to share.
It’s too easy to pick on the Amex video. Let’s move on to Petzl’s success story, featuring the company President speaking in French. There are a lot of platitudes thrown around in his native tongue but you can't miss them, thanks to the subtitles. Missing were specific examples of success. Glaringly obvious, however, the music.
5. This is not MTV (circa 1988)
Background music can be distracting. When words are not enough, it is tempting to add mood music to create an emotional response. Don't. If the interviewee is not providing enough material, conduct another interview. Or hire a narrator.