Wistia is Small Business Video Sharing

I had an interesting meeting the other day with Wistia.  They provide video sharing for business, small business or departmental level.  The point is to share video for marketing, sales, and make it as easy to start using as web conferencing was (for those of you who have already embraced that technology.  Monthly costs are roughly $79/

Upload a video to wistia, share the link with prospects, and you can decrease time to sale and decrease cost of sale - you don't have to send a DVD or do a site visit.  So there's money saving right there.  On top of that you can track how interested people are by tracking what they watch. 

As an example, maybe each of your sales reps has a Wistia account where they create personalized screening rooms for prospects.  The rep basically just has to be able to send an email and select which videos he wants to share while Wistia handles it and sends an email.  The prospect comes, the rep gets to see exactly which parts of the video people watched (seconds 1-30 4x or last part twice) the rep sees how interested someone is, can comment or add other media types like ppt or other sales collateral, or make it a collaborative workspace. 

Some other facets of our conversation involved how small companies can best use online video.  One use is for training, because you can track what people watch and for how long and the organization gets a forum for discussion and a way to build community.  

Any professional services company could set up an informal learning center with video that would attract prospects and generate leads as visitors must register.  Also, Youtube is not good for this because that's all about blasting the video out to as many people as possible.  That's not what a small business should seek to do.  Rather, control the interaction and use it to drive sales.  Youtube is easy to use but most businesses want more control. 

Bottom line on video for small business:  If you don't at least get a lead you don't get anything.