Category: Enterprise Podcasting

6 Tips to Transform Performance & Boost ROI with Video

Video has become an essential part of digital marketing and is becoming increasingly popular with businesses of all sizes. It’s a powerful tool for improving performance and boosting ROI, but it can be difficult to get the most out of your video campaigns. Here are six tips to help you transform your performance and boost ROI with video marketing.

1. Focus on Quality. Quality is one of the most important factors when it comes to video production. Investing in quality equipment and production will ensure that your videos look professional and are engaging for viewers. Investing in quality video production will also help you to stand out from the competition.

2. Make Use of Analytics. Analytics are essential for measuring the success of your video campaigns. You can use analytics to track the performance of your videos and make sure that you are getting the most out of your campaigns.

3. Optimize for Search Engines. SEO is an important part of video marketing. Make sure that you are optimizing your videos for search engines, so that they can be easily found by potential customers.

4. Utilize Social Media. Social media is a great way to spread the word about your videos and increase engagement. Use social media to promote your videos, and encourage viewers to share them with their friends and followers.

5. Incorporate Video into Your Website. Video should be an integral part of your website. Embed videos into your website to engage visitors and increase conversions.

6. Invest in Professional Services. Investing in professional video production services will ensure that you are getting the most out of your video campaigns. Professional video production services can help you create high-quality videos that will engage viewers and improve your ROI.

These are just a few tips for transforming your performance and boosting ROI with video marketing. By following these tips, you can ensure that your video campaigns are successful and that you are getting the most out of your investment.

If you’d like to learn more about how CircleHD can help support your training and team enablement efforts, we’d love to speak with you. Get in touch here.


Welcome to CircleHD’s New UI Design

At CircleHD, we continue to invest in the innovation of workplace video and podcasting. We are always thriving to enable the media industry with the best use cases and workflows to power everything in an enterprise. Since the day we launched in 2016, we have gone a long way in understanding how enterprises can use media to their fullest in areas of learning and engagement, and empower their employees by having all information available to them quickly and easily.

Our UX design has gone through series of usability analysis to understand user’s unique preferences and patterns. And Our steady vision of simplifying user experience for smart learning and engagement has helped many customers succeed in all scenarios, may it be pandemic, work from home, remote or distributed global teams.  

This journey of continuous improvement wouldn’t have been possible without support from our large successful customer base. We thank all our Customers for putting their trust in our platform and allow us to contribute in meeting their goals of smart learning and engagement.

What’s new?

  1. New Responsive UI Design
    CircleHD believes that if an application design is simple, you don’t need to train anyone on how to use it. Simplicity is hard to achieve, and we have put a lot of efforts automating many scenarios in our platform, so each user can focus on their main requirement of creating, sharing, consuming and analyzing. The new UI breaks down the inactive and active components in a way that user can get to his content quickly with some personalized experience. User can also personalize between dark mode and light mode view, as per his preference.

  2. Powerful Performance for any bandwidth and device
    CircleHDs application has been highly performant from day one, we still feel we can do more. This constant push has allowed us to keep improving the application performance on all types of devices and bandwidths and given users the best possible experience in terms of speed, availability and reduced latency.

  3. Enterprise Podcasting Taken to the next level
    CircleHD is proud to be the first company that has successfully launched a podcasting solution that works with video and audio both at the same time. This is a big innovation step for CircleHD by using the full potential of active and passive employee engagement and leading the space of smart effective learning and engagement. Executives and Enterprises can share their messages and announcements with employees and also get statistics on its engagement.

  4. “Wizy” – AI based Smart Learning Platform
    In this release, CircleHD announces it latest Smart Learning Platform “Wizy” which will serve as the easiest platform to use for internal employee learning and external Partner or Customer Training. Not only is the platform simple to use for end users, but it’s equally simple and quick to create a new course or record a training video and make it available to all required teams or employees in no time, on any device. Wizy has been developed after years of pilots done with large enterprises and usability studies across various demographics and regions. This is the answer to all enterprises having distributed teams and want to increase their effectiveness in employee development and training, thus increasing their overall reach and ROI.

Hack Your Way to Better Sales Enablement with Podcasting

If you regularly listen to podcasts–you’re not alone. In the US alone, 62 million people report consuming podcast content every single week. The statistics surrounding podcasting’s meteoric rise are pretty astounding: listeners are downloading upwards of 1 billion episodes of content every month and in 2017, podcasting surpassed Twitter and LinkedIn in popularity–and companies are taking notice. 

In a time where workers are demanding more accessible leadership and transparent communication, employers are leveraging company podcasts to effectively reach their internal and remote workforce. It’s not just SMB’s getting in on the action, either: Major players like Trader Joe’s, GE, American Airlines, Goldman Sachs, Samsung, and even Walmart, have already implemented podcasting into their integrated communications plan. 

But this medium isn’t just effective for your internal comms, podcasting for sales enablement can also have a powerful effect on your team’s productivity and bottom line. 

Why Podcasting?

Between articles, videos, social media feeds, and endless blog posts, it’s pretty clear we’re living in a time of information overload. And that’s just in one’s personal life. Your team also likely has to contend with online chatter from email, office messengers like Slack, and other tools unique to your organization. Podcasting for sales is the perfect way to cut through some of that noise since listening is a passive action and requires less attention than reading or watching multimedia files. A recent survey showed that, of current podcast listeners, 64% listened in the car, 43% at the gym and 49% consumed content while walking. 

It’s pretty much a given that sales reps are strapped for time and are more remote than regular desk employees. This often means missing out on key meetings and information that would help them do their job more effectively. After all, the most successful sales teams are:

  • Aligned
  • Consistent
  • Informed and prepared about the competition
  • Up-to-date on the company’s most current products and services
  • Staying ahead of the curve when it comes to industry news and trends

Regardless of if your sales team is already checking those boxes, there is always room for improvement and growth. 

Ways to Use Podcasting for Sales Teams


Train and onboard new reps more effectively

The average sales rep turnover rate currently clocks in at 34% (yikes). Even more staggering: research suggests 1 in 10 companies experience rates exceeding 55% with an average “ramp up” time of 5.3 months until new reps are ready to strike out on their own. With all those people constantly coming and going, you (or someone on your team) is spending an inordinate amount of time training and onboarding, which not only takes a toll on productivity but also your bottom line.

62% of companies consider themselves ineffective at onboarding new sales hires. Why do companies struggle so much with onboarding? It’s usually a combination of the following: 

  • The existing onboarding process is slow and cumbersome
  • Training is done “on the fly” without much structure
  • There are no benchmarks in place to assess the readiness of a rep to “leave the nest”
  • There’s no formal measurement of onboarding efforts or results from those efforts
  • Companies set unrealistic hiring or quota expectations

There are tons of benefits to pre-recording training and onboarding materials and companies that use technology for sales training and onboarding are, on average, 57% more effective.

  • It’s an easy way to cut down on time spent repeating the same sessions Information
  • Training modules are easy to go back to for a knowledge refresh 
  • Modules are able to be accessed 24/7, on-the-go, from anywhere

Share winning stories

Sales reps are usually busy pursuing their own leads and managing their own opportunities. When someone on the sales team closes a deal, we may hear about the customer’s name, and the size of the sale, but we don’t learn the most important thing: how did we win this customer’s business? 

A podcast is an easy way to share a success story.  You don’t have to write a long email or be a good writer.  You just need to be able to speak which, consequently, salespeople are typically pretty good at.

Even a short, three-minute chat detailing how a particular opportunity was won can be massively helpful to the team. They’ll likely want to know:

  • How did the sale begin?
  • What were the customer’s key needs?
  • What features were most important to them?
  • Were they considering competitors? If so, which ones.
  • How was the pricing discussion handled? (I.e.– were discounts required, etc)

Making this kind of podcast is as easy as clicking the Record button in your podcasting platform and talking into your computer.  When you’ve finished recording, you can share the podcast as a link by email.  

Unsurprisingly, 64% of podcast listeners tune in while driving, 43% at the gym and 49% consumed content while walking. Whether commuting by train, plane, or car to appointments a podcast platform that offers a mobile app will allow everyone to listen whenever they want through their mobile phones.

Motivational talks

Leaders have long used pep talks to inspire teams.  One of the most famous motivational speeches came from Knute Rockne, the football coach at Notre Dame in the 1920s.

At halftime during a 1928 game against Army, with the score tied, Coach Rockne gave an emotional, heartfelt talk about a former Notre Dame player, George Gipp, who died in 1920 at just 25 years of age. Rockne implored the team to “win just one for the Gipper.”  The team responded with two touchdowns in the second half and won the game 12-6.

Of course, you don’t have to be the football coach of an NCAA Division I school to give a great pep talk.  Sales managers can draw on their own stories of challenges and successes to give their teams a boost or they can upload to a podcast platform any number of motivational talks that are publicly available.

Here are a few we like to get your podcast library started:

Of course, leadership is responsible for team morale and being an inspiration to your sales team is fundamental to boosting productivity. If you want to create your own quick, easy motivational content, try uploading these types of “snackable” content pieces to your podcast platform:

  • Daily intentions 
  • Virtual high-fives to team members performing especially well or who closed a particular deal 
  • Quote of the day and what it means to you 
  • A brief overview of industry trends or news pieces affecting the day and how your team can use them to their advantage

Elevate recognition strategies

Recognition is an integral part of most sales programs. In fact, researchers have found that public displays of appreciation can often be more motivating than salary. After all, you want to ensure your best salespeople are being acknowledged for their contributions and successes. Podcasting can be a wonderful tool for giving kudos to your best performers and encouraging them to share what tactics worked best to close the deal. 

Gamification has also been a hugely successful tactic commonly used to boost reps motivation, which ends up have some pretty great benefits for your bottom line. It’s a great way to tap into the competitive spirit of your reps and encourage them to play-to-win. Try following up podcast content with some quizzes for knowledge retention and incentivize listening with prizes for the best scores (Hot tip: CircleHD’s podcasting solution has a leaderboard you can make public, which can show which team members are coming out on top). 

Get everyone on the same page

Did you know?: A recent study of 1,100 employees found that remote employees often feel shunned and left out. Since sales reps are often in the field, meeting with clients and prospects to build relationships, they may miss out on the day-to-day meetings and interactions taking place at your company. Podcasts can build a bridge and make them feel like a more integral part of the team. By allowing your field reps to access content at a time that is convenient for them, you create a feeling of inclusion at the company, allowing them to refer to key information even if they’re not in the office. 

Build stronger executive-employee relations

We live in a time where employees expect more from their leaders. Podcasting provides a unique opportunity for companies to address one of the biggest challenges in the workplace: employee engagement. For C-suite executives, managers and HR leaders who are often viewed as uncaring, podcasting provides an opportunity to humanize the communication pipeline. This can lead to better company culture and workplace relationships and provide an easy way to deliver company news.

Research shows organizations with a thriving workplace culture tend to grow significantly faster than peers and there are many content ideas your leaders can activate to create an engaging listening experience for the audience:

  • Q&A Sessions 
  • Interviews with key stakeholders 
  • Fireside chats between leaders and team members 
  • Sharing company news and successes 
  • Spotlights on specific products or offerings 
  • Episodes about industry trends or with other industry leaders 
  • “Making the company” talks about the origins of the company


Key Things to Consider 

It’s clear that podcasting isn’t going away anytime soon—so it’s time for companies to explore this as a new way to scale overall business growth. As with any new enterprise solution, leaders should consider a few things when it comes time to implement a podcast for your sales team:

Security

It’s likely sensitive information and trade secrets will be mentioned in podcasts. You’ll want to make sure whatever platform you use has enterprise-level encryption and security protocols so nothing gets leaked.

Ease of Use

Getting started with podcasting doesn’t have to require sophisticated setups, complicated equipment, or a sharp learning curve. Platforms like CircleHD allow teams to record natively from their desktop or mobile, so you can spend more time focusing elsewhere.

How You Will Measure Success

As with any other communication initiative, you’ll want a concrete way to measure success. This checklist will give you some insights into what metrics should be a priority when determining the success of your podcasting efforts.

Putting together an internal podcast for your sales team that is engaging and boosts productivity is easier than it sounds and has a multitude of benefits. CircleHD provides a feature-rich podcasting platform, ready for next-generation enterprises that need mobility and security for employee engagement and learning. No matter how you rate your team’s communication, there’s always room for improvement. Internal podcasting can help organizations with initiatives like company messaging, culture building, learning and development, training, onboarding, and more. Since listening is more of a passive action, it can be less of a burden for your workforce than reading or watching videos. Not sure where to begin? Download our checklist.

7 Tips for Starting a Successful Corporate Podcast

As online chatter becomes louder due to technological advancements, it’s becoming more difficult to engage with your employees. If you’re looking for an innovative way to cut through the noise, you may want to consider implementing a corporate podcast as your organization. This medium is great for showcasing company news and culture, which humanizes corporate communications, making team interactions more engaging and friendly. Since listening is more of a passive action, it can be less of a burden for your workforce than reading or watching videos.

The stats are in: 70% of Americans are already aware of what podcasts are. It doesn’t mean they are all listening, rather, they’re aware of the medium. What’s more interesting is that 39% of small and medium-sized business owners are podcast listeners, with 72% reporting that their employees also listen to podcasts. 

If your company is thinking about implementing a corporate podcast, it can be difficult to know where to start or how to get everyone on board. In order to build a successful podcast that gains a community of supporters at your enterprise, follow these steps:

Plan 

The old adage is true: “The more you prepare, the less you bleed in battle.” Click To Tweet

When it comes to implementing anything at your organization, the strategy is key. This is the most important step when it comes to launching any corporate podcast. Start by getting your team together to define a purpose, an audience, and a goal. Then revise it at least three times to make sure you get buy-in from all members involved in the process. Don’t be discouraged if there are a lot of ideas that come out. A shortlist should be sufficient to help you narrow the focus of your content.

The next step in the planning process will be the find a podcast hosting service. A simple Google search can help you find some options, but it’s important to choose one that caters to enterprise users. Since you’ll likely need security for your internal communications, you may need to evaluate several to meet your budget and needs. 

During the evaluation process, you should ask yourself:

  • How many podcasts and episodes you plan to have 
  • When you plan to launch
  • Where employees will be listening: Are they all in your HQ or will they be listening on mobile devices in various locales, i.e. airplanes, on the road, etc.? 
  • How secure your content needs to be: Most enterprises have security needs and compliance requirements to protect the privacy of sensitive information
  • Who the podcast will need to be accessible to. Some may be targeted to a specific department audience while others might be suitable for everyone

Prepare Your Content

It takes time to create good content so when you go live, we recommend having at least five episodes in your backlog. 

Stuck on topics? Your internal staff can be a great source of inspiration. Start at the top and reach out to your CEO or department heads to find out if there is anything they’d like to communicate or if there are any industry trends they think teams should be aware of. Podcasting humanizes the leadership team and is a great way to bridge the communication gap between management and employees. 

Another great source to tap for content is your company’s all-hands meetings. You may have a distributed team, remote workers, and even sales teams out in the field. This can make it tricky for everyone to dial into calls due to other priorities or conflicting time zones. By recording the information and uploading it to your company podcast, workers are able to access the information at any time, from anywhere. 

Here are a few other content ideas to get you started (Hot tip: make something exclusive to each episode in order to keep people tuning in):

  • Training videos with good-quality audio
  • Corporate webinars
  • Brown bags
  • Team demos
  • Weekly department calls
  • Product launches
  • Announcements

Be sure to also consider internal and external resources for your podcast. There may be some thought leaders and subject-matter experts who’d be willing to be featured. Bonus if some of these guests come from within your own organization.

How long should an episode be?

It depends on your situation. Keeping episodes under 30 minutes is a good idea when starting out. Always leave room for improvement and experimentation, since strategy should never be set in stone. As the community shows more interest, you can use analytics to determine if your audience prefers longer or shorter run times. Content may also dictate how long an installment might be. 

Announce

It’s essential in this process to let employees know about your podcast and where to find it. Be clear about whether they will have to subscribe to an RSS feed or download an app that lets them listen to content on-the-go. If your company has an internal forum like Slack or Microsoft Teams, this is a great place to post about new and upcoming content. 

Give It Some Time

The success of a podcast is dependent on many factors, time being the most crucial one. Most enterprises will not have a shortage of topics and listeners, but you’ll need time and patience for adoption to happen. The key is to keep the content consistent and fresh.

Fuel the Engagement With Rewards

Regardless of the podcasting efforts, rewarding engaged team members is always a good idea. Your employees may already be experiencing “tools overload”, so tuning in to another platform may feel overwhelming for them. Encourage listening and engagement by using follow up quizzes for knowledge retention and incentivize listening with prizes for the best scores. Remember, rewards are not a substitute for quality content, but can assist in getting your company on board. 

Measuring Success

You can’t improve what you can’t measure. You should have a system in place to monitor how your employees are engaging with corporate podcast content. Ensure they’re able to access it in a user-friendly manner, regardless of where they are. They should also have a channel to voice feedback or suggestions.

When it comes to determining what success for your podcast looks like, download count isn’t the only metric to judge by. Here are a few other KPI’s to consider: Click To Tweet
  • Number of episodes listened per week
  • Number of episodes listened per employee
  • Top episodes for a given timeframe
  • The average percent of engagement per episode rolled up by a given timeframe

Make It a Team Effort

Rome wasn’t built in a day and, likewise, it’s very difficult to run a podcast by yourself. Your team will be the first evangelizers of your corporate podcast content and your greatest influencers when it comes to company-wide adoption. Don’t hesitate to collaborate and seek out ideas from them. Anyone in the company should want to be a part of it and leadership should encourage participation.

Bonus: Don’t Forget About Accessibility

When it comes to great content, you want to be sure it’s accessible to as many people in your organization as possible, that includes those with disabilities. Be sure your recordings are broadcast safe so the peak signal levels don’t exceed the nominal level by more than +10 dB. 

Additionally, while the audio is a great medium, it’s not always able to be heard by everyone. So it’s important to have an option that doesn’t solely rely on hearing. Consider transcribing the talks into text or making a video with closed captioning. An enterprise podcast hosting service like CircleHD allows you to host both video and podcast content and can automatically transcribe spoken words into text with closed captioning. This allows you to spend more time creating great content while the platform takes care of the rest.

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Want to learn more about podcasting? We’d love to hear from you and tell you more about how CircleHD can assist with implementing your own corporate podcasting strategy. Contact us today.