Dive Brief:
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Brittany Laeger, Marketing Manager at StoryTeller Media + Communications, a marketing automation agency, shares that the right kind of training videos can, "fuel motivation, inspire action, and reduce costly mistakes within your company." She ofers effective ways to vastly improve the quality and scope of training videos.
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Breaking videos down into smaller digestible pieces is the key to engagement, says Laeger. This helps learners to remember key information. She says videos need to be relevant to learners because new hires will not be as familiar with corporate lingo and industry practices as seasoned employees.
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Additionally, training videos are competing for attention with video that employees watch all the time through other media outlets. According to a video marketing agency, three motion, "78% of people watch online videos weekly with 55% watching daily." Video is expected to take up to 79% of all consumer internet traffic by 2018. Laeger advises that learning and development teams maintain interest by leaving cheesy graphics, bad actors, and unnecessary content out.
Dive Insight:
In addition to providing tips, there are examples for every point Laeger makes, to drive concepts home. For example, she advises, "Steer clear of training videos that are just a person talking to the camera — instead, think about how you can show the consequences of negative actions or the rewards/benefits of positive actions." Every training video should be geared towards changing behaviors and improving cross-functional performance of employees.
Companies that focus on providing quality and relevant training in the form of great content that includes videos are already ahead of much of the competition. Laeger points out that, "video is a safe environment where you can show the best case scenarios without tying up your best employees for training." She warns against lengthy historical information and encourages learning and design teams to dive right into the meat of the learning content that will have the biggest impact on employees.
