Here are 5 ROI hooks that can serve as the foundation for starting the discussion about your company’s video streaming strategy. I think you will find that these are solid concepts that will help you to form some ideas and see Internet video as a powerful business tool. As you read through them hang onto the basic assumptions that online video has the capability to reach a massive, even global audience, that it’s not expensive (especially compared to mailing DVDs), and that anyone can shoot a video and post it on YouTube.

1. Get more leads:  You or your people can proclaim to be the industry experts at whatever it is you do and to really sell that idea, launch a webcast and invite all of your customers and prospects to participate. Build an online interactive archive of videos that address issues within your industry, and of course; how your products and or services address those issues. Read, “Time to Start Your Own TV Channel.” You’ll be amazed at just how easy it is.

2. Video can be used to sell a product better than a brochure (or flat brochure-like website) but not better than a good salesman. Unless… the good salesman is on the video. Not personal enough? How about live video. Here’s a scenario: a  potential buyer sends a question or inquiry about a product; sales follows up with an invitation to view video that addresses the question (which is one that gets asked often, no doubt); then with a simple hyper-link and a click the salesperson is on the customer’s desktop and phone fielding questions and objections in a personal conversation. Customer service could work the same way. The return on investment? A trimmed up travel budget and the ability to connect with buyers face to face (well..virtually) and  in real-time. Also, it is important to think outside of traditional sales and marketing. Personal communication is dwindling. I’ve spoken with the director of marketing at one of the largest auto dealership syndicates in the country and he tells me it is their biggest challenge trying to figure out how to integrate the traditional sales role into the new Internet way of buying cars. People just want the Internet price and a test drive without the hassle of a salesman.

3. Intra-company training and communications.

Ecropolis has been selected by Normandy International for website hosting and back-end maintenance and webcast support  for www.bmf09.com, the official website of the Bermuda Music Festival, Quincy Jones and Friends.  Normandy International has distinguished itself as a pioneer in developing new means of distribution for networks, celebrities, music promoters and sponsors. Bermuda Music Festival will prove to be a testament Ecropolis’s ability to execute on innovative online video strategies. In the case of Bermuda Music Festival, Ecropolis will support three webcasts leading up to the actual festival. These webcasts will be hour-long interviews between Rock Neuman, the promoter for the festival and three of the high-profile artists featured at the festival, including Quincy Jones, Erykah Badu, and John Legend. Normandy International is also coordinating with artists and promoters to possibly webcast select performances from the music festival itself. Normandy established a relationship with the innovate steaming platform service provider, LiveStream.com to provide the encoding and content delivery to a global audience. Ecropolis has worked closely with the producers of the festival and the Livestream.com staff to insure successful webcasts.

FOLLOW UP: Quincy Jones webcast from his home in Las Angles, California. The interview content with Quincy Jones has great historical value and created some great initial buzz and excitement about the upcoming festival. Hundreds of users logged on live with hundred more logging in post interview to watch the archive. The delivery over LiveStream was flawless with fantastic stream quality delivered using rtmp h.264 Adobe Flash technology.

Lisa Amore, of Amore PR did an amazing job of providing a sound bytes via Twitter to the hundreds of Twitter followers of @bmf09.

Ecropolis will be webcasting  Robert Cialdini – “Author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” from the ASU (Arizona State University), Phoenix, Arizona on November 17, 2009, 12:00PM ET.

With more than two million copies sold worldwide “Influence” has established itself as the most important book on persuasion ever published.  Robert Cialdini, Ph.D explains why some people are remarkably persuasive and how you can beat them at their own game. You’ll learn the six psychological secrets behind our powerful impulse to comply, how skilled persuaders use them without detection, how to defend yourself against them-and how to put those secrets to work on your own behalf. Whether you are a mere consumer of someone weaving the web of persuasion to urge others to buy or vote for your product, this is an essential book for understanding the psychological foundations of marketing.

Extensive training in the psychology of influence, together with over 30 years of research into the subject, has earned Dr. Cialdini an international reputation as an expert in the field of persuasion, compliance. Influence has been listed on   the New York Times Best Seller List. Fortune Magazine lists Influence in their “75 Smartest Business Books.

Several hundred viewers are expected to tune into this live event. There will be a live chat session in tandem with the speaker, moderated by, Verne Harnish, CEO of Gazelles, an executive education firm in Ashburn Virginia that provides resources for fast growth companies.

FOLLOW UP: This event was a fabulous success.: from the production and stream quality to the level of audience interaction and moderated discussion; everything went perfectly. The material presented by Dr. Cialdini was well worth the small cost of this webcast. We saw attendance and participation from business executives from around the world. The entire webcast was available on demand within ten minutes of wrapping up thanks to the server-side archiving capabilities built into the CDN platform Ecropolis is now partnered up with.

First, consider the benefits of live programming.

1. Audience participation with the presenter(s) and each other via chat. The content becomes dynamic and the audience becomes empowered.
2. Scheduled events call your audience to action rather than leaving them to procrastinate watching your valuable content.
3. Live events, in the context of doing them on a regular basis in a TV Channel like format allows you to build a following over time.
4. Having a following not only motivates you to produce, it also empowers you. As you begin to tell your story, you will find that the ideas for content; and the sequels will begin to flow naturally as your production takes on its own life.

I spent this week looking at various technologies available for live webcasting and was especially curious about some of the free platforms that available. I found three that are well known and offer free access for the webcaster and the audience alike, covering their expenses with a paid advertising model. Justin.tv, Ustream.tv, and Mogulus. (Update: I should also add Stickam to the list.) Rather than keep you in suspense about who has the best offering for the webcaster; I’ll cut right to the chase and tell you it is Mogulus. (I refer to Mogulus throughout this post but today on 5/19/2009 they changed their name to livestream.com.)

Live webcasting is a lot more simple that it sounds. The minimum requirements are as follows:

1. A camera, preferably with firewire, which simplifies the process and increases the quality giving your a pure digital video/audio stream directly to your computer. On the low end, a simple web cam will work
2. a PC or Mac, again, preferalby with firewire (which can be added to a laptop or PC with an expansion card) or some other type of USB or PCI input for capturing a video feed.
3. Software for encoding your video into either Flash H.264 format or Windows Media or Silverlight  (the only two real contenders in my opinion).
4. A video server or CDN (content delivery network) that will take your single incoming stream and distribute it to your audience. Again, Windows Media and Flash video are the contenders. I have been using EdgeCast CDN, which supports both Windows Media and Flash and has worked very for my needs. The free platforms that are available all utilize Flash and on the server side could use Wowza Media Server, a less-expensive, robust alternative to Adobe FMS (Flash Media Server). There is an open source Flash Server that is also available called Red5, which is not as advanced as Adobe or Wowza.  (Confirmed by an employee of Wowza that Justin.tv uses Wowza. Adobe features UStream on their site as a customer.)

Mogulus covers the last two requirements and provides chat room capability for audience interaction. The first step to get Mogulus running is to create an account and name your channel, which creates an address on the mogulus.com site for your channel and only take about 3 minutes to do the basic setup. You can spend another 15 minutes filling in all the details and uploading your branding images. Their base-level Flash encoder software is integrated directly into their web-based producer, which accesses your capture hardware. Basically, this means that in a few simple clicks you are up and streaming on your own channel. From the Mogulus producer platform you can upload on demand clips, and other producers can also log in from any location on the planet and attach their cameras’, as well. This is the power-feature of Mogulus: that you can have a multi-camera, multi-location shoot, with integrated on demand video all controlled by you through the website in real time. The Mogulus producer also allows you to inject text overlays, and tickers on top of your video, which you can turn on/off and update in real time.

The web-based capture encoder is basic but one of the great things about Mogulus is that they allow you to use your own Flash encoder software. Adobe offers  Flash Media Live Encoder as a free download; which is still no frills but it gives you access to the On2 video codec, which is considered the best. You could also purchase Wirecast, by Telestream for around $449 (add HDV decoding for an additional $99). For the price, Wirecast offers a cutting edge encoding suite with lots of features found in hardware/software solutions that costs thousands: multi-camera switching (You’ll need multiple inputs on your computer, one for each camera), graphic overlays, text overlays, chroma-key (Blue/Green screen), screencasting, picture-in-a-picture and this software also utilizes the best codecs available. Wirecast can also stream to Windows Media server and the latest edition is integrated to Mogulus, making it extremely easy to configure since all you have to do is input your username/password and channel name.

Mogulus has juiced up their offering, however, by giving Mogulus channel producers a free encoder sofware solution which can be downloaded and installed to a PC called, Procaster. Procaster’s sweet spot is in being able to do screencasting along with video. The producer can switch between the computer screen and the camera, show both at the same time in either a 2D overlay mode or in a slick side by side 3D mode, which looks really nice. With the screencaster you can zoom in and pan around the screen. There is a third mode built in for gamecasting, which allows the producer to stream their gameplay in real time. I tuned into a Mogulus live webcast the other day and noticed that the producer was using Procaster and was showing a video feed in the screencast 3D split mode of a guest on their show; the guest could have been coming into the encoder PC via Skype or any video chat software. With the screencast flexibility there are a host of creative possibilities.

The last important feature of Mogulus to discuss is that they offer a couple of paid plans for the pros starting at $350. These plans up the amount of disc space and available bandwidth and come with a 99.5% uptime service level agreement. Paid channels also eliminate advertising and even allow the producer to white label the player; which can be embedded within the producer’s own website, hiding Mogulus as the platform provider all together. (Update: I found that UStream.tv also offers a paid service called Watershed. I haven’t given it a full evaluation but they offer a 99.9% SLA with very competitive pricing, including a pay-as-you go model.)

There’s never been a better time to launch your own TV Channel. The platform is free and it’s evolved into an amazing offering for the producer and the viewer. Blogging is a fantastic way to deliver your message, connect with your audience and showcast your expertise but audio and video create lasting memories for the viewer that will leave a deeper impression on them.

Here are a few last tips:

1. Use Twitter as your announcement tool. You may even want to get a Twitter account dedicated to your show. As you broadcast, continually remind users to join your Twitter feed and then keep your viewers updated as to when your next episode, upcoming plans, calls for content, etc. Mogulus integrated a Twitter widget right into the channels.
2. Before you launch your channel, plan out your first 4 or more shows. You first shows can be short, 10 – 15 minutes isn’t a bad number. Once you make it through the first 2 shows, I’m betting that the subsequent content will flow naturally.
3. Set up a WordPress Blog and embed your episodes into the blog so that your viewers can comment on them.

I have created a channel at  www.mogulus.com/ecropolis. The first episode that I have planned is to discuss SEO and what it really means; you will walk away knowing how to do a high-level evaluation on your own website and you’ll have some questions that you can ask your web guru to insure your website is getting the proper treatment. So, join our Twitter @ecropolis

I am happy to respond to questions and comments and will also note that Ecropolis can facilitate the launching of am Internet TV Channel online at any level.

Gazelles also cleverly offset the risk of loosing attendees by using the webcast to bring in more physical attendees. How? They offered to companies that brought at least three execs to the conference unlimited access to the webcast and the post-webcast archive. For companies this meant that for the cost of sending three executives to the conference; about 3K, the entire company could share in some of the meatiest parts of the conference. They can also, themselves, re-watch the webcast and reference parts of it for others members of the team to pay close attention to.

Another key to the successful formula of the Gazelles webcasts is that individual webcasts are also part of an overall series of three webcasts with a pricing structure that benefits companies who purchase the entire series; which by doing so gives them unlimited access to the archive by anyone in the company that wants to or who they may compel to participate… purchasing the series is a win, win, win. We’ve had numerous reports of companies filling conference rooms and watching together. In fact, one client, The Scooter Store filled their corporate auditorium with most of their 200 employees to watch Pat Lencioni talk about teaming.

Webcasts can easily go global. Gazelles has a strong overseas clientele which can be more difficult to reach. To date, we’ve seen participation on Gazelles’ webcasts with users in Australia, Dubai, India, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Poland and other points all throughout Europe. Especially for companies like McDermott, Will and Emory who has offices in several different countries, having the same educational opportunities is something that can bring their dispersed teams closer. For Gazelles it’s indispensable that they are able to offer their overseas clients this education experience. Webcasts give Gazelles a reason and a means to stay connected with companies in different parts of the world and lets those leaders know that they are important and included.

It can’t be discounted that Gazelles has access to some of the most prominent business thought leaders of our time. We’ve had the remarkable experience of webcasting Pat Lencioni, Seth Godin, Guy Parsons, Chet Holmes and David Meerman Scott. We’re looking forward to webcasting Dr. Victoria Medvec next month and Keith Ferrazzi in May. It’s really incredible that for less than $1000 companies are able to get 5-6 hours of quality education for their entire team.

For Gazelles, which earns a profit from providing quality education to the executive teams of fast growth companies, the model is working. Speakers who are providing the education are also doing well by teaming with Gazelles and this is very important for the model to work. Just like any professional group, they network and talk to each other. If one of them reports that it wasn’t profitable being on the webcast, then others will not be interested.  The Gazelles speakers have been able to deliver their information to an interested without leaving their home or office and still retain a handsome fee. We webcasted from Seth Godin’s living room; at one point he got up to let his dog out while he was still talking; reality TV meets executive education.

Ecropolis plays an important part in the equation also. We provide the on-site technology and services to film the speaker and stream him or her live to the audience over a global CDN. PowerPoint slide presentation is almost always an important part of Gazelles’ speaker’s presentations and we’ve developed our own simple technology for advancing the slides live as the speaker is presenting in a side-by-side format. Our platform/interface also provides moderated chat, which has even been used for the audience to send questions to the speaker. Post-event: within 10 hours we’re able to post an edited, fully-functional archive in time for users on the other side of the world to view. For on-demand versions, we’re also able to translate the synchronized slide/video presentation into the most popular video streaming formats: Windows Media and Flash. Ecropolis also provides all of the user registration service from the gazelles.tv website.

Webcasting provides an amazing opportunity for all types of organizations even if the model isn’t one of direct returns like the Gazelles pay-per-view model. Product and service evangelizing is an example where profits may be indirect. Fund-raising and membership drives for non-profits and associations is another example. It takes some creative thought to determine how a webcast might fit with your organization and maybe even some experimentation. It is a new world for sure. Many companies sailing ahead and taking advantage of the new opportunities available for them to efficiently and effectively communicate their messages to their customers and potential customers alike.