Andrew Oppmann for Customer Spotlights

Speaker: Andrew Oppmann, Vice President, Marketing and Communications, Middle Tennessee State University

Andrew Oppmann: We've been using the Vocal Video platform for a variety of purposes. First, of course, student testimonials where we're asking currently enrolled students to talk about why they selected MTSU as their choice for higher education and the things that they enjoy most about their experience. But we've also used it for testimonials to solicit donations through our development office to have faculty members talk to prospective students about what they'll be studying and really just have anything that's short form, easy to create videos that focus on an individual and tell a story.

Andrew Oppmann: Well, the greatest challenges we faced prior to Vocal Video and getting testimonials is just the physical act of shooting video. It was time consuming. It required us moving to a location to capture those images. We had to schedule time for both the staffer to do that and the person who was conducting the subject of the interview. So Vocal really took away some of the biggest obstacles. It's simple to use. People can use their own technology, their own schedule to produce these things. Because of how it's formatted where you're basically answering a question and you've got the ability to redo it. If you don't like your answer, there's a lot of control on that. So the bottom line is it just made, what was in the past a more time consuming and more expensive proposition, easier, faster and in my opinion, better suited for our needs.

Andrew Oppmann: Everyone asks the ROI question, in particular of marketing. This is one of the few cases where I might not be able to give you a total right now for this video. But I know the return on investment has been very favorable because it has saved my staff time and time does translate to money. Time also means that the time we spent on shooting testimonial videos ourselves with our own equipment is now spent on the more complicated and more strategic videos that require more intensive editing and camera and multiple camera shoots. So we are able to accomplish faster, easier. and I think more comfortably to the people that we're picturing in these type of videos and they are perfectly set up for social media use. It's really just an ideal product.

Andrew Oppmann: Well, I think this is pretty obvious I wouldn't be doing this video if I didn't think Vocal Video was a good product. I've been pleased with the simplicity of use. It is an affordable product. My team thinks it produces the type of videos that serve the needs that we required of testimonial videos. It puts control on the subject using their equipment and their scheduling. They're comfortable using this technology. You know, I tell the story, our provost was saying, "Well, I don't know if faculty will take to this because I bet you it's really complicated." And I said, "Lsten, here's the link. Give it a try. Tell me what you think." And he went, "Oh my gosh, this is so easy." So, I think it's a solid product. It's definitely going to be used not only for testimonials but so many other things that our marketing message because of its simplicity and its cost.

Andrew Oppmann: For what it produces. It's state of the art. It's simple to use. Clients are very comfortable with the technology. It doesn't require a great deal of, of studying the instructions. They're very intuitive and the product comes to us well-ordered and we are able to use it quickly. So if in many ways, it just solves so many problems in terms of time and resources and speed of delivery that otherwise we'd just be struggling to accomplish this. We are getting greater volume because we're using Vocal.