If you are looking for software platforms that can help you manage and execute your your video strategy effectively and efficiently, you’ve come to the right place! This post reveals the top requirements you should consider when evaluating online video platforms. By definition, online video platforms are cloud-based software-as-a-service suites that allow organizations to store, manage, publish, distribute, and measure live and on-demand video content. Today there are over 400+ different types of online video platforms available for just about any type of video marketing or internal communication use case.
Like other content management technology an online video platform can be considered a long-term solution which once implemented can be somewhat of a pain to rip out and replace, so when making evaluation decisions plan for at least 2-5 years of usage. That means that as your use of video expands, your video library will grow as will the number of people within your company who manage video. Choosing a solution that scales easily, is simple to manage, and provides robust support should also integrate with other technology that your company currently uses.
Before you set off to write your RFP take the time to check in with other departments, let them the know why you’re seeking a new solution, and find out if they’re using video now or are considering it in the future. Ask them to participate in defining what the final result should look like. By doing so you can create a combined list of requirements that ensures all video use-case parameters are considered in your RFP and that there is only one process within your company vs. multiple competing processes.
Always start your RFP off with a corporate overview providing a brief overview (2-5 paragraphs) of your company’s business. You can also break out the background information into the following categories:
Business Challenges
Provide an overview of the business problems you want the new video platform to address. Include how your company manages video content today along with the advantages and disadvantages of your current solution.
Objectives
What do you hope to achieve by implementing a new video solution?
Proposed Outcomes
Improvements that you expect the new video platform to help you achieve (e.g. simplified video management, unified storage, easier navigation, faster publishing, better administrative control, search optimization of video content, etc.).
Business Users
List the departments within your company that will use the solution (e.g. marketing, internal communications, training, customer support, etc.)
Geographies
Which geographies does the solution need to serve?
Video Content Types
List the types of video content you want to host on the platform:
- Marketing videos: company intro, explainer/how-to videos, customer testimonials, webinars, product demos, etc.
- Training videos
- Live-streaming events/videos for corporate/internal communications
High-Level Requirements
The new video platform must provide or support features including:
- Customizable player that is easy for non-technical users to use
- Batch uploading and simultaneous encoding of video assets to multiple formats that is easy for non-technical users to use
- Folder organization structure for asset management that enables searching, sorting and filtering of les based on titles, tags and metadata
- Live video streaming
- API access
Integration with existing technology:
- Content management systems (CMSs)
- Marketing automation platforms (MAPs)
- Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms
- Analytics platforms
- Distributes to leading social media platforms
- Fast and reliable playback across formats and devices including web browsers, desktops, laptops, tablets, smart phones, and televisions
- Success Measurement
- How will you measure success of the solution?
- Timing
- What is your timeline for having a new solution in place and what is driving it?
Now that you have the high-level goals and requirements, next you should outline your platform requirements down to the feature set. To get the platform requirements and a sample RFP template, we’ve made it super simple by creating one for you that you can download for free, click here.
