Whether you’re onboarding new employees, training a current workforce, educating customers or marketing to prospects, video is the next best thing to communicating face-to-face. RewardExpert recently spoke with Stacy Adams, head of marketing at Vyond, to learn how the company’s easy-to-use platform is putting the power of engaging animation within reach of every business budget.
Serving More than 12 Million Customers Worldwide
Head of Marketing
at Vyond
Adams said Vyond was originally founded under the name GoAnimate in 2007.
“Our founder, Alvin Hung, was looking for a simple way to create animated video, but he couldn’t find one,” she explained. “Back then, if you wanted to make video that wasn’t recorded with a video camera, you had to be a really skilled animator who understood video production, or you had to hire an agency to do it for you. Alvin decided to build his own solution to fill that hole in the market. That’s how GoAnimate came about. We rebranded as Vyond last May.”
Since its creation, the company has grown to serve more than 12 million registered users on six continents. Vyond’s customer base of Global 2000 organizations, small businesses and individuals has created more than 22 million engaging and cost-effective videos.
A Useful Tool in Any Business Setting
Adams said that Vyond’s customers span a variety of industries. “Really, anyone who wants to make their own video can use Vyond,” she added. “That’s the mission of our company. We want to put the power of video into the hands of everyone.”
At present, a large percentage of Vyond’s users are creating videos for training and e-learning purposes. “They’re making video for internal training purposes and human resource functions,” Adams noted. “But we also have customers doing content marketing, social media marketing and sales enablement. You’ll find applications for Vyond across the board in any business setting.”
In the training space, Adams said that Vyond videos work especially well as “higher engagement methods.” When companies can’t do in-person training, video is the next best thing. “It allows you to become a storyteller to grab people’s attention in a way that a lot of traditional printed methods just can’t achieve,” she continued. “People are using video to do everything from short bursts of training—called micro learning—to supporting larger training programs within learning management systems.”
Budget-Friendly Subscriptions
Adams said that one of the reasons Vyond is so popular with its customers is because it’s not expensive to purchase. “Our business plans include a premium subscription, which is only $90 per month or $650 a year per license,” she explained. “It includes unlimited video creation.”
Vyond also offers a professional business subscription for $160 per month or $1,000 a year per license. “We recommend the professional subscription to companies with teams of people creating videos,” Adams continued. “It includes additional functionality like asset, library and video sharing within a team. It also gives you priority customer service and allows you to import your own fonts.”
Enterprise subscriptions are available as well. “Enterprise subscriptions include premium security features that we call the Vyond Secure Suite,” Adams added. “Pricing is determined by the sales team depending on how many seats the enterprise customer requires.”
Drag-and-Drop Simplicity
Of course, the benefits of using Vyond don’t end with the reasonable subscription price. Adams said another big draw is that the platform is supremely simple to use.
“We have prebuilt templates to choose from,” she continued. “We have thousands of characters, props, backgrounds and royalty-free music to use. You can also create your own characters—and they lip sync to your voice files. It’s really flexible, but it’s as easy to use as PowerPoint and other software with a drag-and-drop interface.”
This ease of use saves customers thousands of dollars over working with a professional agency to fulfill their video needs.
“When you work with an agency, an animated video can cost you $10,000 to $20,000,” Adams explained. “But with a Vyond subscription, you can make as many videos as you want for the subscription price. And if you need to change something, you can do it yourself. You don’t have to pay an agency even more to make the edit.”
New Enhancements Ahead
Adams said that the team at Vyond is continually enhancing the platform. “We’re always adding to our libraries,” she noted, “adding more props, templates and content to broaden our reach across industries. Continuing to expand and build on our libraries is really important.”
They also plan to enhance the platform’s collaboration features this year as well as add rich text. “Rich text will enable our customers to use right-to-left text in their videos,” Adams explained. “For our customers in the Middle East, that’s going to be a really great addition. People have been asking for it for a long time, and we’re happy to be pushing that out this year.”