Common Craft Blog
Clarity on the Common Craft Business Model
By leelefever on August 06, 2009 - 12:25pm
Through going to conferences and talking with people about Common Craft, it's apparent that people have no idea how Common Craft could be a successful business. From their perspective, they can watch the videos for free, so how does it work?
I want to answer this question because I think it's important context for understanding why we make the decisions we do.
In business terms, we are a "B2B" company, which means business-to-business. We make videos that are focused on helping businesses, schools, and other organizations accomplish their goals. These customers buy the licensed, high quality versions of our videos to educate employees, students, and website visitors. Our revenue comes from organizations and individuals who want the better versions, but also the permission that comes with licensing.
Now let's talk about the alternative: B2C or business-to-consumer. Being B2C means making products for use by everyday people. In which case, we might charge for viewing a Common Craft video, perhaps through a membership service or pay-per-view. Our revenue would come from individuals who pay to watch and learn from our videos. We decided not to be a B2C company.
Here's one way to look at why this makes sense: In the B2C model, it's more difficult to build brand awareness. Only paying customers would see the videos. We decided early-on that we would give our products to consumers via sites like YouTube to help spread the word. These versions of the videos would educate, but also have ads for Common Craft. Over millions of views, this helped build brand awareness and lots of links to our website. A percentage of these viewers might think "Man, I love that video, but I need a version that's more appropriate for the workplace" or "I'd love to show this in my presentation, but I need a downloadable file." These needs illustrate demand on the B2B side that comes as a result of giving our products to consumers.
Our challenge is to find ways to continue to provide free videos to consumers while increasing the awareness and demand for the licensed versions for workplace/professional use. From this perspective, I hope you'll see why we're making videos on things like Insurance. Our focus is not making something cool for You Tube, it's making something valuable for individuals and organizations with specific goals.
A note on custom videos: Making custom videos is a part of the Common Craft business model, but is not our focus and more easily understood than licensing. This article on Read Write Web explains our move away from custom work.
Hello there, Your blog
Hello there,
Your blog clarifies how B2B and B2C business model works. Thanks !. - informative.
Quick question: How come i couldn't find any videos on Elearning or Virtual Learning enviroment for public view. it's most common video that everybody would like to see. Is there in Commoncraft vidoes, am i missing out on my search ?.
Please advice. thanks.
eLearning
Hi Anand,
Right now we don't have any specific videos on elearning or virtual learning environments. You can see our complete library by clicking "Browse Videos" at the upper left. We'll take your feedback as a suggestion. Thanks!
Common Craft Business Model
I am wondering, based upon your article, if it would not be better to create shorter versions that you provided for free and the full versions for pay? Also, I think it makes sense that you did not focus on the B2C segment. I can see where training is an essential market. One industry that could use your assistance is the franchise industry. I own a franchise for Maid Brigade in Plano, Texas. We have hundreds of franchisees. And each needs to accomplish two primary goals, to sell prospective clients on Home and Office Cleaning Services and to instruct personnel in our unique, green procedures used in our cleaning services. One video can teach literally hundreds of franchisees, therefore, creating a single product that can be offered to each franchisee, enabling you to get a great fee in the aggregate and a great deal for the individual franchisee, both in terms of the quality of the presentation and the savings in manpower. There are literally thousands of franchise organizations that could streamline their business by using more videos. Angela McCall Maid Services
English learning
Hi, I really love common craft's video, since I saw the twitter video. I was very moved. The way you simplify the world, super interesting to me like Japanese who are not good at logical explanation. If you have these video in Japanese, you might open some other business chance.
Brilliant Move
making videos to help someone's business is a brilliant move. It will benefit many.
This was so refreshing,
This was so refreshing, thank you. I'm always looking at new angles to help train my employees and have found it hard to sometimes articulate myself properly. Videos is a brilliant idea and I think I'll get on that as soon as possible.
I just want to note that I really like your style of writing, it reads so easy. I'll be back here again.
Sammy Ownsen
Zero Friction Marketing
http://www.librariannet.com
i like the idea about videos that are focused on helping businesses, schools, and other organizations accomplish their goals and i think it is very helpful. and i like you view about decided early-on that we would give our products to consumers via sites like YouTube to help spread the word.