When the team at HR Answerlink approached us, we saw that they had a world of opportunities, but great challenges as well. They had just purchased a very exciting online Human Resource (HR) related business, and had a new vision for the business model. As HR experts themselves, they knew that small business owners face a mountain of HR-related issues, and do so without an HR department or a team of expensive lawyers. The HR Answerlink team believed they had the answer to this small business challenge: an online repository of HR related Q&A, State and Federal Laws, employee handbooks, terminology glossary, links and articles related to HR, etc. - everything a small business owner might need when faced with the many confusing issues that unfortunately arise in the world of running a business with employees. And the HR Answerlink solution was available for a subscription of less then $1 per day.

A pretty good model, but they needed help in figuring out how to market and sell the product online.

This project presented challenges, both in strategic marketing and technical implementation, and we felt highly motivated to help HR AnswerLink be successful with its new venture. We knew the work we did would have a profound affect on the success of the business. This is a responsibility we take very seriously, and one that gets us inspired.

As we do with all clients, we asked the big questions: Who are your potential clients (or learners)? What are you really trying to achieve? What action do you want the viewer to take? What do you want the viewer to feel?

In instructional design parlance, this would be the Analysis phase of the ADDIE model. In web and business development, this phase is what we call the Strategic Marketing and Business Development phase.

In the case of HR Answerlink, the company turned to us to help articulate the answer to these questions. As a start-up, the company had inherent budget constraints. The technical challenges of every project are engaging.  We also get very excited about helping our clients arrive at solutions that work – given whatever unique circumstance and constraints they bring to the table.

We did a lot of homework and research. We defined and profiled their potential customers. We specified the desired action (in this case, given the product’s price point, we determined that the goal was to actually close the sale), and we defined what information needed to be put forth and in what medium and tone.

In the end we produced a package of online, interactive marketing and sales tools. We developed a software demo walkthrough with narration – not to teach the software product in this case, but to show the viewer that the product was easy to use and rich in information, so they could make an informed purchasing decision. Using a mix of streaming video and interactive Flash objects we scripted and shot a graphics and animation rich video sales demo – and to meet the client’s budget we used in-house talent (Arturo is the guy with the hat). We also created a humorous, high impact email campaign to attract potential viewers to the site. Here is one of those teasers.

We are thankful we had the opportunity to help out the HR Answerlink team. We appreciate that they have referred new clients our way and, as with all our clients, we view our relationship with them ‘for life.’ We look forward to working with them into the future and wish them great success with this exciting business enterprise.

You can view the end product on the HR AnswerLink web site.

PS: Tools? For those interested in the tools we used in production: We used Macromedia Flash, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop to create the multimedia effects for the demo and graphic interface. We used Apple Final Cut Pro to master the final version of the demo. The digital video was shot against a green screen at the SweetRush studio. We implemented custom compression algorithms, XML scripting and user-bandwidth detection objects to optimize download speeds.