BizGreet CEO Mat Harris talks about hyper-personalized web video

by Andy Santamaria on March 31, 2010

in business feature

Bizgreet is a platform that distributes hyper-personalized web video to customers with the most precise and relevant information. CEO Mat Harris originally came up with idea for this company while he was running a marketing and advertising firm.”With BizGreet you can shoot the longest commercial you’d ever be able to shoot, covering every feature and benefit,” Harris said. “Based on information that we know about the individual, we can select and share only the information that would really matter for them.”

Tell me about BizGreet in a nutshell.

We solve the problem of how to communicate with customers in a relevant way. When we first developed BizGreet we called it a “B2B incremental prospecting tool.” We built it for ourselves because we were running a marketing and advertising firm. We built it so I could greet people by name using web video and show them something about us. My business partner was at Microsoft for six years as a program manager, so he knew how to design software. We spun out BizGreet in the middle of “Ëœ09 and started raising money for it.

How does it work?

We take a library of video assets and personalization data. That might come in the form of a CRM or demographic information that we can glean. It could come from the browser or even the hosting environment. Right now, a lot of the BizGreet videos are on our own hosting pages. But we’ve developed a flash player that will allow us to host video anywhere on the Web. It’s very much like embedding a YouTube video.

Who is your ideal customer?

We’re building this as a platform. Ideally, we’re building it for advertising and marketing agencies to use a platform for their clients. The spectrum for potential BizGreet customers is really very wide. Right now, it’s obviously business-to-business but we’re seeing a lot of interest for business-to-consumer as well. We have a lot of traction in professional sports, politics and retail. There are all very big areas that we’re seeing a lot of opportunity in.

So the videos can be different based on who I am as a customer?

Imagine that you are doing marketing for Hyundai. With BizGreet you can shoot the longest commercial you’d ever be able to shoot, covering every feature and benefit. Based on information that we know about the individual, we can select and share only the information that would really matter for them.

Is there a space for BizGreet to partner or take advantage of geo-based apps?

It’s very possible that you could one day check-in to a hotel next to a Starbucks and get a personalized video on your phone. It could say, “Hey Andy, it’s Megan Fox for Starbucks, check out your favorite drink, blah blah” and you wouldn’t even care — you’d run right over there to get a latte. That’s exactly what our technology could do.

Wow, I’d like that.

Yeah. We’re not far from our mobile device being the only device.

What is BizGreet doing to gear up for the next presidential campaign?

I think the Obama campaign has taught the world how to reach people [with video]. There’s never been a better time for one-to-one communication than these upcoming presidential campaigns.

What are you 2011 goals and when can I expect to get a video message from Megan Fox on my phone?

I think it could be very soon [laughs]. We have some high-profile accounts that are about to launch campaigns — campaigns where you’ll see athletes reaching out to fans by name. Professional sports are seeing some really cool changes.

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