Yes. Videos are great additions to every branch of your business, including sales. Think of how...
When you consider that 95% of a video's message is retained, but only 10% of text and that people are 75% more likely to watch a video than read text, it's pretty obvious you need to embrace video. But there's no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to the types of video you create.
To fit in with different stages of the sales cycle, it's important to adopt various types of video depending on how engaged your leads are. Here are the main types of sales video you need to start utilising right now to keep up with them.
- 1-1 video: Initial outreach
- 1-1 video: Re-engage a gone-cold contact
- 1-1 video: Call or meeting follow-up
- Produced video: Customer case study
1. 1-1 video: Initial outreach
Outreach isn't easy. Cold outreach is even more frustrating. In fact, 40% of sales reps admit prospecting is the most difficult part of the sales process. It's typically the first time you'll reach out to a prospect, so it's important to nail it and keep their interest.
Using videos to reach out saves a lot of time and is more effective. Think about how much time you spend typing out emails - sales reps generally spend just over 21% of their day writing emails. That's a lot of valuable time you can claw back.
This initial outreach video is the perfect place to showcase your personality and create that all-important human connection. Unlike a phone call or email, a personal video is a lot more memorable and puts a face to your name.
However, hitting record with zero context isn't the best approach. To make your initial outreach videos more effective, follow these proven guidelines:
- Time your videos carefully. Find out where it fits into your sales process and then follow the same cadence
- Do your research. A bit obvious but massively important. Get to know your prospect before you send them an outreach video. Who are they? What's their title? What are their responsibilities and pain points? Find these out and craft your pitch to help them
- Decide the video type. A playlist featuring a collection of videos? Screen share to walk the viewer through something? A webcam to introduce yourself and build that relationship? Different types work at different times - choose yours and run with it
- Have a script ready. This doesn't need to be word-for-word, but something to help you stay on track. Think about your introduction, the value you'll promise to offer, the purpose, next steps and a thank you message.
- Hit record. Smile, use your script, make it really personal and keep it short (around the 90 seconds mark) to keep interest. Make sure you keep providing value and forget about making it perfect - just be natural!
If you're feeling stuck with the scripting element of your outreach videos, why not get started with our sales scripts templates? They'll help you become a natural when speaking on camera in no time.
Remember, not everything needs to be a big Hollywood production. Most of the time, these raw 1-1 video communication types leave an even bigger impact.
2. 1-1 video: Re-engage a gone-cold contact
Customers sometimes flit between phases in the sales cycle or get stuck at different stages and need a helping hand. If you’ve noticed this with a prospective customer, re-engage them with a 1-1 video as it increases the chances of renewing them and their interest.
Either through email or LinkedIn, send them a quick video with the hopes of warming up this cold lead. This tactic works especially well if you can see they’ve downloaded your resources or re-watched videos you’ve previously sent.
By studying what content from you they’re interested in, you can base your video around the topics they seemingly want to know more about. An uptake in consideration stage activity like this lays the perfect foundation to reach out to them again in a friendly but direct way.
Back up your claims of how you can help them and give them other ideas for relevant resources you have on offer in the meantime. This adds value to your video, so it’s more than just purely a friendly sales message.
Without reaching out, you might never know why the lead has gone cold. Maybe they had an issue and didn't feel like responding? Here, you could share your screen to run through your product or whatever the issue relates to rather than going back and forth in email.
By sending a friendly video response, you're more likely to satisfy the previously engaged lead by answering their questions faster. If the lead has gone cold, this type of video gives you a better chance of bringing them back with webcam videos or screen shares.
3. 1-1 video: Call or meeting follow-up
Your prospective customer is engaged and they want to know more, straight from the horse’s mouth. Whether you’ve been in contact for only a few weeks or many months, reaching the stage where you can send a meeting follow-up is a milestone.
By this point, you’ve already spoken to them directly and found out more about their needs, questions and how you can help them. This follow-up 1-1 video is your way of showing you paid close attention as you can talk through the resources you’ll send them.
Rather than send a boring text-based email with a list of bullets highlighting the takeaways, a video to follow-up leaves a much more unforgettable impact.
Sometimes, it's hard to gauge how a text-based message is meant to come across. Instead, prospects will retain your information much better when they can actually see your emotion and enthusiasm in a video, adding that extra personal touch.
Try to drop some aspects of your call or meeting into the follow-up as well. If you do it in person, film the video in a location they recognise. If there was a conversation or funny joke mentioned on the call, naturally reference is on the video to show it isn't a video you send to every lead.
As you talk during your follow-up video, include:
- How these resources will solve their pain points
- Where they can find the resources
- A brief explanation of what each resource will offer
When introducing resources, always make direct links back to examples given by the prospective client in the meeting. Don’t be afraid to add suggestions for resources covering other topics that you think compliment the wants and needs they talked about in your meeting.
Take this opportunity to add extra value - not just by pointing them in the direction of information they want but also by including where they can find information on topics that can help them in other ways too. Ingenuity, initiative and attention to detail show the prospective customer you’re going above the call of duty to help and support them.
If you share your screen while doing it to make it easier, even better.
4. Produced video: Customer case study
All of the previous videos revolve around keeping it simple, short, to the point and not having to go above and beyond. That's fine - as it means you can deliver your message quicker and shorten sales cycles without fretting over the smallest of details.
Now, it's all about sharing your well-produced videos in the form of customer case studies. This is a powerful type of video that will help you attract new clients and drive revenue. Plus, it's a lot more personal, something that's difficult to achieve with traditional, text-based case studies.
A video case study is more persuasive as having customer deliver compelling reasons why your product or service works is super powerful. They're also more engaging, as your prospects are more likely to watch a short yet well-produced video case study than read a long-winded text version of it.
Why? Because 72% of consumers prefer to learn about a product through video compared to anything else.
Then there's the emotional aspect. Your prospects will hear and see personal testimonials directly from real-life customers which help establish an emotional connection. As emotions subconsciously drive 95% of all decisions, it makes sense to go down this route.
Video case studies are also versatile. You can use them for your marketing, edit clips for social media and anything else to keep your videos evergreen and relevant. Here's how to get started:
- Think like your prospects - what will they want to see and hear?
- Ask important questions to cover in the case study
- Choose the right customers that show emotion and enthusiasm
- Plan your narrative
- Conduct interviews
- Write a script and shot list
- Choose a location
- Edit your video case study
- Push as a powerful sales video
When it comes to persuading leads during the sales process, nothing illustrates the benefits more than a video case study.
While these are the four main types of sales video, there are other important ways you can utilise video in your sales strategy. If embracing video fully puts you ahead of 60% of your competitors, imagine how much of an edge you’d have with an in-depth understanding of the fundamentals of video for sales.
To help you do just that and transform your business, we’ve created a video fundamentals course just for you.
Fundamentally ahead of the game: get expert video insights
Make the most of how online resources can help you by signing up for our virtual Video Fundamentals Course. Learn about all of the kinds of sales videos you can utilise as well as how to produce and share these videos effectively to generate, keep warm and convert your leads.
Get access to the course using the link below.