Call It demand generation, business development, or sales prospecting; you are always in a competition. At every point in time, you are competing for the limited size of sales opportunities that unfold in your target niche. And that’s what makes it hard to stand out. I am sure you’ve heard of video sales prospecting a lot of times.
The question is, why should you care about using this sales strategy to accomplish the goals that matter most to you? Fortunately, an increased understanding in this regard could help put a more significant part of your real potential to work in surprising new ways.
In line with the way you think right now, I believe there is more you can do to improve the outcome of your sales prospecting activities.
What Is Video Sales Prospecting?
It is the process of using personalized videos in your sales prospecting strategy and activities. Interestingly, the preference for video in this context is based on some of the key factors we’ll be discussing below. In another different perspective, you can look at it as the combination of video content and other outbound marketing strategies like social selling and cold email marketing.
If you are yet to start committing video sales prospecting, you are missing out on the potential benefits that your forward-thinking competitors experience daily.
Why Use Video Sales Prospecting Strategy?
Practically, you may decide to read this post. Click away. And then go back to business as usual. But as you are reading this piece right now, there could be someone somewhere watching a sales video presented by your competitors. Guess who will win the sale?
Let’s dive in to clarify why you should commit to video sales prospecting now, not later. By reading through to the end, you’ll also understand the core benefits more than you do at this point.
“Nothing Stays Static”
What do I mean by that you may ask?
Every once in awhile, innovative technologies cause a rapid and evolutionary change from one market to the other. The same thing happens in sales and marketing technologies very often. But it is not everyone that gets on the train at the same time.
This is why today’s best practices often become obsolete in a very short amount of time. Today, the shift is now moving away from static text and images to growing consumption of video content. As a testament to this, Cisco predicted that around 82% of internet traffic in 2020 would be through video content.
In addition to this, Google reported that 72% of B2B buyers in their survey watch videos on their path to purchase. The point is that nothing stays static, sales prospecting best practices inclusive. Remember that in the not so distant past, there was nothing like internet technology or email. Now you know there is a shift happening, what are you going to do about it?
New Opportunities For Personalization
We all know that one size never fits all. Does it?
With the emergence of new technology platforms like Hippo Video, unique opportunities to improve the outcome of your sales prospecting strategy are now within your reach. And the exciting thing is that you don’t need big video product budget to get started.
By leveraging the capabilities built into such platforms as the one mentioned above, you can begin to experience the benefits of video personalization in different contexts.
Without being told, you already know that mismatched messaging, talking to the wrong person about the right solutions, doesn’t work a lot of times. Perhaps, you don’t want to spend your sales prospecting budget doing just that.
Personalized Videos via Social Media and Email” /> Personalized Videos via Social Media and Email
This is how we reached out to Neal, to host a webinar with us on ‘LinkedIn prospecting for Enterprise Sales.’ I recorded an introduction video, plugged in a personalized sales landing page and sent it to Neal. You can send it via email or social media. This is how we opened up a conversation with, Neal.
People have their walls up all the time. To break them, you need to make them feel welcome and pull them into a conversation. The best way to do that is to be human and shoot a video and not send generic prospecting templates.
With personalized video prospecting, you can start engaging the right prospects or audience segments based on their job titles, pain point, purchase history, obvious buyer objections, website behavior, content engagement, and many other factors.
Now imagine how you can combine this with your current email marketing or selling strategies.
Leverage On Powerful Testimonials
One thing that almost every sales professional agrees on is the relevance of social proof through the path to purchase. In most case, a simple split test of selling with vs. without social proof can lead to some surprising results. Nothing beats social proof in terms of the edge you’ll have in a competitive sales context.
But the question is, what type of social proof will work better than the other? Testimonials are just one of them. However, if you are still using text-only testimonials in your prospecting process, here is the word I have for you.
“Think Different!”
In comparison to static text and images, video content has been proven to be more powerful. Besides any other person’s opinion, your content consumption preference is likely to be sufficient evidence of this fact. Now, pause to think about the difference that video testimonials can make in your current sales prospecting strategy. Here is another excellent reason why you should begin to use video sales prospecting now, not later.
Video testimonials Close the gap in selling
Here is a video testimonial from Zendesk. How do you think videos impact a buyer’s journey? Video testimonials relate to a buyer. If they are from the same industry, chances are they are addressing similar problems. The idea is to move them, to inspire them to take action by relating their current situation to a brand’s success story.
Just search video testimonial examples, you’ll begin to unfold lots of interesting ideas. With your current prospecting experiences, you may even uncover exciting, unique ways on how to use video testimonials for better prospecting outcomes.
Take Advantage of Video Analytics
Beyond guesswork and intuition, video analytics can help you make better prospecting decisions in long term sustainable manner. While it is essential to continue pushing out messages through all prospecting channels, without good insight, there is a tendency to keep doing things that don’t work.
But the fact is that you can only begin to get useful video sales prospecting insights from analytics if you make the required commitment.
What is video analytics anyway?
In simple terms, it is the process of tracking the metrics that relate to audience engagement and the outcome of your video marketing efforts. Practically, you cannot get the benefits of video analytics if you are not leveraging video content in any form.
For example, Hippo Video mentioned earlier, can help you get insights into video email performance, viewer profile analytics as well as call to action (CTAs).
Within this context, you can launch different campaigns to discover
- Which type of video content gets more link clicks than the other?
- Which audience segment responds to your video emails more than the other?
- What is the exact call to action that commands more clicks?
- What is the best video length or duration to use in your sales video?
In this case, you can only be limited by your imagination. The critical point is that testing some variables will give you useful insights you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. At a certain point, you can use the data to make better sales prospecting decisions and resource allocation that will improve your overall ROI.
You Need Higher Response Rate
Probably, this is the most substantial reason why you need to start video sales prospecting now, not later. Mind you, the time you spend reading this post could be wasted if you do nothing.
There are many challenges facing salespeople in every industry today. The low response rate in sales emails is just one of them.
Understandably, everyone needs a higher response rate in their sales email prospecting strategy. But how to go about it remains a big challenge for thousands of salespeople, including your colleagues in the same industry. Again, this is another time; you may consider thinking different. But how are you going to do that?
The simple thing is to start using video content in your sales prospecting activities. One good reason is that video content often combines text, image, motion, and audio.
These are the things that make a video more powerful than any other type of web content.
When done very well, a slight increase in video email response rate could lead to other impressive positive outcomes like higher open rates. For example, Hubspot reported 4X Increase in sales opportunities by merely using video content. Besides, I have also seen other reports of video helping to increase revenue for users when compared to non-video users.
Contrary to what you may be thinking right now, these things are not theories. Fortunately, a little split testing might surprise you.
In Conclusion
Besides the ones discussed here, there are many more reasons why you should consider video sales prospecting to get some of the benefits discussed above. As noted earlier, simply putting a more significant part of your real potential to work could get you farther than you think.
Backed by science, human brain processes visual content 60,000 times faster than mere static text. Add motion and audio to the mix, and you’ll have better prospecting outcomes like higher conversion rates and more qualified opportunities.
Remember, nothing stays static, including today’s best practices in your industry. If you are still dependent on text-only email or phone-based strategy, the time to rethink that is now.
Even with a little budget, you can begin to take advantage of video personalization as well as video testimonials in ways your competitors are yet to realize.
