How to Use Video to Earn Attention and Accelerate Deals

Let’s face it, the global pandemic has totally disrupted the way sales pros find opportunities, prospect, and build customer relationships. In this new Sales 3.0 (Or is it 5.0? Everything’s changing so fast, I’ve lost track), virtual connections are now the norm versus the exception.

Whether you sell software, services, hardware, or partnerships, right now we’re all focused on delivering the best virtual experiences to our buyers.

Here’s what I often see as the typical B2B sales process today. If you’re doing outbound prospecting, your front end probably looks something like this:

There’s an email to a prospect, a phone call, a LinkedIn connect, another email, another voicemail, and so on. The point of this cadence is to get a prospect’s attention and get them on a call. And in today’s climate, that’s likely going to be a live video call.

Live video gives you a chance to introduce yourself personally, put your face out there, show your passion, and use your body language.

And that’s great…until it’s not.

Imagine you’re trying to set up that next video call to dive deeper into the sales process. Maybe it’s that all-important product demo. Then, an hour before the live demo, you get a note from the prospect saying, “So sorry, something came up. We’re going to have to push it out.”

So, another week passes before you’re able to get into that prospect’s calendar and do that live demo call.

Sound familiar?

But what if video wasn’t just reserved for a live call? What if we were using videos throughout the sales process as a way to accelerate the deal cycle and actually boost prospect engagement?

For a countless number of Vidyard clients, one-to-one video is revolutionizing the B2B sales process and timeline. Thousands of sales reps around the globe are now infusing video messages into their outreach efforts. As a result, they’re boosting response rates, getting to people faster and closing more deals.

Just imagine:

• Instead of sending that cold email, you send a one-to-one video where you hold up a whiteboard with their name on it.
• Instead of playing email tag with your contact to follow up after a live demo, you drip your prospect some quick videos to highlight different things you can do or ways you can help.
• And, instead of writing a long email with screenshots, you shoot a quick video on your webcam to personally answer a prospect’s questions.

These are all very simple ways to use one-to-one video and keep your face in that deal cycle.

So let’s go back to that live demo where the customer cancels at the last minute.

Only this time, instead of rescheduling, you record and send a quick customized demo to show your prospect what you had planned for the live call. It could be two minutes, it could be 10 minutes. It all depends on the things you want to highlight.

Now your prospect is thinking, “Wow, this looks super interesting.” Everybody’s happy. Everyone’s excited. You’ve accelerated that sales cycle, and you are ready to close the deal.

This isn’t science fiction. It’s really quite simple and many sales teams are now using one-to-one video in just this way. And in a world where most of us are all digital and remote, video touchpoints are becoming increasingly  important.

Let me leave you with a handful of tips to help you get started using one-to-one video in your sales cycle.

Add short video messages into your outbound prospecting sequence
This will help shake things up a bit, stand out in your prospect’s crowded inbox, and get responses from your key accounts. Send those videos via email or LinkedIn message and remember to make it memorable and to include a strong call to action.

Use screen recording videos throughout your sales process
Instead of saying to your prospect, “Hey, let’s hop on a Zoom call,” use a tool like Vidyard to record yourself and your screen, and share that asynchronous content with your prospect. It can be a much more efficient way to answer questions and to explain things to people than trying to write it all out in emails. You can add value, you can connect more, and it keeps your face prominent. It’s actually a much easier way to sell.

Use video to walk prospects through sales proposals
This eliminates potential confusion from just attaching a PDF or DocuSign link and gives you the ability to have your face in front of your prospective client as you explain your ideas.

Help get your sales reps comfortable with being on camera
You can do a few things to coach your sales reps on how to be effective on camera. Start by making sure they have a comfortable environment where they can record. One of the benefits of a lot of sales reps now working at home is that they’ve got their own dedicated space. Help them get a decent camera and lighting, and encourage them to think about their home office as a mini studio for Zoom calls, as well as for videos they plan to record and send.

And finally, make video easy for your team
This doesn’t have to be complicated. We aren’t proposing your reps pull out their DSLR, record a video, edit it, and upload it to YouTube. Tools like Vidyard make using video in sales simple. You just hit record, send the completed video via email or link and you’re done. There’s no messing around with uploading or editing video files. Experiment with different reps on your team including those who you think will be most likely to adopt video. Once they have some success, they can help coach and train others.

At the end of the day, people buy from people they know, like, and trust. It’s still pretty rare to experience that kind of connection in a sales cycle. So it’s still a bit of a surprise when it happens. But it’s what we all should be striving for as sales pros. By using video in your sales process, you can go a long way to getting your prospects to a place where they just want to do business with you.

There’s really no barrier for you to start using one-to-one video. You don’t need equipment, or training, or movie star looks. And, it works.

So, what are you waiting for? Try Video with Vidyard now for free!