Topic:
HubSpot,
Sales Tips
(4 Minute Read)
Ever get bored of opening the same types of emails over and over again? They usually start with “Hi [name], hope you’re well,” follow up with “just reaching out because…” and finish with “look forward to hearing from you.” We’ve all had them and, quite frankly, it’s time for a change. It’s time to start using video in your sales process.
It’s 2020. Your prospect’s inboxes are more full than ever with ‘hoping to help’ emails, they don’t have the time to read blogs, and you want to do something to stand out from the competition...
Video is a great way to engage your audience, add value and be entertaining - with video, you can do all this in less than a minute so you don’t need to worry about losing your viewer’s attention. Plus, 90% of customers say videos help them make buying decisions.
So, luckily for you, I’m here to tell you how you can implement video in each part of your sales process. We’ll take a look at the Inbound Methodology, how you can use video to match the different phases of the buyer's journey, the process you should create to nudge your prospect's further through the sales cycle, and things to remember when planning your video content.
Before we get started, if you don’t know what the phases of the Inbound Methodology are, they’re: Attract, Engage and Delight. You can read more about that here.
In the Attract phase of the Inbound Methodology, prospects will be experiencing the symptoms of a problem and will be using search engines to try to diagnose their problem. The content you produce should aim to answer your prospect’s questions and educate them. Like this:
Video can be used in the Attract phase to contribute to your site’s SEO; Google wants to serve the best result for a query, and sometimes this can mean serving answers in different formats. If searchers are favouring answers in audio or video format, then Google’s algorithm will favour results in these formats.
You’ll notice that we've optimised the content and transcribed the video on our blog too. Clever little monkeys, aren’t we? Ideally you should use the transcription to create a file for closed captions but we’ve not done that here. I’ll have the person responsible taken outside and given a stern dressing down.
Got a list of prospects? Consider sending them a personalised video via email.
If you have an SEO strategy in place, the people who are landing on your blog should be your buyer personas and therefore an ideal customer - so if they’ve downloaded a piece of content from your website (an ebook or a guide for example), you’ll have their email address and can send them a helpful video like this:
It’s not too salesy or pushy - just a personal way to remind your prospects that you’re there to help.
At this point, your prospect has decided on their solution, they just need to decide on you.
Your video at this stage should focus on why you are the best solution to their problem, so you could offer a demo or ‘walkthrough’ video of your service or product. I’d recommend doing these live so that they’re specific to your prospect and their challenges. Make sure that anyone in your team who runs these are trained on how to deliver successful demos so that they add the most value.
You can also use video at this stage to present your quote or proposal in a way your prospects may not have seen before. This means they’ll always have that video to refer back to and show their colleagues. If you use a tool like Soapbox or Vidyard, you can track who has watched the video and how many times. Creepy AND useful.
Woohoo! Another new customer. But your job isn’t done quiiite yet. Not only do you want happy customers, you want customers that are so thrilled with you that they become promoters and evangelists of your brand.
To make your customers love you from the off, why don’t you send them a ‘meet the team’ video to introduce them to the awesome people they’re going to be working with?
Another way you can use video with your customers is to give them updates on the product or service they’re getting from you. This is a much more engaging way of getting the message across and they probably won’t have seen it before. You never know, they might even talk about your video to a peer at an industry networking event (helloooo referrals!)
There’s a bonus way of using video in this stage - you can use it to ask clients for testimonials. Noisy Little Monkey’s Events and Marketing Manager Claire does this and it goes down a treat. It’s a much warmer and more personal way of asking your clients for a favour. If they’re really pleased with the work you've done, they might be nice enough to appear in a client testimonial video for you. See for yourself how effective they are:
So, you know why to use video and when to use it. Let’s talk about the how. Yes, you’ve guessed it. It’s time to add some process.
There are four simple steps to implementing videos into your sales strategy and if you’d like an easier acronym, change ‘film’ to ‘shoot.’ 😉
Ask yourself these questions: What type of video are you going to make? Who is it for? What are you going to say? What is your call-to-action? How will this video add value to your prospect?
Answer all of these, write a script and you’re good to go.
Once you know what type of videos you want to be making and who they’re aimed at, you need to think about what equipment you need. Some people make great videos using a webcam, whatever microphone is attached to their headphones and their office as the background. Others… don’t. The main thing is that you think about what your personas would want to see.
Show time! Remember to rehearse your video a few times before filming. You’ll inevitably need to reshoot at least once – this happens to everyone and some of my outtakes are ridiculous. See below...
Make sure you’re in a quiet place and always always always personalise: use their name and company name throughout the video. Don’t forget to SMILE – it makes all the difference in the world. It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, authenticity is much more appealing than being robotic.
Are you emailing the video straight to your prospect? If so, have you got a follow-up sequence in place? You can use sales automation software like HubSpot (did I mention that we're a HubSpot Diamond Partner?) to create sequences and nudge your prospects further through the sales pipeline.
You need to think about what success looks like to you and how you’re going to monitor the success of your video. Decide on a strong call-to-action and envision the response that you want. If you’re sharing the video on your website or social media, ask a question in the video or caption to encourage people to engage with it and use a couple of relevant hashtags (if you’re sharing on social media) to help people find it.
That’s all from me, folks. Don’t be a stranger; hit me up on Linkedin if you want a hand implementing video into your sales strategy.
Head of Sales and Marketing for Noisy Little Monkey, Katie writes about sales tips and strategies in today's marketplace.
