5 Ways to Boost Sales with Video: How to Engage Prospects Throughout the Buying Cycle
Video has impacted almost every area of the enterprise – but the digital transformation of the sales organization is possibly the most profound. Sales is built on a foundation of personal relationships, from coffee catch ups to over the top events to friendly rounds of golf. But the emergence of a digital world, where all aspects of business can be managed remotely, has made it hard to keep that personal touch.
In today’s competitive environment, video allows people to stand out as more than a face in the crowd. Even better, it also gives a rich new source of data, so salespeople can adapt their approach based on real-time insights. How can your organization use video to empower your sales team, convey your value propositions more effectively, foster collaboration between sales and marketing, and keep converting leads long after your original touchpoint?
Read on to learn how to address common scenarios in the five steps of the sales cycle – and how you can use video to make (digital) selling personal again.
Step 1. Prospecting
A Face in the Crowd
Zack has a lot of leads to chase – leads who are constantly being pitched to. He has to go from being an anonymous email address to a familiar face in the very first communication.
Takeaways
- Give your prospect a chance to see the real you and watch your email opens and CTRs go up
- Your leads already consume video daily – create a message in their preferred format
See the landing page a target would receive!
Analyze This
Natalie will send multiple emails to her prospects, praying someone will open them and even more improbably, respond.
What Natalie really needs is analytics to tell her what content resonated with her leads, so she can adapt her campaign to real time behaviors and shorten her sales cycle.
Takeaways
- Get deeper analytics from your communications
- Adapt your campaign based on prospect behaviors and make faster sales
Natalie’s target might see a landing page like this.
Step 2. Demos
Ask an Expert
Rachel excels at her job – she can easily explain her company’s platform and provide insights and recommendations to clients. But she’s not an engineer. When a client asks her a question about her system’s backend, she turns to sales engineers (SE) for help.
If there was a video of the SE’s doing demos or answering common questions in a central repository, she and other sales reps could easily share that with their clients.
Takeaways
- Use video to break down complex subject matter and shorten response time to prospects
- Reduce your dependence on other departments
- Collaborate with marketing to create standardized resources for the entire sales organization
Here’s how it might look when Rachel hands over technical specifications.
Step 3. Meetings
Getting to Know You
Rachel got their attention, and now she has an upcoming client meeting but hasn’t yet been introduced to any of her client’s colleagues. She wants to be sure others in the organization are aware of her solution before the meeting.
By creating a video agenda and executive team message that her client can share with her own managers, Rachel can reach an entire group of decision makers.
Takeaways
- Get on the same page as your client before the big meeting
- Get face time with your prospect’s stakeholders early in the buying process – and vice versa
An example of a perfect meeting agenda!
Don’t You Forget About Me
Rachel returns to the office after the in-person pitch meeting. Her client had seemed interested but preoccupied. Rachel isn’t sure that her client had processed all the information she presented.
If Rachel made a video recording of the meeting, her client could review it on her own time. Better yet, it would keep Rachel’s presentation top of mind.
Takeaways
- Keep your pitch on your prospect’s mind at all times
- Walk your lead through any questions they had during the meeting
See an example of what a thorough follow-up landing page might look like.
Step 4. Deal Closing
Going the Distance
Now that her foot’s in the door, Rachel wants her RFP to stand out from the rest. Though she’s already impressed her target, she’ll need to win over their team members. How can she go the distance?
A video walk through of the RFP would allow Rachel to convey information to her prospect’s stakeholders, whom she might not have met personally. And she would avoid having her best points lost in a mountain of paperwork.
Takeaways
- Walk your lead through any complexities that are normally buried in the RFP process
- Reach your prospect AND their stakeholders
RFP submissions are important. Here’s one way to make yours stand out.
Step 5. Customer Initiation
Welcome to the Family
Rachel closes her deal, but her job’s not over. The prospect is now a customer, and their future happiness (and upsells) depends on great customer service – starting now.
Using video, Rachel could introduce his colleague Amit, a Customer Success Manager (CSM), to the client. Amit would immediately go from being just another name to a welcoming face.
With video analytics, Rachel would also be able to learn what the new customer had been watching over the sales process. She could develop a deeper, more targeted relationship with this person, today.
Takeaways
- Welcome your customers to your company’s family
- Give your team easy upsell opportunities by sharing customers’ viewing history
See the personalized landing page a new client would receive!