In today’s remote and hybrid work environment, in-person meetings with potential customers are limited. Using video for sales helps to solve this problem. Visual storytelling has an impact on connecting with both potential and current customers.
Sales videos work at all stages of the customer journey. They excel at the top of the sales funnel when you are attempting to create awareness. They also work at the bottom of the funnel when you’re trying to make conversions and close deals. With the help of an online video platform, you can utilize sales videos to their full potential.
Crafting compelling sales videos
Crafting compelling sales videos involves using best practices, being creative, and understanding your audience. A compelling video has more to do with your viewers and what they care about than most other factors. If you present a challenge they currently face, and offer them a solution, you will get their attention.
Focus on the message: Your audience must receive a clear message. You can accomplish this with a compelling video script. AI tools, such as Chat-GPT, can help you to write scripts for personalized video for sales. It can help with creating different videos for prospects or customers depending on where they are in the buyer’s journey. Personalized video is more effective and it’s better to talk about benefits than features.
Use storytelling: An interesting story can transform a boring sales video into one that gets attention. A well-structured story captures attention from the start, keeps viewers engaged, and gives them something to remember. A good story needs some kind of conflict and a resolution. You need to set up the context and the challenge before revealing the solution.
Don’t forget the call-to-action: A strategic call-to-action is necessary to guide a viewer to take the next action. This may be signing up for a newsletter or requesting a demo. Your CTA should align with your brand voice and overall messaging.
Make sure the video is mobile-friendly: Many people use their mobile phones today to make purchases. A responsive design ensures that a video plays on different screen sizes without a problem. You don’t want to miss out on an audience of mobile users because your video content doesn’t adjust well to small screens.
Use a compelling thumbnail: A video thumbnail is what a potential viewer sees first. If a video doesn’t have a thumbnail that interests them, they won’t click on it. Your thumbnail should accurately represent your video, include title text to reflect its context, and use the power of your brand colors. Try to use a relevant image and if you use an image of a face it can help to encourage viewers to click it.
Leveraging visual appeal
The visuals of a sales video give life to the message. Visuals help customers to understand your message and can make complex concepts easier to understand. It is much easier to explain a process or answer a question with a video that helps you to show instead of just telling.
Many sales executives feel they don’t know how to create sales videos or feel that it’s too expensive.
High-quality production: Video must be high quality but that doesn’t mean it has to be expensive or time-consuming. Small adjustments can make a big difference in how easy videos are to watch.
Video lighting: Sitting in front of a window to get the benefit of natural lighting can make a difference to a video. Making sure a speaker is well-lit may involve purchasing some additional lighting to place behind the person if there isn’t enough natural lighting.
Audio quality: It is better to use an external microphone than the one on a computer. Try to record in a quiet space to avoid distractions.
Location: Where you shoot a video for sales matters. The space should be professional-looking and tidy so it doesn’t distract from the message. If you’re recording your sales video from home, make sure family members know.
Using video throughout the sales process means prospects get used to the faces of sales team members. This makes prospective customers feel as though they know them which can offer a great competitive advantage. People feel more accountable to those they feel they know. Personalized video content offers more of a sense of connection than any other type.
There are different types of sales videos that all serve different purposes.
- Webcam videos offer an almost in-person level of connection with prospects. Personalized messaging created specifically for a prospect puts a face to a name when you can’t meet in person.
- Screenshare videos can help sales team members explain complex concepts in a way that’s easy to digest. It’s easy to explain how to use an app or fill in a form.
- Video playlists allow sales reps to add a personal recording to pre-recorded videos. The playlist may include demo videos for different use cases and reps include a short introductory message. Viewers can watch all the videos and skip to one that interests them most.
- FAQ videos answer the common questions the sales team has to answer all the time. Sales reps can send this type of video to prospects to get ahead of questions before they arise.
The Cincopa video platform has a tool called RecTrace that helps sales professionals create videos using webcam, screen only, or both simultaneously.
If you want sales teams to record and share videos, add custom CTAs, create playlists, and make use of analytics, you need to use a video platform like Cincopa. You can automatically upload videos to your Cincopa account and use them multiple times. RecTrace is available to you even if you aren’t a Cincopa user. You will receive a page with a video link to send to viewers.
Building trust through authenticity
Sales videos must be authentic in order to foster trust with potential customers and differentiate brands from competitors. To establish credibility, they must establish an emotional connection with a viewer. Text messages can be cold and impersonal. To make a human connection, people relate to faces more than to words.
Personal connections: Tone, body language, and an emphasis on specific words are all lost in text communication. This can cause prospects not to feel that sense of connection. Video content provides that for them. It helps to create the type of personal connections that can help you to close deals.
It can be hard for B2B companies to make personal connections. Innovative B2B sales videos on a B2B video platform can help to make that connection. A B2B video platform is dedicated to helping B2B businesses make the most of their videos. Company story videos are one way to humanize the brand and make an emotional connection. You can also explain what your brand does in a simple, short, and easy-to-understand way.
Personalized messaging: A personalized demo recorded by a sales executive will help to build trust with a prospect. It may dig into some product features and address a prospect’s needs. A personal bio sales video is another great way to humanize a sales team. Personalized messaging on birthdays and special occasions helps to create that strong connection with customers that may lead to more sales.
Customer testimonials: One of the best ways to build a strong relationship with prospects is through sales video testimonials. They can show what you offer that competitors don’t and increase trust. They help prospects to connect emotionally with your brand. You need to show social proof, especially if you want to make a sale to a skeptical customer. If you can get customers to boost your brand in their own words they are basically doing the selling for you.
Optimization for multiple platforms
A good enterprise video platform such as Cincopa will integrate with other software your enterprise uses. This may be your CRM or your email marketing management system. This allows your sales team to use sales videos on different platforms in many ways.
1. Email marketing
With so many text emails, a video email can stand out. Tests show that adding the word ‘video’ in the subject line will increase response rates. Once they are opened, emails containing a video are more likely to get a click, particularly if the video thumbnail captures attention.
Higher response rates mean sales executives can spend more time actually selling than sending long text emails back and forth. When you get someone’s attention, you can explain your message more clearly by using video rather than lengthy emails. For example, targeted micro-demo videos can help if a deal is tied up over technicalities rather than trying to sort this out by writing emails.
2. Your company website
Video-on-demand: Building a library of video-on-demand (VOD) content on your website means that the sales team has content to use repeatedly. Playlists of pre-recorded videos allow sales team members to direct a prospect to an appropriate video without having to create one all over again. All that’s necessary is a short video introduction to go along with it.
Channels for internal communication: Channels for internal communication and feedback enable sales team members to collaborate with one another. Cincopa’s video channels facilitate internal communication.
An employee video portal: A video portal can be private and allow sales executives to share sales strategies and discuss challenges without safety or security threats. Having video channels or portals can also help with cross-departmental internal communication. Sales teams can collaborate with marketing teams to make sure they’re on the same page. Employee video content allows new sales team members to learn from current ones. They can improve their sales strategies and learn how to create effective sales videos by watching employee video content.
A public video portal: This allows sales teams to post videos for sharing externally. They can invite viewers to like or share videos in the same way as they do on YouTube when using Cincopa’s CincoTube.
3. Social media platforms
Uploading creative sales videos to social media platforms creates engagement. Viewers can come to feel as though they know your brand, which makes them more emotionally committed. Some of the types of videos that work well on social media include:
- Live streaming videos are popular on social media and most platforms have live video features. Hosts can directly interact with audiences who may make a purchase immediately after seeing a product in real time. Hosts may offer deals, discounts, etc. during a live stream which can significantly boost sales.
- Explainer videos are great for products that may need simplified explanations to encourage consumers to buy them. Adding images, animations, graphs, etc. can make explainer videos more engaging.
- Behind-the-scenes videos can give consumers a glimpse of what goes on in the workplace. Amazon has a behind-the-scenes video series that shows what happens in a warehouse and fulfillment center.
- Tutorial videos can also help to convert audiences. They can demonstrate how to use a product or service in real life.
- Promotional videos offer special deals to prospective customers, such as cashback vouchers or free shipping.
Videos are also helpful even after you close deals. They can help with walking customers through contracts and becoming confident about using products.
The importance of video analytics
Sales team members are not as effective if they don’t know what results they are getting. The ability to access analytics is essential to discover what’s working and what’s not.
Observing how prospects engage with a sales video can be revealing. Do they drop off early in the video? Knowing whether viewers complete a video or how long they watch can help a sales team to score leads. Perhaps the message isn’t compelling enough for viewers to keep watching. Refining and improving sales videos is part of the process to get the best results.
Conclusion
Building a video-first sales culture can take time but the results are often significant. Using the Cincopa video platform allows sales teams to record videos using RecTrace. They can share videos, create playlists, customize CTAs, use advanced analytics, and much more.
