But you can shake up your cold calls with video prospecting. You can record quick 30-60 second videos and send them to clients by email, text, LinkedIn, or through an app. It lets you connect in a more personal, engaging way.

You can record your screen or use a webcam to share a unique pitch and demo your product to a client who’s been looking at boring text blocks all day.

Learn how to create a good video for prospecting and what the best practices for these sales pitches look like.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Traditional Outreach Methods and Techniques
• Mixing It Up with Video Prospecting
• The Do’s of Video Prospecting
• The Don’ts of Video Prospecting
• Final Thoughts: Video Prospecting

Traditional Outreach Methods and Techniques

Traditionally, cold sales pitches are conducted by phone, email, and occasionally in person. Each method has its pros and cons. Phone calls offer personalization, while emails are easier to scale.

Cold Emailing

Emailing prospects is a go-to for most businesses. 87% of surveyed B2B marketers agreed email was their favorite free organic sales channel. 

Email is scalable. You can create a few formats that work for most prospects and edit them as needed for individual accounts. 

A cold email is a short and direct email to a prospective customer. Your salespeople focus on an eye-catching subject line that addresses potential customers’ pain points. And you can incorporate visuals and text to make an engaging pitch.
You can track and automate cold emails. Companies can see how their email pitches perform and adjust to improve click-through rates (CTR).

Disadvantages of Cold Emailing

While email has thrived as a major marketing channel, it has its cons:

• Considered Spam — Cold emails are often seen as spam and can get stuck in a spam filter, never making it to their intended inbox. Open rates and response rates are generally low.
  
• Slow Process — It can take a while to receive feedback on a campaign and determine your next step. Unlike social media, you have fewer ways to gather feedback.
  
• High Competition — In cold emailing, you have an overwhelming amount of competition. Since emails are so easy to write up, everyone is sending them.

Gaining your prospect’s attention and boosting your reply rate takes something special that helps you stand out from the crowd.

Cold Calling

If you want to make a good first impression with your lead, a sales call may be the way to go. Since you work in real-time, a call yields faster responses. You can also personalize each call to improve customer experience since you’re talking in person.

With personalized in-person conversations, you have better odds of converting your leads. You can also track calls with your CRM to check previous conversations and get everyone up-to-speed on an account. It helps you move a customer down the sales funnel.

Disadvantages of Cold Calling

Like cold emails, cold calling also comes with its cons:

• Time-consuming — One-on-one calls consume time. You need sales reps to call clients and convincingly scale the pitches.
  
• Frequent Failure — Cold calling requires persistence. Gartner shares it can take 18 dials to connect with a buyer.
  
• Frustrating — Cold calls frustrate both customers and staff. Potential leads prefer less invasive approaches that don’t catch them during their lunch break.

Mixing It Up With Video Prospecting

This is where video prospecting comes in. 

What Is Video Prospecting?

Instead of text, video prospecting utilizes video and film media to introduce products and services to your leads and prospects and convert them to clients.

Video prospecting combines the personalization and friendliness of a call with the scalable and ease of use of an email.

A video prospect is short, usually between 30-60 seconds. The message needs to be direct to fit the time frame. And you can use the same script for multiple pitches, making it easy to scale.

Advantages of Video Prospecting

Videos are one of the most popular mediums. HubSpot shares that 78% of marketers feel videos helped their company’s bottom line in 2021. 

You can send video messages within sales emails. This simplifies tracking how these video emails convert prospects and lets you incorporate automation with the messaging.

Videos are easy to personalize. You can edit them to enable your products or services to be the real star. 

While your sales team needs to practice to nail down their pitch on camera, and you need to invest time and money into perfecting your setup, the format makes up for the cost.

Using video prospecting enables you to break down complex topics visually, using data or demonstrations that just aren’t possible by phone or email.

Added Benefits of Video Prospecting

Video prospecting lets you be more original than a typical email or call-template. You can showcase your products on video, so customers can view them better. You can also create a unique pitch or demo your services without meeting in person.

Video prospecting also shows more personality. A sales rep can use their voice and visual aids to work the pitch in a way email alone can’t convey. 

Videos consume less time than emails and calls. They highlight new products or mention updates without requiring effort from the customer. 

You can use videos for disclaimers. You can provide all the information without using too many resources. 

The Do’s of Video Prospecting

Video prospecting is similar to cold calls or emails in many ways. You convey the same message and follow a similar format. 

You introduce yourself and share your elevator pitch.

In other words, you want to gain the prospect’s interest and tell them why you’re reaching out.

You can do that by:

• Building a rapport — Personalize the video when possible. You can create a basic template and add personalized video bits at the beginning and end as needed.
  
• Highlighting value proposition — Provide a strong value proposition in the video. Let the prospective customers know what your product offers and which problem it solves.
  
• Researching your leads — Research your leads, so you can send them the video that suits their needs. Try to focus on solution-based pitching, so your video solves a problem they have. 

After getting their interest, direct them to the next action: clicking on the link in your email.

Recording a Prospecting Video

You have two main ways to record a video for prospecting. You can use a webcam to record yourself or screen-sharing software to show your computer screen.

Webcam

Webcam video prospecting is similar to what you find on YouTube video or Zoom call. You’ll speak on camera, and you can focus the video on your product if you choose.

Because of the face-to-face interaction, these pitches can feel more friendly and engaging. 

You can opt to share your screen with a webcam if it works best for your pitch. This way, you can include text, photos, or PowerPoint slides with your own video.

These video prospecting pitches are easy to make and require few resources. You can easily record them and send them at scale.   

Screen-Share

If your product or service is computer-based, recording your screen highlighting what your software can do is more convincing than ai phone call.

You can make short, easy-to-follow demos that showcase the visuals on your screen. Instead of telling your lead how fast your product works, you can show them.

Using a screen recorder, you can highlight pricing and add other helpful video content as well. 

You can even direct your new prospects toward your call to action (CTA) at the end of your recording.

Source 

ALT: Video prospecting with a screen-share should be clean and easy to see.

Video Prospecting Best Practices

Here are a few tips to make compelling prospecting videos.

• Remember to be professional during your videos. While light humor can be a great way to show creative energy, it’s still a sales prospecting video. So avoid pushing away clients by crossing the lines.
  
• Be aware of your recording space. Avoid messy backgrounds. If the budget permits and you record often, invest in a green screen.
  
• Make sure the lighting is good. Prospects should see you without getting distracted by a grainy, dark video or a super bright one.
  
• Reduce the background noise. A good mic can go a long way toward making your videos more professional and reducing background noise.
  
• Make eye contact with the camera, speak directly, and give the pitch your full attention. Smile and be positive, showing your energy, especially in the call to action.

The call to action is the main reason for video prospecting. So lead your video into a clear next step. You could do this with a follow-up email, a meeting link in the email, or a link to your website. 

The Don’ts of Video Prospecting

Video prospecting is still a new addition to the sales book, so there are bound to be some bumps along the way. 

But there are a few essential rules you can follow to make the most of your recording efforts.

• Don’t record videos that are too long — Keep your intro video to a minute or less. You can extend your demo video, but it’s still safe to make a separate long video and link it.

• Don’t send the video alone — Personalize the email you send your video with. This will help engage viewers and get them to click on your email. You can make visually appealing emails with an email builder and add context and data to enhance your CTA.

• Don’t be basic — Unlike text or voice alone, videos let you be creative. Use that to your advantage. It’s a great way to show how your product is different. You can use a script, but spend time to customize the video according to your offering.

• Don’t quit after a failure — Recording a video can be difficult. You need to get several things right, and it’s common to make mistakes. Don’t get discouraged. Record your pitch multiple times. Try a new script or different visuals. 

Like with emails and calls, you’ll develop your own voice and style. Optimize your videos to get them right and create stronger scripts. 

You can even develop a long-term playbook for video prospecting to help you with your process. 

Final Thoughts: Video Prospecting Explained

Try video prospecting with your leads if you’re struggling to convert new sales prospects with email and cold calls. This easy-to-incorporate format combines the personalization of a phone call with the imagery and ease of an email.

Video prospecting helps customers understand your product. It reduces the number of calls on the same few questions and makes it easy to personalize your pitches. Using fast, intuitive video-sharing software like Vmaker helps you create short videos to share with potential clients. Whether you’re sharing your screen or recording from your web camera, make the most of your pitches.

We went live on LinkedIn discussing video content marketing strategy for 2023.

In case you missed the session, here is the recording of the same. Please move to 1:52 for the conversation to start.

• Camille’s personal experience with Video content (starts at 1:52)
• An example of one of Camille’s favorite video content (4:32)
• The evolution of content consumption in different formats (7:50)
• The different areas to use videos in our marketing strategies (10:30)
• Game plan with videos for 2022 (13:25)

Video content consumption has been on the rise over the last 3 years and we can all be sure that the trend will continue in the upcoming year as well.

With this in mind, I wanted to understand how different brands are preparing to use this trend as a part of their marketing process.

So, I recently hosted Camille Trent who is a Content marketer at Dooly, to join me on a LinkedIn Live session and talk about her plans on using videos as a part of their content marketing game in 2022.

We went through a series of questions to understand how Camille’s personal experience with videos unfolded over time, the understanding of the audience’s reception to the video content, and how to put all the learnings to the best of their use in 2022.

Here is a quick transcript of our conversation on video content marketing strategy. If you decide to contradict my above statement about the video and decide to read the text instead (Make no mistake, the text is still interesting!)

Camille started out in the advertising industry by writing copies for B2C and B2B companies for ads, video scripts. Later she started focusing more on the B2B tech companies writing copies and reviewing them for multiple content formats such as videos, voice-over, ads, blogs, etc.

Slowly her career moved towards content marketing where she started focusing on distributing the content in addition to creating them.

Sooner she was into understanding the different ways the content channels worked, the different types of audience each of these channels attract, and how to distribute content effectively via the same.

Camille has had a 360-degree experience in the early stage of her career in the content marketing game from writing, editing, distributing to the marketing game.

Though she has been experimenting a lot with written content which also happens to be her strong suit, her experience with videos especially on LinkedIn is still in the growth phase.

Her recent tryout with LinkedIn videos has shown surprising results compared to the engagement in other formats. This led to more experiments and trials on the way.

I am pretty sure this live session added to the list of positives to do more experiments with LinkedIn videos.

Videos have evolved over the years to match the different preferences set by consumers of the content. When it originated it was very common to see videos that range from 30 minutes to an hour on average on Youtube. But today things have changed a lot.

Each platform has a preference over the way they want the content to be formatted to suit their audience. Youtube loves content that is ideally 20 minutes long to better optimize for ads. Facebook loves videos that are 5 to 10 minutes long for the same reason. There is a new kind of format for short portrait videos that ranges between 15 to 60 seconds to consume on the go.

While we talk about the video game in general I was curious to understand Camille’s perspectives in the way she optimizes her video content based on timeline and channel.

The long-form content still works, as long as you can deliver value. People are open to consuming in-depth information and these people are significant to your business. As long as you can create engaging content that can deliver value consistently throughout the content, you can win with them.

But to expand your reach to all segments in the market you have to use the distribution methods. Content distribution is vital to complete the content marketing cycle,

Most people do it wrong by just reposting the same content across different platforms. But you have to start optimizing the content for the platform before you share the same.

This helps you operate efficiently in the content creation process and in better ROI.

Reemphasizing again here the importance of content distribution and repurposing the content again here.

You have to start with long-form content – a webinar, a podcast, an interview, anything. This way you can loop in an influencer to help you create your content in the long-form.

With this, you can repurpose the same to multiple formats of content. Since the long-form content will help you get all the information you need you can later impart the information and the credibility on your content preferences both in paid and organic marketing.

This has helped us in the past effectively. How to get more ideas from authentic information and how to use them effectively. These are the questions you need to get the answer to.

It is going to be a package of all the things we have discussed so far. But more importantly to focus on the one important thing – whether it is a podcast, interview, or video.

Master one channel and try not to get too caught up in multiple channels and formats.

The game plan is to get started with one channel, create some long-form authentic content in the same, and later repurpose the same to different channels and the audience.

Camille Trent is a household name today amongst all marketers with her constant daily dose of value-added via her social platforms.

I wanted to host Camille for her enthusiasm in learning and unlearning new things each day in the content marketing space.

This conversation had some key highlights worthy of giving a shot for anyone who is into content marketing.

• Focus on one channel, master it and then move
• Create one long-form content and then repurpose it to multiple short-form content
• Personalize your content according to your audience and the channel before you distribute them
• We all start by writing choppy copies but you have to do them anyway to become better at it.

Hope you guys found this useful. You can check our upcoming series guests here. If you have someone in mind we should host next time, do drop me a message here.

This is not how you would expect your customers to behave, but sadly this is true. The average amount of time taken between Google search and purchase is 20 days. During these 20 days, a few of them drop the idea of buying, decide to go for an alternative, or never come back because they never had the intention of buying the product in the first place.

What about the people who decide to stay in the journey because they want to buy the product online? What do they go through, and what makes them convert?

In a nutshell, a prospect who finally ends up buying the product goes through a series of steps called buyer’s journey.

Let’s get into that in detail.

Buyer’s journey is a process that most prospective buyers follow to consider, evaluate and purchase the product or service that fits their needs the best. A few buyers take a short span of time in making the final decision, while a few others can take a considerable amount of time.
Either way, a buyer goes through three different stages of buying process.

Awareness: At this stage, the buyer is aware that there is a problem, and to solve it they need to buy a product or use a service

Consideration: In their quest to solve the problem, buyers consider and evaluate different options based on strengths and weaknesses. 

Decision stage: This is the final stage where the buyer has a clear understanding of the problem, how it can be solved by the product or service of a brand, and they don’t mind putting their money in it. 

Video marketing is the thing right now. So alienating it from your buyer’s journey can be a big miss for your business. 53% of the marketers have agreed that marketing videos can help in creating more brand awareness. 

To talk more about this in detail, we invited Karthik Subramanian, head of marketing at Picmaker. Karthik has close to two decades of experience and has worked with IT giants like Cognizant and Accenture in the past. Recently, his interview series, “High on Stories” has been getting a lot of attention on LinkedIn.

There is an interesting story about how he made his transition to marketing, but for that, we recommend checking out our recorded webinar video. 

In the next part of this blog, we will be talking about the points that we discussed in the webinar. This will keep the discussion relevant, and give you a quick walkthrough of what you can expect from the webinar video.

A lot of marketers mix up buyer’s journey with the marketing funnel. While they both have similarities, using them interchangeably can make things go wrong. 

A buyer’s journey is looking at the buying process from the buyers point of view. It means you list down all the activities that your buyers perform, and map out the steps that they follow before taking the final decision of buying the product.

A Marketing funnel is a blueprint laid down by a marketer. With a marketing funnel, a marketer tries to look at a customer’s journey from their point of view. This gives them a good understanding of the process and how they should frame the marketing strategy.

“Talk to your customers” — Karthik Subramanian

 Yes, that is it. That’s all you have to do to understand the customer journey. There are no magic formulas or secret ingredients that will give you success overnight. Talking to your customers will help you to reverse engineer from customer’s behavior to learn more about the customer journey.

A marketer can start an interaction with a prospect right from the start. Like when they reach out on chat or email to enquire about the product. Besides, a marketer can ramp up their efforts of studying more about customer behavior by running surveys. To encourage customers for filling these surveys, they can offer a minimal reward.

Simplicity is the key here. Using practical methods can help anyone to gain a lot of insights about customer journey.

At every stage of the buyer journey, a customer has different requirements. The videos can be aligned with these requirements to make it relevant for the customers. Getting your videos right is like holding the hands of your customers and leading them to the destination. Here are some examples of different type of videos you can create at different stages – 

Brand awareness stage: Here your customer is only trying to learn more about your brand. So telling your customer about the product, and its features is probably not a very good idea here. Instead, a video showing the brand value, mission, vision and what problem you’re trying to solve will work better at this stage.  

Evaluation stage: This is the stage where you can go a step further and give your customers a complete picture of your product. A customer at this stage is evaluating everything and learning about the product. By creating a video, you’re serving them everything they need and making their job easier.

Decision stage: If they have gone through your above two videos, then most likely they’re comparing your product with your competitors. Your prospective customers are looking for subtle signs on the basis of which they can give a score to the products. A customer testimonial video can be very effective at this stage. Additionally, videos on case studies, success stories, etc. will help you establish trust and credibility on you over your competition. 

Videos have evolved along with marketing. There are so many ways by which you can create videos, and each one of it can have a different impact on your customers. So after you have an understanding of what videos will work at different stages, it’s a great idea to decide what type of video will be the right fit for your business. This is necessary because video production costs money and other resources. Taking a wrong decision here can put tremendous pressure on your marketing activities thereby halting other operations.

Let’s take a look at the four most common types of videos created by businesses for marketing purpose

Real-time videos

These videos are not very budget-friendly because there are high production costs involved. Being real-time in nature, there is no editing and your customers are looking at raw footage. To get it right at the first attempt you need to ensure that every piece of equipment is at the right place, and all other factors like lighting has also been taken care of. In spite of being expensive, real-time videos can be very effective. The amount of value that they can create is tremendous. The customer watching a real-time video will know that there is no filter involved, and whatever they’re looking at is real.

Interview videos

In interview videos, you invite people to ask questions, and gather their thoughts on different subjects. These videos can help you to establish brand credibility. You can invite prominent personalities, but that will require you to shell out some budget, or you might have to get a back-up from your own brand presence.

Animation videos

Animated videos has gained popularity over the years. With tools like Animaker, you can create videos without spending a heavy budget on recruiting an agency. With the help of these DIY tools, you can create animated videos to tell a story or even explain a process. These videos are light-hearted which makes it more engaging for the customers to watch.

Screen recording videos

Over the years, companies have realized their dependence on videos for improving their marketing reach. However, as the demand increased, so did the new ways of creating videos. One such technique that has been spreading amongst companies very fast is screen recording videos. Screen recording videos are not only used for marketing, but also for sales follow-up, internal communication, and customer support. Screen and webcam records are finding their way in multiple functions of business today with their luxury of easy production and cost. 

Further Read: How to Increase Feature Adoption with Explainer Videos

“Videos are just forms of content, so the weightage should be more towards the content idea and next move to the format” — Karthik Subramanian

One of the best ways of blending videos in current marketing activities is by creating more number of videos in a shorter format. Considering the low attention span of the customers, simple 90-second videos can help you get the job done.

Once you have the video in place, you can think of repurposing the content. Repurposing will help you to create more videos but by using the same content. For doing this, you don’t need to employ extra resources or spend a lot of time. Use The QR Code Generator, you can create QR Codes for your videos, allowing viewers to quickly access related resources, special promotions, or additional content with a simple scan. Additionally, integrating a QR Code with Uniqode’s QR code generator into your videos can further engage your audience by providing quick access to related resources or promotions.

The future of videos is going to be about quantity more than quality. People are so used to watching videos on their mobile devices that they will remain hooked to it for a long time. Along with this, the attention span is also shortening, so they will be more interested in your content than the quality.

Karthik shared a great message with us when we asked him this question. We will use his quote to answer this question, and also summarize this blog

“Keep producing as many videos as possible, and try to be more creative with your approach to be more successful. Keep it short, keep it simple and most importantly keep your audience in mind. Personalize your videos for the different stages of your buyer’s journey and ensure they answer the questions the buyer might have in those stages. You will succeed.”