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Your marketing team is riding the wave of video. They are creating videos and distributing them through channels like YouTube, Slideshare, your blog, and paid media opportunities. But they are completely ignoring LinkedIn.
This creates an opportunity for sales reps and executives to use existing video content to reach, connect with, and influence specific key buying committee members that your marketing team can’t target with a mass media campaign. Let me show you how.
The LinkedIn profiles of most sales professionals read like an impressive resume. They talk about their success as a top sales performer. This may sell you to HR executives, but it doesn’t connect you with decision makers and influencers in your industry. Your profile should be designed to sell you and your organization’s products and solutions.
When you read my profile, you’ll find a one-minute animated video right below my summary that reiterates our company’s marketing messages in a way that prospects can visualize and remember. They can now see the value we offer, and why it matters, in a visual, engaging way that stands out from the rest of the mostly text-based profile.
Now, with a strong LinkedIn profile foundation that’s filled with engaging videos, you’ll have more prospects accepting your invitations to connect. Now what?
You need to nourish those relationships until they become viable leads. Most sales executives connections become “dead” connections if there is no initial interest. That’s why you need to create a LinkedIn community that’s alive with discussions around your video content. These discussions should also be shared in LinkedIn groups that your targeted audiences belong to. Post your videos the this groups and include a call-to-action to download your white paper, webinar, ebook or other value-added offering so you can capture leads.
At some point, as a sales professional you’ll want to take your LinkedIn conversations offline. Before you take the conversation offline, it’s a good idea to provide additional material your prospect can watch or read before the call. I know of an organization that provides prospects with an ebook to read before there is a phone conversation. If that organization gets the prospect to read at least 30 pages, there is an 80% chance of a conversion. Now, since visual information can be processed much faster than print, I suggest testing using videos instead of an ebook or white paper.
Videos such as customer testimonials and short product demos will certainly work well in this context. By providing this additional information, you will improve engagement, increase your prospect’s comfort level with you as a vendor and make the conversation flow more smoothly. Your prospect will begin to visualize how they might work with you before they even speak to you.
In short, if LinkedIn is an underutilized marketing asset, then video content is a huge missed opportunity on that channel. Using video on LinkedIn effectively can make it easier to connect with prospects, nurture relationships, and move the conversation forward.
B2B video expert Bruce McKenzie creates 2-Minute Explainer® videos that increases sales and shortens the selling cycle for IBM, BMC, Compuware and many other B2B technology organizations. His recent interview shares in more detail how to use animated videos that explains complex solutions or ideas in just 2 minutes with your LinkedIn lead generation efforts. Download the free audio recording and transcript.
Learn more tips to boost your sales performance with the free Salesforce ebook below.
