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If you work in sales, imagine—for a moment—that you could enter a sales call or meeting knowing exactly what’s on your prospects’ mind. What if you knew what they found most compelling, or what confuses them most about your product? You’d go into every exchange armed with the precise information that will make you more successful at your job.
Video can give you exactly that kind of insight. By educating your audience with video and tracking their viewing history on a second-by-second basis, you can discern what interests them and what doesn’t. You can pinpoint what viewers are most curious about, based on what sections they decide to rewatch. This kind of information is nearly impossible to get via the written content your company produces, or nearly any other content type, for that matter.
A Wistia video heatmap, showing what someone has watched—in green—what they’ve re-watched—in yellow—and what they’ve re-watched multiple times—in orange)
Aside from this super-targeted viewing data, video offers other advantages during the sales process. It’s a rich way to convey information: being able to both show and tell means you can share dense information quickly and clearly. Plus, it allows your prospects to learn about the product or service when it’s most convenient for them. They can watch your product overview when and where they want, rather than waiting to schedule a demo.
There’s a personal element here too. We humans are hardwired to respond to the faces of other human beings. This recognition process elicits an emotional response on the part of the viewer. Because video (and the face on a video) generates an emotional response, it’s easier to foster an emotional connection with prospects. A friend, who works with clients at T3 Advisors, mentioned that having her video on the company’s site helps make new relationships more personal and memorable when she’s getting started with clients.
Having them see her face and hear her voice lets her enter each new conversation with a stronger foundation and rapport.
What kinds of videos should you (or your company) be making? Ideally, your videos will support the different phases of the sales process. I tend to think about videos falling into three categories:
Videos that explain: these might include product overviews, “About Us” videos, or screencasts showing how different features work. They can be particularly effective early on in the sales process when a prospect is still figuring out his or her needs. These videos let prospects access the information they want exactly when they want it.
Videos that connect: these might include webinars or online demos. We’ve even seen some companies using “video voicemails” to facilitate conversations with new prospects. Bamboo HR has done a great job with these, keeping the videos short and snappy but also very friendly. You can check out an example video here. These videos can be a great way of establishing a stronger link between prospect and sales person, facilitating an actual sale.
Videos that convince: these could be customer testimonials, case studies, or even a recruiting videos that aim to show you why a company offers a great working environment. These kinds of videos are often helpful when a prospect is weighing different options and can help them feel more confident about purchasing.
Think about every step in the sales process and when you wish you could “scale yourself”. What I mean by this is that you should look for tasks you do many times each week, (like making initial outgoing calls to leads or answering frequently asked questions about your product). If one of your goals is to devote more time to initial prospecting, let video do some of the heavy lifting for you. If your goal is more demos, try making a demo video instead of giving the same presentation over and over again. Each stage in the sales process can be made more efficient—and more effective—with the use of video.
Implementing video during the sales process is only half the battle. The other half is using the awesome data that you get back. The data that you collect about your video viewers can really facilitate the most important part of the process: closing a sale. But which data points are the most helpful? Here are some areas where you should focus your attention:
Contact information: Site traffic is good, but it’s an awfully vague data point. If you don’t know who’s visiting your site and spending time there, you won’t be able to pursue the relationship with them. Instead, make sure you gather contact information for those who are spending time with your video content. You can do this in a number of ways, but the Wistia-Pardot integration makes it particularly streamlined. Wistia will host your video and then you can implement an email collector “gate” (which we call Turnstile) before, during, or after your video, asking viewers to submit their contact information. This works particularly well before longer, high-value content like a recorded webinar.
Engagement data to prioritize leads: “Engagement” during a video refers to the percentage of that video your prospect has watched. In general, it’s fair to assume that prospects who’ve watched more videos--and have viewed 100% of particular videos--are more informed about the product and more likely to close the deal. You can use this information to tailor a prospect’s score, allowing you to more easily prioritize the leads that are more likely to close.
The Pardot-Wistia integration lets you see which videos a prospect has viewed, what proportion of the video they’ve viewed, and which sections were watched multiple times. This information can be used to adjust any prospect’s score.
Rewatch data to focus the conversation: A video heatmap shows you where a prospect has rewatched sections of your video multiple times. This is incredibly telling, since it indicates where a prospect has questions or is particularly interested. For example, if your prospect rewatches a section about administrator access and reporting features, you can focus the conversation on that part of the product. You go into every call knowing where to focus your attention.
Some of you might already have video on your site and simply aren’t taking advantage of all that it (and the resulting data) has to offer. If you fall into this category, try letting your company’s videos do more of the heavy lifting for you, so that you can close deals more efficiently and effectively. Others might not have much (or any) video yet. If you fall into this category, consider working with your marketing team to implement video at key points in the sales process. Or make some yourself! Even DIY video content—if done in a helpful, friendly way, like the video voicemails described above--goes a long way towards building rapport with your prospective buyer.
Kristen is a big fan of technology, education, and business. She loves being part of the marketing team at Wistia, running partnerships and helping people use video more effectively. Kristen holds advanced degrees in business and education from MIT and Harvard.
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