When a movie director yells “Lights, camera, action!” the goal is usually to create something that entertains. To Michael Litt, however, the rolling of a camera could be an equally powerful opportunity to sell.
Litt is the co-founder and CEO of Vidyard, one of Canada’s hottest startups (and a Salesforce Canada customer) that focuses on helping organizations of all sizes turn videos into sales enablement tools. Of course, video is often a part of marketing materials today, but Vidyard’s products and services help organizations take things a step further by maximizing the direct impact video can have on revenue.
Litt recently spoke to Salesforce Canada to provide some insight into selling via video. This is the first of a series of posts with some of his best advice.
Video may hold a lot of potential for sales reps, but what are some of the best ways to get started?
The first thing we tell organizations is that they’re likely already using video within their marketing programs, and this offers a great starting point for the sales team. Their website, product pages, and YouTube channel may be filled with great videos that can be easily repurposed for prospecting and educating your buyers. It’s also likely that they have other assets designed for further down the funnel, such as recorded webinars and product demos. We often recommend taking those existing webinars and product videos with tons of great content and enabling them as assets for the sales cycle. Get your reps sharing them directly with your customers, because the reality is that today, people don’t want to be sold to — they want to be educated.
What makes video a great platform for providing that education?
Video is the promise of entertainment. It’s also the next best thing to being there in person. A prospect is far more likely to engage with a video than they are with a white paper or other form of content because they click “play,” lean back and they’re educated. When it comes to showcasing products or educating customers on the latest market trends, you simply can’t beat video content.
What if they haven’t done a lot of webinars or similar video content?
Another starting point is to make it easy for sales reps to start creating their own custom content. Creating new videos is easier than ever and it can even be done without a camera or specialized editing software. Nowadays a sales rep can take an existing PowerPoint presentation, a sales quote, or any other information that they would be sharing with a customer, and present that asset using their computer as a microphone to create a short video. It might walk the client through a proposal or some aspect of the product they didn’t get to see in an original call. It’s a little more involved than re-purposing a webinar, but we recently launched a product called Vidyard Studio to make this a quick and simple process for anyone in sales. Once the video is ready, the sales rep can share it directly with a prospect and be notified when they’ve started and finished watching. That’s really compelling because a video view, in terms of digital body language, can give you that granular second-by-second data and some amazing insights on your customers. You can gauge how interested each prospect is in your content based on their actual viewing history.
How personal should this approach become?
A third way to get going with video —which tends to scare a lot of sales reps — is the simple act of using your computer’s webcam to record a quick “thank you” message and share it privately with a prospect or customer. If you had a great conversation and you’re sitting at your desk, send them something that says, “Hi, thank you for your time today, I’m going to send you some additional assets along with our latest product roadmap - chat with you soon.” That form of follow-up works to humanize the buying process. It gives your inside sales team an opportunity to build a more personal relationship when they can’t be there in person. Removing that barrierin the interaction means the prospect is no longer buying something from a big company or a small company. They’re buying something from a person.
Why is that so important?
People don’t necessarily want to buy what you do. They want to buy why you’re doing it. Seeing someone who’s passionate on screen, helping them believe that they’re not just helping an organization but helping a person, can make all the difference in turning that prospect into a customer, and that customer into an advocate.
In the next installment of this Q&A series, Michael will share his video marketing best practices.
Michael Litt is the CEO and co-founder of Vidyard, a video marketing platform helping marketers measure the impact of their video content. Thought leader, surfer, and serial entrepreneur, Michael is passionate about content marketing and changing the way we engage and purchase with video. Chat with Michael on Twitter @MichaelLitt or LindIken to learn more.
