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You may have heard a thing or two about video selling in the past year and are thinking about how to incorporate it into your sales efforts. But, when you bring it to your sales team, they’re not as enthusiastic. How do you ease their concerns and get everyone onboard?
Yaniv Siegel at Vidayard knows a thing or two about video selling. After all, Vidyard provides accessible tools that make video selling easier than ever. We’ve asked him for the top five reservations salespeople have about selling through video and how to mitigate these. Need help with video selling for your business? Get in touch today.
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1. “Nothing beats face-to-face”
On average, sales people spend 11% of their time travelling to and from meetings. An hour there, and hour back - it all adds up. Of course, if the decision-makers aren’t all in the room at once, or you’re faced with epic M25 traffic, time can spiral, all because ‘nothing beats face-to-face’.
We don’t deny that in-person meetings are great - after all, building relationships is a big part of making sales - but, as the events of 2020 have taught us, there’s more than one way to do this. Video conferencing platforms like Zoom make it easier to have that face-to-face contact, more efficiently, and in the comfort of your own workspace. Yaniv agrees that remote sales meetings are becoming the norm, “It saves a lot more time, makes you much more concise. You can actually have a meeting, and then move on with the next step, which actually helps shorten sale cycles and close deals quicker.”
2. “It’s gimmicky”
People love to dismiss video-selling as gimmicky - but the results speak for themselves. In a recent video-selling campaign to new contacts, FINALLY achieved an 83% click-through rate - well above our industry’s average. Video is the most engaging content format on social media, and 93% of businesses believe they’ve gained at least one new customer thanks to a video on social media. What’s more, it’s also more likely to get you featured on the first page of search results on Google and, in some cases, can even persuade your prospect to convert.
Okay, video trends come and go, but video selling is here to stay. Yaniv explains, “Unlike cold calls or emails, video shows that you've invested in making a personal connection, being human, and doing something unique that actually stands out. It shows that you're willing to invest in understanding the prospective customer, to then start a relationship. Video is the opposite to gimmicky; it’s the closest thing to a real human interaction you can have.”
3. “I’m awkward on camera”
Lots of us worry that we’re awkward on camera, but like everything in life, practice makes perfect. After all, your sales colleagues' cold calls or emails improved over time, and there’s no reason their video presenting skills can’t as well. For nervous presenters, Yaniv has some techniques that can make things easier:
Write your script beforehand - Presenters are usually awkward if they’ve forgotten what to say. Freestyling is all well and good but it can be difficult to master if they’re new to it. Ask your sales team to jot down a few talking points - or even a script to stick to - to steer their video in the right direction.
Create test videos - Before your sales team create videos for the world to see, ask them to make some test videos, and get feedback from colleagues to help you to hone their presentation skills.
Persevere - Just as their first cold call was awkward for sales people, now they've done hundreds of them, it's completely natural. The same applies to video.
4. “Our customers aren’t ready for video”
This may have been the case a decade ago, but it’s far from true now. From baby boomers to Generation Z, video is the content format that’s consumed the most: in the US, 85% of internet users watch at least one video a month. It’s no surprise then that 85% of businesses are now using video content in their outreach efforts.
In some industries, particularly engineering and manufacturing, there's a gap between how prospects consume content, and the way we actually communicate with them. As Yaniv says, “With Netflix, iPlayer, and YouTube, people are consuming visual content more and more in their personal space - why are we not also communicating with them in the business space in that way?”
5. “No one will watch it”
The thirst for video content shows no signs of slowing, and so there’s no reason why your audience won’t watch your video. As long as your sales people have the right message that resonates with prospective customers, and are geared towards your buyer personas, your prospects should like and engage with what you send out. Yaniv explains, “Over the years, I've made close to 10,000 videos. It's not that I do this for a hobby: I do it because people get back to me more. They book more meetings with me, and because of that I'm able to close more deals.”
FINALLY can help you to develop a fresh approach to your sales efforts. We help B2B companies use video-selling to grow their business, and we can help you too. To find out more, get in touch with our team today.
