Video for Sales Enablement

One of the top five biggest trends to watch for 2022 is video’s emergence as THE way to market just about everything. It’s also the best way to enable your sales teams. 

Here’s why: Humans are social animals, and it’s in our nature to gain deep understanding from other humans as we watch their faces and hear their voices at the same time. 

People love video, especially in the current era of all things remote. So, it makes sense that we’re using it more and more every minute for everything—and using video for sales should be at the top of the list for businesses striving to grow and thrive. 

To help you get video on your list of new things to try (or new ways to adapt it), we’ve put together some ideas to help you get on board with the moving pictures. 

Check out this cool statistic: More video content is uploaded every 3o days than all the video created by major US television networks in the last 30 years. (WordStream).

And get this idea: Dr. James McQuivney, VP and principal researcher at Forrester Research, said that “a one-minute video is worth 1.8 million words.” 

Oddly specific, right? Here’s his formula: 

1. 1 picture = 1,000 words (cute, right? See what he did there?)
2. Video records at ~30 frames per second 
3. So, 1 second of video = 30,000 words
4. 30,000 words x 60 (seconds) = 1.8 million
5. Ta-da! There it is, folks.

The quote grabs your attention because it’s quick, compelling, and sparks your curiosity. Like video itself. 

But, it’s also just, well, true. 

It would take 3600 pages to equal 1.8 million words, and nobody has time or the attention span for a sales pitch like that. 

Which points to the next statistic: Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in the text (Forbes). 

And when people remember, they act. That means conversions. That means leads, and that means sales. 

But you don’t need statistics to convince you that video is effective. It’s in your own experience: you love video, too.  

So, why haven’t we been using video for marketing all along? For the simple fact that we didn’t have the tools (and we really thought we had to compete with movies and television to be effective). 

Now, we all have the tools to make compelling videos in our hands 24/7. Our smartphones are capable of creating video that is better than video presented to us by big production companies only a few years ago. 

Plus, now, because of social media (looking at YOU, TikTok), people actually prefer videos that regular people make. As long as it’s valuable, grabs their attention right off the bat, and is decently-lit, video that you create with your smartphone works extremely well. 

So, how should you incorporate video into your sales strategy? With the tools and ideas we’re about to throw at you. 

Tools

Our video tech stack gives us all the functionality, data, and ease-of-use that any business could hope for. When you find tools that work, double down on them: get certification, training, and the right tier option for your business. Here they are. 

Vidyard

Vidyard delights us at every turn. We use it to do exactly what we’re showing you how to do here: sales enablement, marketing, team collaboration, and just all around fun. It’s so incredibly user-friendly and helpful, it’s hard NOT to use it. In addition to video creation tools, Vidyard’s all-around great video toolkit includes features like: 

• screen recording
• video editing
• on-demand personalization
• playlists
• integrations with your other sales enablement tools
• gif generators

It also offers macro tools like video management, video optimization, and video sharing platforms. It’s our #1 choice for everything video that we do. 

HubSpot 

HubSpot (the leading CRM-based software solution) and Vidyard are best buds, and they play well together to bring all the best data, drag and drop ease, functionality, and organization you need to attract, engage, and delight your prospects and customers. 

We’re HubSpot Platinum Solution Partners, which means that our team is certified to show you everything you could ever want to know about how HubSpot can help your business grow. 

Slack 

Slack is a messaging platform that keeps our remote team constantly connected in a way that inspires collaboration through workflow automations and integrations with all the tools we use every day. Slack also has a fantastic, easy video creation tool that we use when saying it is just quicker than text messaging. 

Ideas

Keep it short 

Short = under 1.8 million words (one minute). Jk, but actually, it’s also true. The more concise your video, the better.  Videos that are less than 90 seconds long have a 50% higher retention rate (HubSpot).

Remember to grab your audience’s attention immediately by getting right to the point. 

The inbound methodology works here, too: speak to what your audience needs (the reason you’re making the video in the first place). No need to start with an in-depth introduction of yourself. Introduce the audience to what they came to find out first. Introduce yourself at the end. 

Video engagement drops off by 50% after ten seconds. How are you going to use that ten seconds? (No pressure). 

Use a thumbnail 

Choose the best image from your video and use it as a thumbnail that allows your prospects to get a quick look at what your video is about. 

Thumbnails are clickable, and people are much more likely to open a video that has a thumbnail they can click on that gives them a peek into what the video is about. 

Plus, a thumbnail with a link to a quick 15-second video is a great way to get around the 140 character count for meta descriptions, too. 

Employ a gif  

Gifs are easy to make from excerpts from longer videos. They’re shareable, useful, and entertaining. It’s a great way to engage your prospects, and delight your customers. Vidyard has a gif generator that works like a charm and is easy as a gif is handy.

Personalize it 

Personalized videos are 35% more likely to retain viewers as compared to non-personalized videos (HubSpot). If a prospect asks a question in an email, respond with a video in which you give them the answers they need. 

A word about authenticity 

Make videos on the fly! People love it when others show up with authenticity. Therefore, whenever you have a thought or an idea, take out your iPhone or your laptop and make a video. 

Practice the concept of “Progress > Perfection” which is a tenet of the growth mindset that’s good for everything you do anyway. Apply it to video, and you’re golden. 

Remote collaboration 

Most video content management systems (CMS) allow teams across an organization to create and upload instructional videos or announcements. This makes it easy to share updates, best practices, and other important information inside your business. It’s also just more fun. 

Embed it in your cold outreach email 

Video adds warmth to cold outreach. It just does. Sending an email with a personalized video to prospects makes for stiff competition with the regular old messages sitting in that prospect’s inbox.

Put it on your website 

People are 50% more likely to stay on a website that contains video. Use it to showcase your brand, explain your value proposition, or highlight your team and your brand like we did here. These videos should be of a higher quality to ensure your website continues to load quickly (use the same philosophy as image optimization for websites). 

Delightful prospecting and engagement becomes even more delightful when you use video to offer the value your customers deserve in an easy, quick, and helpful format. Video hits all those spots, and it saves time and money for your business, too. 

Want more actionable KSAs from Growth? Read our blog or, better yet, ask us! We’re just a bunch of humans who love to share what we know.