4 Ways Video Helps Maintain Control and Accelerate the Sales Cycle

We’ve been talking a lot about using video during the inbound/outbound sales process. But it’s time to dive a little deeper into how you can strategically use video to tighten up your sales cycle and maintain control of the buying process – at the same time, providing a seamless experience for your customers and prospects.

If you’re just starting out with video, head over to our Video Selling Institute to learn best practices for breaking through e-mail clutter, boosting response rates and booking more meetings. I also suggest you get yourself a whiteboard and check out Lauren Wadsworth’s blog: How I Get 5x More Meetings and Beat Quota Every Month (Hint: It’s Not Email or Phone).

It’s no surprise that video prospecting yields significantly higher results than traditional methods, but let’s explore some new ways video can be used throughout the entire path-to-purchase, to deliver on sales-sourced pipeline and convert your prospects from  lead to customer in just the click of a play button.

1. Waking the Dead (Dead Opps + Cold Leads)

Remember Paul the MQL who requested a demo and went cold as ice? You followed up with him for 20 days, 4 emails, 3 calls, 2 voicemails, a LinkedIn connection request and—nothing! New projects, minutiae and a flooded inbox had other plans for Paul.

Let’s wake the dead and turn these cold leads to warm, and then to hot.

Here’s an example of how video can help you stay top-of-mind, re-engage a cold lead, and leverage existing marketing content to further qualify and convert your prospects faster.

Dead opportunities are at least somewhat familiar with your product and typically convert faster than cold leads. Introduce a 2-minute micro-demo in a playlist to remind Paul why he was evaluating your product in the first place and try to drive urgency to re-engage.If there wasn’t a compelling enough reason before, be prepared to deliver why there is one now.

2. Land and Expand

Let’s dial-in on prospecting large to mid-market, and enterprise accounts. When you’re navigating through thousands of employees to prospect, you need to scale your efforts and prioritize your time working your most engaged leads. You still need to personalize your messaging – but in this case, the personalization is your targeted research on the company.

It’s about finding the right balance between quality and quantity; account based videos save you time and deliver on both.

Check out this example of an Account Base Video (ABV). ABVs should be based on persona, so while you’re sending the same video to multiple prospects, your messaging will always resonate:

The idea is to create one single screen share and send the video at-scale, using video analytics to hone in on the leads that are most engaged.

Once you’ve landed the first meeting, expand it. Reuse the same Account Based Video and prospect the same persona in a different territory or country. If Sandra, the Director of IT in the East is interested, there is a good chance David from the West could be, too.

Expanding into an account you’ve already determined is a good fit is like working a highly qualified lead – you should be able to get to a yes/ no/ maybe, very early on in your cadence.

At the very least, your prospect should be open to a conversation—if you’re extra cheeky—it’s because you’ve asked for the referral! Convert, convert, convert.

3. Enabling a Champion

It’s true; no one can sell your product better than you can. So, when you hear the inevitable “let me pitch this to my team /boss/VP, and get back to you,” use video to take back control of your opportunity and deliver your own value prop.

Shikha, SME Account Executive at Vidyard, shows us how to enable a champion, summarizing the discovery call, addressing the resolved pain-point, and positioning herself as a trusted advisor:

Encourage your champion to forward your video internally and use the video analytics to guide your next steps. Did multiple viewers see the video? Did they watch it more than once? Based on how invested your champion is, you’ll have some understanding as to how your deal will progress.

It’s important to note, if you’ve sent a video to your champion and you’re receiving a poor drop-off rate—or worse, no view at all—take this as a clear warning sign; your champion hasn’t bought in!

There could be competing priorities, you did not provide enough (or the right) value or your prospect simply isn’t ready. Either way, find the disconnect and get it back on track, or take this opportunity to nurture the account and focus your attention on other opportunities.

4. Proposing your Proposal

It’s not uncommon that a sales rep thinks they’ve got it in the bag and then suddenly, the entire deal falls apart. Video analytics provide a way to keep your finger on the pulse, appropriately tailor your next steps, and better yet, more accurately forecast your pipeline.

Summarize your proposal and be transparent with your champion and decision maker, let them know you will send a physical copy of the proposal once you see they’ve had a chance to watch your summary video.

Tom, Mid-Market Account Executive at Vidyard gives us a clip of what a proposal video might look like:

Again, let the digital body language from your video proposal be your guide. If there is limited or no interaction – set a plan! Have an executive sponsor create a video introduction to show you’re fully invested in, and committed to the future relationship.

This is where video can help you really move the needle.

Take these opportunities to get your face in front of your prospective customers and show off your best asset; you. After all, people have a hard time saying “no” to people they like, and there’s a reason you were hired to sell.

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