The use of video in marketing rose in 2015 and is poised to raise dramatically in 2016. Videos are a useful tool for mass marketing including branding and awareness. However, video can also take a more individual approach that can be incredibly impactful.
One approach to video marketing is following the television advertising model. A branding exercise aimed to build awareness and demonstrate features. Most have found this not to be successful with online audiences who now have the luxury of skipping or avoiding advertisements altogether.
Successful Online Video Marketers Build Trust with Their Audience
Building trust begins with providing helpful information. Useful information that solves common problems. This builds brand trust and before you know it, the brand is associated with solving these problems. A very different approach from traditional advertising and has a longer-lasting effect than brand name saturation.
Gone are the days for slogans and jingles to help people remember your brand. This is replaced by a never-ending list of topics on providing advice on how to solve problems. All of which make great content for your blog and social posts.
Many sales and marketing teams, particularly those in the digital space, spend a great deal of time performing outreach on a daily basis. They may spend time sending emails to potential clients, reaching out on social media and trying to establish connections through online communities.
The power of video in these discussions is many times underestimated. Video can be an excellent way to stand out from the competition, provide efficiency in delivering a common message and, as discussed before, build brand trust. Building brand trust will lead to more revenue.
Ok, so, you now have tips on using helpful videos to create brand trust and using videos in social communities to stand out. But how can you use video to provide a more personal experience? Here are some ideas.
Making Video a Personal Experience
Start with the way that you would approach someone for the first time, perhaps, in an email. To be effective, this email would include information that would be specifically catered to them and contain something they are interested in.
Most sales professionals will have a couple of templates for these cold outreaches. They will be altered slightly to contain something that is more directed to their audience. This could be a recent production announcement or event that you congratulate them on.
But for the most part, this communication contains common information. This information could be helpful tips, industry news, study results or other types of announcements. This is where video comes in.
This information can be translated into video. Because people are 10-times more likely to watch a video than read text, your message is more likely to be consumed. Not to mention better understood and remembered.
When deciding on what videos to create, keep in mind the following tips when creating them for maximum effectiveness:
- Value. The first and perhaps most important aspect of any communication is the value that you provide to the person. What does your service or product actually do for them? How can it help them? What problems does it solve?
- Likability. Although often underestimated, likability plays a key role in whether or not a person decides to work with you. Many business owners receive dozens of business proposals per day, and they are automatically going to weed out those proposals that don’t make an instant connection. One of the key aspects of making an instant connection is likability.
- Professionalism. Professional business owners want to work with other like-minded people. If you contact them and appear to be “out of your league” or scope, they will be less likely to work with you. Videos give a positive professional impression, particularly when they are personalized for your target.
Reaching Out
Instead of just reaching out initially with a cold email, start to familiarize yourself with their brand. Follow them on social media. Respond to their Tweets. Comment on their blog posts.
You will be much more successful and notice an increase in sales leads when they have at least some familiarity with your company prior to receiving a communication from you. Not to mention you will have much better context for the what they might be interested in discussing.
Personalization
Make each person feel like the experience was created just for them. Start with an experience that is well suited for a particular persona. Videos are a great way to humanize your message and give a product demonstration very efficiently (you don’t have to be there).
Beyond persona and industry personalization, you can create videos that are specific to the person you are working with. This is another great way to stand out from the crowd and provide a very personalized approach.
Personalized videos can be created ad-hoc by sales professionals. Some companies have dedicated meeting rooms where these videos can be created. The challenge with this is that they may not be at the professional quality that you want, you could lose control of the message, and it takes time for the sales professional to create.
A great way to do this efficiently is to engage your video production partner. They can quickly combine a customized message with content that has already been captured. This could be a product demonstration, customer testimonial or a tour of your operations.
If you would like to learn more about how you can use personalized video to increase your sales conversion, please contact us today to speak with our video marketing experts. We’ll help you put the right plan together for your business.
Video is not only a great way to improve sales conversion rate but also increase your overall sales.
Author:
