Grabbing your prospects attention is hard. There’s no way around it, your buyers are bombarded each day by calls, ads, emails, meeting requests, not to mention the endless ‘pinging’ of Teams, (can you guess where I’m going with this?). That being said, there are ways to grab your prospects attention in a genuine, direct, and off-beat way. With the best intentions set for 2021, now’s the perfect time to try something new for prospecting – video prospecting.
The power of video prospecting
The power of video is well documented and apparent; why else does Netflix feel the need to constantly ask us if we’re still watching? Because of video’s unique ability to capture our attention.
Imagine the millions inspired by Planet Earth, millions that have adapted to new ways of living such as vegan diets, recycling responsibly and other eco-friendly ways of living. Now imagine if Planet Earth was a radio series… it’s hard to imagine the same effect, isn’t it? Why? There’s no emotional attachment when no visual context is given, which makes new concepts generally harder to understand and relate to, and the same can be said for your pitch. Adding a little visual context can go a million miles.
Why is video prospecting so powerful?
There are 5 key reasons video prospecting is so effective:
1. People buy from people
This is the first lesson many of us learn in sales, and perhaps, the most important one. 2020 may have taken away some person-to-person interactions momentarily. However, thanks to digital transformation and a little creativity, we can still maintain that core human need for social interaction through virtual meetings… and video prospecting.
2. Video engages in ways cold calls can’t
Don’t believe me? Watch this clip from Spider-Man 3 without music (sorry Toby). It’s awkward, right? Why? Because the scene was created to have music. Now imagine telling a joke to a new prospect 30 seconds into a call to break the ice. Without your smiling face and charming demeanour setting the scene, that joke can be left awkward, just like poor Spidey. However, now imagine breaking the ice in a video with that charming smile and demeanour; it shows your true intentions and reminds your prospect that you are just a person looking to have a conversation. For further proof, check out this video of a guy eating the hottest hot wings whilst delivering his pitch (and he booked the meeting!).
3. You’re able to engage prospects in their preferred style
Whether that’s auditory, visual, written, and kinesthetic (if the video is interactive). Not all people can learn and understand new concepts over the phone, and a similar statement can be made for reading. When you create a video to outreach to your prospects, you’re essentially helping them to understand a new concept, and providing them with multiple ways to understand that concept (especially if you use a whiteboard or captions, and maybe PowerPoint but I’ll cover that in another article).
4. Your prospects learn and understand new concepts better through video and online learning
Especially Millennials and Gen Z audiences who expect video content… for everything. Although online learning is available to all generations, only these two generations thus far have experienced this throughout their key learning stages in life. Generations brought up learning through YouTube, Skillshare, and many other online channels are the Gen Z buyers of the future, who experienced education throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and have learned entire modules through virtual classrooms. What I’m saying is that video prospecting is here to stay.
5. It takes time and shows your prospect your dedication to reach out to them
And that you’re not just working from a data list, thus showing your prospects that you genuinely care about their business, their needs, and your attention to detail.
Not all prospecting videos can inspire change
Video prospecting is not as easy as just recording your pitch and firing away. To be effective it needs to look and sound good, be punchy and to the point, and convey your company’s message and your personality… and more importantly, pass your prospects spam filter using the right tools. It sounds complex, hence we’re creating an ultimate guide to video prospecting which we will be sharing soon!
Another tool in your arsenal
There you have it; video prospecting can be an effective tool in a salesperson’s arsenal to engage and win your audience’s attention, albeit, this is not an end-to-end strategy. Rather, it is a tactic to be used alongside high-performance data, strategic and targeted marketing communications, outbound telephony and personal selling. Rolled up together, we call this prospect relationship management (PRM) which allows successful salespeople to spend less time on the wrong prospects, and more time converting highly qualified leads into transacting customers.