We did it. When I joined a Fintech company in 2016, which was offering a first of its kind digital replacement to a legacy financial product, our top brass wanted to know where we stand in presenting such an awesome product to the customer. The entire sales team including the sales heads were asked to share a video recording of their presentation(one way) as if they were in front of a prospect. We did it and we got the results. More than 80% of sales people in the team including the highly successful ones with an average experience of 8 yrs and above in the market failed to appeal and get good test scores.
What’s next? We were asked to redo it and submit?
This time we really got annoyed and started to question why we are put to such a test in the first place when we were hired post an interview and reviewed upon our successful track record in sales. Yet, no concession from the management. We had to redo the video and appeal to the creators of the product on what we understood about the product and the pain points it is solving and if we were able to articulate the same to prospects.
That was also the time we overheard a possibility of fintech in the case of using video messages or emails to prospects and customers for achieving consistency in delivering the message and control of what and how the message is delivered in the near future.
The end result – The whole episode gave a boost to our self confidence, brought command and consistency in our sales message besides facilitating hands on in tech based selling.
Coming to today, video has become part of the sales process with several organisations and one prime reason was the pandemic led virtual selling process. As per Vidyard, a Saas company into sales enablement via creation of videos, video selling is one of the powerful tools in one’s arsenal. In the context of continued hybrid work culture and remote selling,the demand for video in sales is on the rise.
Some stats from their recent report on sales & virtual selling –
- Almost 60% of sales pros are using video in sales.
- 71% of sales leaders want to roll out video messaging in the near future.
- Nearly half of sales pros report that video increases close rates.
While these figures develop enthusiasm around video messaging in sales, lets understand some basics and benefits of video messaging.
Benefits of Video Messaging –
- Builds familiarity and relationship between the seller and buyer when the seller shares his recorded video message to the buyer
- It is proved to have better open rates in emails
- Direct play option in Linkedin messages for delivering message right across
- Saves time in drafting or reading the text to both seller and buyer
- Helps fasten the deal cycle as video engagement is more memorable than text
When to use Video Messaging –
- It can be used in the first level of prospecting by sending video messages to the target customer.
- Can be used in virtual selling for screen sharing,etc.
- Can be offered as FAQs.
What’s important here is, if your organisation has already enabled video messaging by sellers or you wait for the right time depending on the product and industry your business is in.
Otherwise, it is a great way to jump start video messaging in your sales process and test the results by yourself. There is more on Vidyard on how to make video messaging better.
