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The Visual Sale: How to Use Video to Explode Sales, Drive Marketing, and Grow Your Business in a Virtual World

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The Visual Sale: How to Use Video to Explode Sales, Drive Marketing, and Grow Your Business in a Virtual World

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Highlights & Notes

Video is a fundamental part of the buying process, and yet most businesses did not seem to know how to deal with the shift.

A lot of business owners and CEOs felt exactly as I did—that in-house ownership of video would be critical to their success in the years that lie ahead.

When I say “connections,” I don’t mean who you know or how big your following is. I mean real personal connections built on emotional resonance, and earning the most coveted prize of all from your colleagues, prospects, and customers: trust.

Most of all, we share the belief that the most valuable ideas are those you can implement quickly today, with no additional budget, to transform how you do business tomorrow.

And the secret to why we love video lies much deeper than our love of entertainment. It lies in human biology and how our brains process different forms of information.

The key characteristics of video—and what makes it so powerful—can be easily remembered with what I call the four Es of video: 1. Video is educational: It’s faster to process and easier to remember. 2. Video is engaging: It enables us to tell stories and hold audience attention. 3. Video is emotional: It can invoke joy, anticipation, trust and other emotions. 4. Video shows empathy: It helps us relate and connect on a human level.

According to recent studies, the human brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text-based information. That means we can learn more from watching a 60-second video than from reading text-based content for 10 minutes or more. Think about what that means for your busy prospects and customers who have limited time to spare to learn about your solutions. Humans also store visual information in long-term memory, rather than short-term memory—a critical factor in our survival as a species—while text is handled in short-term memory.

Bottom line, if you’re looking to draw people into your story and keep them engaged longer, look no further than video.

WE SHOULD NEVER LET OUR PERSONAL OPINIONS SCREW UP SMART BUSINESS CHOICES.

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF YOUR WEBSITE, RIGHT NOW, IS VIDEO-BASED?

When it comes to video, you must not be passive; it’s not an option.

UNLESS WE SHOW IT, IT DOESN’T EXIST. Think about that for a second. How much of your business is stated but not shown?

That’s right. Video is a sales initiative.

Yes, “about us” videos may be nice, but when was the last time your sales team said: “I can’t wait to start using our new ‘about us’ video in my sales pitch!” Likely never. What they’re looking for, as you know, is content that will overcome prospect concerns, address common fears, and clearly answer buyer questions.

Even the best intentions in business will eventually be cut-off or eliminated if their value is not proven. This is why, ideally, your sales team should be saying, “I couldn’t come close to being as effective as I am if we weren’t producing this video content.” Additionally, your prospects should be raving to you about how helpful your videos were during the research process.

But what would happen if, every time you had a sales call, not only did your prospect already know the answer to those all-too-common questions, but they had seen it, heard it, and learned it from you? Yep, the sales appointment would be dramatically more productive. And not just more productive, but much shorter, too. Now, instead of spending so much time answering those universal questions, you can focus your conversation around addressing your prospect’s very specific questions that are unique to their needs and circumstances.

Answer the question as concisely, yet thoroughly, as possible. Yes, you read that correctly. We want them to be concise in the way they communicate—to the point, clear, and incisive. But we also want them to be thorough enough to empower the prospect or buyer to say by the end of it, “Perfect. Now I understand.”

Rather, it comes down to this: How great is their fear of making the wrong decision? When we’re afraid to make a wrong decision, we will spend as much time as it takes to get comfortable with our buying choices. This is the reality of the digital age.

  • Importante

That being said, in a perfect world, it often comes across as very impressive to the viewer when multiple subject matter experts from your company play a part in these videos. Again, it’s not a must, but it does make a difference.

Salesperson: Mr. Jones, I know it’s important to you that when we meet to discuss (product/service) that we don’t waste any of your time. Not only that, I’m sure it’s safe to say you don’t want to make any mistakes along the way. As to ensure you don’t make any of the common mistakes we see buyers make, we’ve created a video that addresses the top seven questions and concerns people just like you have when making this type of decision. By watching this video, you’ll save time, money, and eliminate the stress of potential buying mistakes. Plus, our time together will be dramatically more productive and effective. Will you take the time to watch this video before our meeting on Friday? In the above sample script, the salesperson clearly states the value of the video in terms that lead with the needs and desires of the buyer. Moreover, the call-to-action is direct and time-bound.

Not only can you use 80% videos within your customer service department, but you absolutely should use them. Using video to quickly show customers how to fix or solve their customer service issues can save thousands upon thousands of dollars per year in unnecessary expenses. To do this, find the most common (80%) customer service issues you’re having with the major products and services that you offer. Then use these videos as part of your “purchase package” when onboarding new customers.

Great communication, in any video, but especially in the 80% video, has a tone that sounds something like: “If you’re considering __________, we know you have questions. You may even have concerns. But you can stop worrying because that’s why we created this video. We want you to be informed. We also want you to be relaxed. So, let’s address these concerns—and by the end of this video, you’ll likely have a much better understanding of the questions that have been on your mind …”

  • Script

In conjunction with this, the other major mistake companies make is that they don’t state questions as the buyer would. Rather, they state them as they, the business, would. Let’s look at a quick example if you were selling a swimming pool. Bad: “Why getting a diving board is a bad idea.” Good: “Is getting a diving board right for me and my family?” Notice, the first one is biased, with a clearly stated opinion. The second is open and unbiased, written exactly as a potential buyer would articulate the question themselves if they were debating on a diving board for their swimming pool.

A bio video accomplishes two goals: • It explains what the person does for the company and why they chose this profession. • It also gives a little bit of personal information about what they do when they’re not at work.

As we’ve helped implement these simple videos with sales teams around the world, we’ve consistently found an average of 25 to 30 additional views per month of the video when integrating it into an email signature. Think about that for a second—that’s 25 to 30 more people who now know your name, your face, your voice, and your story. We’ve all heard a million times that we “buy from those we know, like, and trust.”

But for those businesses that understand the way buyers actually think, there is an essential second part to the type of information this page must include, and that is simply this: Who is the product or service not for? Yes, you read that correctly—not for. Now, you may be wondering why. Well, the minute we are willing (as businesses) to say what we’re not is the precise moment we become dramatically more attractive to those for whom we are a good fit.

Unlike the 80% video, which addresses multiple questions, a product or service fit video is really only addressing two—who or what is a good fit, and who or what is a bad fit? Therefore, in most cases, this video will be shorter than five minutes.

As we’ve stressed many times in this book, everything comes down to trust. If it will induce more trust (because it’s true), then you’re on the right track. But if the tone doesn’t do this (due to arrogance, dishonesty, or omission), then it’s clearly not good for the business or the customer.

The thing is, consumers and buyers are researching this question of “cost” prolifically, and unless someone explains to them how to define “value” on the front end (before they talk to a salesperson), then ignorance will prevail. And when ignorance prevails, price wars and commoditization are the only results.

Address all the factors that drive the cost of a product or service up or down. • Discuss the marketplace—i.e., why are comparable products or services cheap, expensive, etc.? • Talk about your product or service, and why it costs what it costs. (Although you don’t have to give your exact pricing here, you do need to explain your value proposition extremely well while giving the buyer at least a sense for what to expect.)

You can certainly address how much something costs in an 80% video, but time and time again, we’ve found with clients that, because understanding cost is such a pivotal part of the buying process, it merits its own attention. By producing a singular video that dives deep into cost, value, factors, etc., you can powerfully educate a buyer and induce a tremendous amount of trust in the process. Plus, by being an individual piece of content that is very specific, it has a greater chance of doing well in search, social, etc.

We have found that specificity with cost and price is almost always a good thing.

For every major product or service that you sell, you want to have at least one video that specifically teaches the components of cost, price, and value.

Stage 1: Your customer has a problem—a need, stress, worry, concern, or issue. Stage 2: The journey they take to fix their problem. (In most cases, this is the journey they go on with your company.) Stage 3: Where they are today and how they were able to fix the problem with your help. (And everyone lived happily ever after.) At its core, the purpose of this video is that a viewer can watch it and literally say in their mind: “They’re just like me. They had the exact problem I have right now, and look at how they were able to solve it.”

Note: You should always get written permission from customers when using them in your videos.

When it comes to these claims we make, we generally take our clients through a powerful exercise: • Brainstorm the claims you make as a company. (Typically, you’ll find them on your website, in your sales messaging, etc.) • Next, ask yourself, “How many of our competitors make a similar, if not the same, claim as the ones we have listed?” • Finally, ask yourself, “How many of these claims have we visually proven (through video) and not just stated?”

In an ideal world, an “about us” video, done the right way, will do exactly what a “claims we make” video does—it will visually prove what makes your company unique, special, and different. It will take viewers behind the scenes and allow them to get to know you on a level that makes them intuit something more genuine regarding your organization than the others they’ve looked at and dealt with. That being said, most “about us” videos aren’t done this way, and therefore end up being a waste of time and money, as mentioned earlier in this chapter.

As you can see, there are actually more than six total videos here, as each type leads to potentially multiple visual opportunities to teach, show, and sell. In fact, if you have a full-time videographer, there’s a good chance these videos will require at least a year’s worth of work.

Address what buyers really want to know and trust will always follow.

  1. Priorities Are a Moving Target The priorities of marketing teams continue to shift from ‘outbound’ paid sponsorships and advertising to ‘inbound’ content marketing, search engine marketing, and social media.
  1. Digital Channel Expansion and Diversification The digital channels being used to reach prospects are continuing to diversify, with marketers now embracing search engine marketing, website optimization, email, social media, blogs, YouTube, Instagram, review sites, chatbots, and more.
  1. Increased Responsibility Marketers have a greater responsibility than ever before for generating results throughout the entire customer lifecycle—from lead generation and deal acceleration, to post-sale customer marketing—leading to a “full-funnel” marketing mentality.
  1. Offline Goes Online Accelerated even further by the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are embracing an online-first mentality across marketing, sales, and customer service. Virtual events, virtual meetings, and online digital experiences are now the preferred and (often) only way to deliver programs. What’s interesting to note is that these common challenges all seem to stem from one primary root cause: the changing behaviors and expectations of today’s buyers.

Now, your team is not only responsible for brand awareness and lead generation, but also for educating audiences through the buying process, maximizing online engagement, building memorable relationships, and doing it all at scale through digital content.

Marketing has become the sales rep that never sleeps, and every marketer needs to think more like a seller as they become responsible for an expanding part of the buyer’s journey.

The buyer’s journey, according to HubSpot, is “the process buyers go through to become aware of, consider and evaluate, and decide to purchase a new product or service.”

  1. Awareness: The potential buyer gains awareness of a brand, product, or service, the problems it can solve, and the benefits it can offer. Common channels for gaining awareness include online search, social media, blogs and content, advertisements, direct mail, webinars, word-of-mouth, influencers, analyst reports, trade shows, and more.
  1. Consideration: The buyer educates themselves further on potential solutions and vendors. Common channels include online search, vendor websites, third party review sites, blogs, email marketing, direct conversations with sales reps, and educational resources such as videos, e-books, and webinars.
  1. Decision: The buyer has narrowed down the potential solutions, secured budget, and is preparing to make a buying decision. This stage is often managed by a sales rep and is supported by content provided by marketing such as customer testimonials, competitive comparisons, and on-demand demonstrations.
  1. Post-sale retention, upsell, and referral: While most marketers have traditionally focused on pre-sale stages of the buyer’s journey, more emphasis is being placed on this stage as social media, peer review sites, and referrals become a bigger part of how today’s prospects evaluate solutions. Or, more simply, marketing now plays a critical role in customer satisfaction and customer advocacy as a means of generating new sales opportunities.

As a smaller business, they tend to be more creative, experimental, and agile.

Their prospects aren’t just government employees; they’re real people who see value in educational, emotional, and engaging visual content.

“Every time we go to execute on a process we ask ourselves, ‘What are the stages where we can leverage video?’ For instance, as soon as we have a topic for a webinar, we now book a filming date and in one sitting record a webinar invitation video, a date reminder video, a ‘thanks for coming’ follow up video, and a ‘sorry we missed you’ video. No matter what path a prospect might take, we have a piece of video content custom-tailored for that purpose. We also record the webinar and cut it up into chunks. This way, at every step of the marketing and sales process, our prospects have video of someone talking them through it. It not only helps to drive greater engagement, but it builds an ongoing relationship with the real people at Miovision.” Matt Trushinski, Director of Marketing, Miovision

  • Ideas

These videos are all created in-house with nothing more than a webcam or a basic digital camera. The biggest obstacle wasn’t the technology or budget, but rather having the discipline and courage to start capturing content in creative new ways.

“People who are typically difficult to get on the phone are now engaging with video content, and our webinar numbers have doubled—if not tripled. We have hockey stick growth in a lot of our marketing metrics and it’s given us a huge boost.” Matt Trushinksi, Director of Marketing, Miovision

You can’t win a new customer if they don’t know you exist.

They’re not yet looking for you, they’re looking for helpful and thorough answers to their questions, a real solution to a problem they have, or a community of like-minded people who can help.

The premise of inbound marketing is to publish helpful online content as a means of attracting new visitors to your website, as opposed to using paid advertisements and other forms of “outbound” media to vie for their attention.

  • Importante

The content you publish is typically aligned with the most common questions your audience may be searching for, or the topics they need to learn about while researching possible solutions.

Small business owners who are actually in the market for website development services will be more likely to discover you by landing on your content via a google search result when kicking off their research.

Google has been placing greater emphasis on video content in its rankings for search results. The expectations of online audiences have also changed, with consumers and business professionals choosing to engage with infographics, podcasts, interactive content, and of course, video, over more traditional forms of written content.

In today’s world of inbound, you need to be delivering content in various formats—including video—if you want to meet the expectations of your audience and keep those leads rolling in.

The most effective types of videos to support inbound marketing programs are educational videos that clearly and visually answer the questions your target audiences are asking. It’s about leveraging the educational nature of video, while also using it to build a more authentic relationship early in the discovery process.

  • Importante

A great place to start is by documenting a list of key topics and SEO search terms that you’re already targeting in your inbound strategy, along with any existing guides, e-books, or blog posts that have proven themselves as high performers. You can also supplement this list by searching YouTube for the types of phrases that your audience may be searching for and seeing which topics are driving high engagement in video format. Start prioritizing your list based on what is currently most relevant for your market, and where you see the greatest opportunity to attract new visitors.

The only real mistake you can make is not trying to create any video at all.

It can be as simple as having individuals from your company on camera in “talking head” style videos explaining key topics (educational and empathetic), or as involved as creating a branded episodic video series with a creative set and a variety of guests (engaging and emotional).

You’ll also want to consider how to approach your “every day” educational videos—your steady stream of updates that will likely be quicker and more efficient to produce (just like your recurring blog posts)—versus your “hero” videos that will tackle the most important topics and warrant a greater investment in planning and production (like your e-books and guides!).

The best interview-based videos feel unscripted yet prepared and confident.

Planning is the most important phase of any video production. So, going into a shoot with a good sense of the style, approach, and length you’re aiming for will go a long way toward guaranteeing your content will hit the mark.

Some videos are approached in the question-and-answer style where the title of the video is the exact question that this video will answer. These videos are optimized for search and SEO, attracting new audiences who are searching for answers to specific questions. • Some videos take the show-and-tell or topical deep-dive approach, offering detailed information on a certain problem, concept, or product of interest. For example, their video entitled “River Pools Introduces the Massive T40 Model Pool” provides a comprehensive show-and-tell of what this fiberglass pool looks like and how it works, with Cristian literally in the deep end for much of the video. • And finally, you’ll find their flagship episodic video series entitled “2 Minutes in the Pool” which offers unique insights in an engaging recurring format. In less than two years, they’ve published more than 60 episodes, with many receiving tens of thousands of views. This series is designed to be highly shareable and to generate more subscribers to their YouTube channel and marketing database.

Today, their average customer has watched over 20 minutes of their videos before they buy!

Create educational content to answer common questions and address key topics. Focus on creating helpful videos that answer the key questions your audience may be asking and dive deep into topics that you can provide a unique perspective on. Steer clear of promoting your own products or services, keep your inbound video content focused on your audience, not your own brand.

Focus more on content value rather than production value. Make your thought leadership videos feel as helpful and trustworthy as possible. Focus your efforts on providing the greatest value to your viewers via unique insights, expert perspectives, and supporting visuals. Of course, you should still make your video content visually appealing, but don’t worry about making it look like a Hollywood production.

Be intentional with the format, style, and tone of your thought leadership videos. There are various approaches you can take to the visual style, format, and tone of your thought leadership videos. Plan ahead and be explicit about recording your video in the style of a talking head, question-and-answer, how-to, topical deep-dive, interview-based, or episodic video series. This will help ensure that what you capture on camera aligns with what you want to see in the finished product.

Plan ahead but keep it natural and conversational. Capture your thought leadership videos in a way that is natural, conversational, and unscripted. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t need to plan! Go into every video with a plan for the content you will cover, the visual style and tone you’re going for, the target length, and any supporting visual assets you’ll use. Your goal is to create something that feels authentic and trustworthy, but also well prepared, clear, and concise.

Use 4 Es of video to bring your ideas to life. While your thought leadership videos should always be educational, don’t forget about making them engaging, emotional, or empathetic. Video is a richer way to address key topics, not simply a medium to “read your blog post on camera.” So, think creatively about how a video could add new dimensions to your content by infusing visuals, stories, energetic body language, humor, personality, relatability, and more.

YouTube isn’t merely a destination site for movie trailers and viral videos. In reality, YouTube is a massive search engine (second only to Google), where people search for answers and visually learn about different topics.

But to get a good sense of what will work best on YouTube, step back and think critically about what types of questions or keywords people may be searching for on YouTube or Google that you could answer with video content.

Much like with your inbound marketing video strategy, start with a list of the top questions your target audience may be asking and the topics that seem to come up frequently during early stages of the buying journey.

But, more often than not, having real people in your videos communicating in a natural and authentic way will win out over highly produced “marketing” content when it comes to an audience on YouTube.

Educational videos are a great way to attract new audiences who are searching for information on YouTube. Once they arrive on your channel, your primary goal is to educate and earn trust.

In short, you want them to build a habit around your brand by way of your content.

A great way to drive those desired outcomes is by offering a recurring episodic video series that can leverage YouTube’s built-in subscription engine to keep audiences engaged and coming back for more.

While individual episodes can be promoted through different channels such as YouTube, social media, email marketing, and even your own website, you can also promote the overall series as a bigger and bolder idea—giving you more opportunities to attract audiences through different types of promotion.

Ye olde “fear of missing out” (FOMO) on a great episode is a powerful thing if they’ve found value in one or more episodes.

Finally, an episodic series gives you the opportunity to build a brand-level relationship with potential buyers that isn’t necessarily tied to your corporate brand, but is instead centered around an idea or a movement. While it may seem scary at first (and counterintuitive to building brand awareness), removing your company’s brand from the spotlight can often make your content more trustworthy and shareable, especially on YouTube and social media.

Video in Focus is a recurring interview-based series targeted at practitioners within businesses who are interested in learning how to use video more effectively to grow their business. This aligns well with our ideal customer profile, giving us new ways to engage this target audience. And yes, many individuals and businesses featured in this book have been guests on the show!

Creating Connections uses a similar format but is targeted at marketing decision-makers and practitioners who care about the latest strategies for connecting with buyers on a more human level. It gives us a platform to discuss a more diverse range of topics and to reach tangential audiences who are not yet looking for a video solution but may at some point in the future.

Last, but certainly not least, Video Island is hosted by our internal video producers and provides expert advice for anyone interested in the latest techniques for video production and video editing. Again, this helps us tap into a tangential audience of video creators.

What do all of these different video series have in common? None of them are about Vidyard or our products.

Instead, they offer helpful and trustworthy content to our community with YouTube as the primary channel for distribution. And as we move one stage down in the buyer’s journey, we offer our Chalk Talks, Video Marketing How-To, and Video Vednesday (no, that’s not a typo!) series as episodic content that goes deeper on specific areas of interest.

I don’t care what type of business or market you are in, I can guarantee you that you do have unique and valuable knowledge to share and that there is an engaging way to bring it to life via video.

In our version, SalesFails, we had people read bad sales prospecting emails out loud on camera and react in a similar way. The first video was shot with all internal employees and received a great response from our audience. So, we created a second “celebrity edition” with influencers from across our community reading and reacting to some of the worst sales emails they have ever received.

Define the goals of your YouTube channel to guide your content plan. Don’t let your YouTube channel become your video retirement home! Be explicit in planning out the goals for your YouTube channel and the type of content that will help you achieve those goals. Most companies use YouTube as a channel to generate awareness, expand their following, and create more inbound traffic to their website.

Create educational content to answer common questions and address key topics. Start by focusing on helpful video content that answers the key questions your audience may be asking and dives deep into topics that you can provide a unique and valuable perspective on. Also, as tempting as it may be, steer clear of promoting your own products or services, so your content remains trustworthy and shareable.

Create an episodic video series to drive subscriptions and sharing. Consider producing one or more episodic video series and creating a dedicated playlist on your YouTube channel for each. Prompt viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel to be notified when new episodes are released, and encourage them to like and share the series if they find it to be valuable. And don’t forget to offer links back to your main website or blog for those who want to learn even more.

Use brand entertainment to be memorable and shareable. Video is the perfect medium to let your guard down and have some fun, and YouTube can be a great channel to test out brand entertainment. Consider fun ways to use video to play off pop culture trends, to make people laugh during different holidays throughout the year, or to bring your messaging to life through humorous skits and storytelling.

Use playlists to organize your content in a way that maximizes engagement. Playlists are a great way to organize videos on your YouTube channel and to help viewers discover the most relevant and related content. Establish categories or themes for your YouTube videos up-front (i.e. how-to videos, FAQs, [Topic] 101, customer stories, and so on) and create a playlist for each. Assign new videos to the appropriate playlist to keep your channel organized in a way that will maximize engagement.

Video was making people stick around longer. The data has shown that when people interact with social media posts that include video, their overall engagement time increases significantly. In fact, Facebook recently reported that posts with video generate five times higher engagement time compared to posts with static content.

For businesses that get on board, it can be a double win. Posts with video are likely to drive higher engagement and are also more likely to be pushed to your followers’ feeds. More reach and more engagement is the foundation of a strong social media strategy, so without video, you’re lacking a critical component.

The good news is that, on social media, authenticity trumps production value, so most net-new content can be created with just your smartphone or webcam and a little bit of creativity.

Or, more to the point, pumping out product demos and pricing videos on social media is a great way to lose followers and generate a negative impression of your brand.

You can also create shorter versions of existing long-form thought leadership videos to use on your social media channels. Someone may choose to ignore an eight-minute video on their social feed as it’s too much of a disruption, but may engage with a two-minute version of that same content that offers some quick highlights and takeaways. This can be done by editing longer-form content down to some key messages and highlights and then linking out to the full-length video for those who want to dive deeper. Another consideration when repurposing existing videos is to make the introduction really count. The first five seconds is when someone will decide whether or not they’ll stop scrolling and commit to paying attention. If your existing video doesn’t include a catchy intro to draw people in, make some small updates to spice up the beginning to stimulate curiosity!

In either case, you can add a simple graphic (maybe even with some stock music) to transition from the introduction to the main video, or simply cut right to the main content to keep things moving. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience and consider what would make you stop and watch if you saw your video start auto-playing in your social media feed.

In other words, think about what types of videos you would create if your only goals were to maximize engagement and sharing on your social media channels. How would that impact the type of content you create, how long would those videos be, and how you would approach the narratives? What type of content would you expect to perform the best on LinkedIn vs. Facebook vs. Twitter vs. Instagram, and how would that impact what you create?

First, these videos should be short in length, respecting the fact that many viewers will be discovering your content while scrolling through their feeds. So, keep your social-first videos less than three minutes in length. If you simply have too much to share, split your content up into multiple videos! Second, be mindful of how you will approach the first five seconds of your video. On social media, your video will often autoplay within your audience’s feed, giving you a precious few moments to pique their interest before they continue on. Start your videos by posing an important question, challenging conventional wisdom, or using eye-catching visuals to encourage your followers to tune in for the rest.

From a content creation standpoint, it’s important that these videos don’t appear overly produced or scripted. Once more with feeling, authenticity, and simplicity trump production value with this video style.

From a topical perspective, you may wish to share an update on some timely market news, or you may have a list of predetermined topics that are relevant to your market where you discuss one each week in a short social video.

No matter what your approach is, the most important thing is to have consistency in your frequency of social video creation and sharing.

Ideally, try to have your key brand advocate(s) record and share at least one video per week.

On social media, people tend to follow—and trust—real people over brands. Honest-to-goodness human beings are more trustworthy, more interesting and, well, more real!

Use a visual style that is interesting to watch and includes some type of movement. Humans are visually drawn toward two things: a sense of movement and the human face. This is why walk-and-talk videos can be hard to ignore.

Upload your video natively rather than linking out to another page. If possible, upload the video file to the native player within each social network rather than linking out to a YouTube player or a landing page with that video. Only with native video can you leverage the autoplay capabilities within each network and maximize the chances of your post showing up in the feeds of your followers. This can be done by uploading the video directly via the interface of each social media network, or it can be pushed into a native player via online video hosting platforms that support this functionality.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, these live video formats prove time and again that people are willing to give you their two most precious resources—their time and contact information—in exchange for valuable, relevant online content.

Reflecting on the four Es of video, you should focus your webinars on educating viewers by sharing unique insights and perspectives, and being empathetic to your audience by featuring speakers and examples they can closely relate to.

Or, put another way, that best webinars are those that are also engaging and emotional.

The webinars I’ve enjoyed the most are those that feature a relevant industry analyst, researcher, or practitioner at an organization similar to my own. They share proven ideas and personal tips while speaking directly to the viewers—animated body language and all—to create an engaging and inspiring experience.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again: If you want to put on an incredible webinar your ideal buyers won’t soon forget, you must bring in amazing speaking talent. This isn’t negotiable.

If you feature the wrong speaker—those who simply read back the text on their slides or drown viewers in a thinly veiled sales pitch—your attendees will tune out or drop-off after the first five minutes.

Also, while you may be tempted to feature speakers from your own company, you shouldn’t always. In fact, I encourage you to invite industry experts, analysts, practitioners, and heck, even your own customers to be the star of your show. It may sound strange at first, but in doing so, you’ll maximize the relatability, relevance, and trust of your content.

Bottom line, I encourage you to get creative, apply some fresh thinking, and never be afraid to try something new.

Host your on-demand webinars on your website or a landing page, promote them in outbound marketing campaigns, and add them as calls-to-action within your email nurture programs and in your content.

How many attendees are we expecting to join the live event? Is it important for some, or all, of the presentations to be delivered live? How important is live interactivity and networking between attendees? What can we do to differentiate our event or to align it with our brand promise? Will we have event sponsors, and if so, what are their goals and expectations? What is our budget and what resources do we have to support the event?

You’ll need a system in place to manage attendee registrations as well as outbound communications before, during, and after the event. The more targeted, personal, and timely the communications the better.

For more tips on virtual event technology providers and how to run a successful online event, refer to the following article on the Vidyard blog: www.vidyard.com/blog/online-events

The fastest way to scale our business is to be the leader of the video marketing movement, to build and support a global community of marketers and creators, and to help that community be successful by learning from us and each other. Build a community. Lead the movement.

We’ve invested in hundreds of blog posts, guides, videos, infographics, research reports, assessments, and podcast episodes to share our knowledge across a myriad of digital channels. We’ve also run hundreds of webinars, sponsored key industry events, and hosted our own user conferences and meetups.

Basing the approach on our experience with live events, we incorporated the following elements into a two-day virtual format: More than 30 unique presentations across multiple content tracks to appeal to multiple personas and attendee types. A small number of live presentations, or keynotes, with high-impact speakers and a larger number of on-demand sessions accessible during the event. A dedicated track for our customers offering deep dive sessions on our products as well as best practices from other users. Ten sponsors and media partners who each promoted the event to their communities in exchange for lead sharing and an opportunity to host a presentation.

Fast Forward attracted more than 1,500 registrations and more than 700 actively engaged attendees in its first year. And the total cost to run the event was less than $10,000.

Following the event, we saw a large volume of newly qualified leads convert into new customers. Throughout the following year, we repurposed all those great on-demand sessions in various ways across our blog, email nurturing sequences, social media, and outbound marketing campaigns to extract even more value.

□ Have a clear goal and attendee persona in mind

□ Choose amazing speakers who can keep a digital audience engaged

Identify speakers who are not only relevant and relatable to your audience, but can also deliver their message in a clear, engaging, and interesting way.

The only thing harder than keeping a live audience engaged for a 30-minute (or longer)presentation is keeping a remote audience engaged!

The value doesn’t end when the live session is over Create a plan to leverage the on-demand recordings of your webinar and virtual event sessions for ongoing value long after the event is over. Repurpose these presentations to re-engage your community via your blog, online resource center, email marketing, and social media channels. Re-promote the on-demand versions on their own landing pages to generate new leads and qualify prospects all year long.

Content created for awareness is expected to get a broader reach and lots of shares, and you may spend advertising dollars to promote this content to new audiences. You can be fun and creative, and can experiment with different messaging on different channels.

As potential buyers move into consideration and decision phases, they are now familiar with your brand and your new goal is to generate real demand for your product or service. Your primary channels for engaging during these stages include your website, your blog and learning center, email marketing, automated nurtures, and your direct sales team.

Throughout these stages, your focus should be on clearly explaining what you do and how you do it, showcasing the pains you solve and the benefits you offer in a way that is relevant and relatable to different buyers, proactively answering frequently asked questions, and building a personal connection between your prospects and the people within your business.

So yes, you effectively need to think and act like a great sales rep, but to do it at scale. Thank goodness you have video content to help you out, right?

Remember, the latest analyst research suggests the majority of the consideration stage is now done in a self-service manner using online digital resources. Yet this is also the stage at which providing clarity around what you do is so important, and establishing an emotional connection with your brand and your people is imperative.

Businesses can no longer rely exclusively on sales reps to communicate their unique value proposition, answer frequently asked questions, provide demonstrations, or move deals forward by establishing a more personal connection. More and more, these are becoming the job of marketing—and this is where video content can truly shine as your sales rep that never sleeps. As you think about your video content strategy during these phases, focus on video’s abilities to educate, to create an emotional connection, and to showcase empathy for your buyer’s needs.

Educating with video during these stages is all about explaining, in a clear and memorable way, what you do, how you do it, and what makes you unique. Creating an emotional connection is about building brand affinity, making your prospects feel inspired and excited, and creating a sense of urgency to move forward quickly. Being empathetic is about showcasing that you truly understand their problems in ways they can relate to, introducing them to the real people in your business, and earning their trust. If you execute these principles effectively, you can not only convert and win more customers, but you can improve the efficiency of your entire marketing and sales process.

Your website is the one destination that can make or break the decision for someone to continue learning about your solution. In fact, a poor or confusing website experience can kill an opportunity before you even knew it existed, whereas a great experience can turn the most skeptical prospect into a believer.

Some key videos that will help you deliver a more insightful and delightful website experience include: • Explainer videos for your business and your main products or services • Deep-dive videos that clearly demonstrate what you offer and how it all works • Transparent pricing videos (as Marcus previously mentioned) that answer the question everyone wants answered • Landing page videos to increase conversion rates on form submissions and sign-ups

  • Inventario de videos

And that’s exactly why explainer videos are becoming more common across business websites. It’s the simple idea of publishing short videos on your homepage and key pages across your website to clearly and concisely tell your story and to explain ideas that may seem simple to you but are likely very complex for your prospects.

Prospects can often learn more from a two-minute video than they can from reading text for 10 minutes or more.

Explainers can be animated or live-action, and can be used on your homepage, product or service overview pages, key landing pages, and, frankly, on any page where you are trying to explain a relatively complex topic or where visitors may have questions that could be easily answered by a short video.

Vidyard’s Video Inspiration Hub for a library of examples. You can also browse Vidyard’s own website (www.vidyard.com) where we have a homepage explainer, solution-level explainer videos, and a myriad of examples throughout.

“ELI5.” No, that’s not the latest Star Wars droid or the lead character in Short Circuit 2. (Yes, that’s the one where Johnny Five dresses up like a cowboy.) Rather, it’s an acronym frequently used on the internet when someone doesn’t understand a topic and is looking for a simple and clear explanation. It stands for the simple idea of explaining an idea simply—“explain it like I’m five-years-old.”

business people are still people first! Like consumers, they want to be educated but they also want to be entertained. And the best way to keep them engaged for two minutes or longer is to deliver your message in a story-driven format that is interesting, entertaining, and highly relatable.

But once someone has seen enough to determine they’re interested in what you do, they will now be willing to invest more time to learn about what you offer. A big mistake that many companies make at this stage is equating that willingness to invest more time with a willingness to speak with a sales rep. That’s why conversion rates on that next big call-to-action on most websites—“request a demo” or “book a meeting”—are typically very low.

Offer up a new call-to-action on your website that says “watch a demo,” “see for yourself,” “take a tour,” or “see our services in action.” In essence, you’re offering them a self-service, on-demand video experience to see your products or services in action. How novel and refreshing!

I have some guesses. Time-starved buyers now expect explainer and demonstration videos to help them cut to the chase. They arrive on a site with questions such as, ‘What does this company do? Is this for me? How can they help?’ and want those answers quickly. They aren’t interested in speaking with sales until they clearly understand what we offer. On-demand demo videos save them from browsing and reduces cognitive effort.” Paulo Martins, Global Head of Commercial Digital Marketing, Marketo and Adobe Experience Cloud

Like it or not, the natural instinct for new prospects is to learn about your pricing before they spend any more time learning about you.

So, as you can imagine, your pricing page may be one of the most important pages on your website. The copy on this page is like the tag on that beautiful coat, offering descriptive information about the cost and benefits.

video on your pricing page adds that critical human touch to the pricing conversation.

Specifically, a video on cost and pricing should do three things: 1. Address all of the factors that drive the cost of your product or service up or down. 2. Discuss the marketplace in an open and honest way—why comparable products or services are cheaper or more expensive, and so on. 3. Talk about your product or service and why it costs what it costs; i.e. your value proposition. This is no different from how a retail store employee would handle a pricing conversation in a live selling environment.

  • Video impokrtante axhacer

By delivering this type of information in video format, you have the ability to overcome communication gaps that occur when a salesperson isn’t able to discuss a product or service directly with a buyer. Pricing page videos are most effective when you have real individuals from your company explaining your pricing model in a natural, conversational, and honest tone. Minimize your use of industry jargon and acronyms, and be thorough and transparent in explaining how your pricing works.

Let’s be honest. Whenever we’re faced with filling out a form on a website we haven’t visited before, there’s always that moment of hesitation. On the one hand, we want whatever it is that they’re offering, right? On the other hand, we’ve all been burned by a company (or three) on the internet before. So, understandably, we have some lingering trust issues that make us skeptical: “Will this company sell or otherwise abuse my personal information, compromising my privacy?” “Will they spam me with tons of emails I don’t want?” “Will their sales reps start blowing up my phone with unwanted solicitations?” “What exactly is going to happen after I fill out the form, anyway—is what I’m going to get even worth it?”

For example, if your landing page includes a form to download a PDF guide that was written by your content marketer Jesse, you can add a video next to the form with Jesse—yep, the real Jesse!—saying something like the following: “Hey there! It’s Jesse here. I’m the one who wrote this guide you’re about to download! It’s packed full of new ideas based on the latest research that our team has done, and I really hope you find it valuable. But you may be wondering, is it really worth filling out this form to get the goods? Are we just going to spam you with emails and phone calls after you download the guide? Don’t worry, I get it. So, here’s exactly what you can expect to happen once you hit submit …”

  • Video por hacer

“But does this style of video actually increase conversions enough to justify the effort of creating them?” You bet it does. Marketers will see an average conversion lift of 80% for any landing page where they follow this approach. In fact, we’ve seen many cases where the number of people who filled out the form increased by as much as 150%! Think about the type of impact that could have on your business, whether you offer forms to download a guide, get a quote, or book a sales meeting?

For example, on a contact us form, don’t just say, “Someone will be in touch soon.” Be more specific: “Our sales team is really excited to speak with you; you will hear from one of us within 24 to 48 hours.”

Use explainers to describe the problems you solve in a clear and memorable way Explainer videos are the perfect way to educate website visitors on the problems you solve and how you do it. They can be animated or live-action, and are typically one to two minutes in length. Use narrative story arcs to lead the visitor from the problem they have to the solution you offer, and use the visual nature of video to make your message clear, memorable and authentic.

  • Chechkist importante

Use deep-dive videos to showcase what you do and how you do it People come to your website for a very specific reason—to learn about what you do! Stop hiding behind the “contact sales” button and give your site visitors deep-dive videos that show your product in action and go behind-the-scenes of how you deliver your services. Give them an on-demand, self-service experience to answer all the questions they may have. Consider adding a gated form before or after key assets for new lead generation.

Add a short video to your pricing page to create clarity and trust On many business websites, the pricing page is one of the most frequently visited pages across their entire site. Use video on this page as an opportunity to clearly explain how your pricing works and what value specific customers get in return. Having a real executive or employee from your company explaining your pricing will also instill a sense of trust and transparency at this critical point in the buying journey.

Use short videos to increase landing page conversion rates Add a short video to landing pages that include a critical form or call-to-action to help you increase conversion rates. Feature one of your own employees clearly explaining the benefit in taking the next step, as well as what to expect after filling out the form. Directly address any concerns or hesitations that your visitor may have at that important moment.

As a result, the best way to use email in today’s business world is to share interesting and relevant content that people genuinely find value in and to build a relationship over time such that when they are ready to evaluate a solution within your space, you’re the first one they call.

While the black and blue messages may have their place, you’re potentially missing a huge opportunity to leverage email as a direct channel through which you can share any type of content including imagery, podcasts, interviews, and of course, videos.

The main call-to-action in the email could be a link to “Download the Report” or “Read the Article.” Or you could take a more exciting route with something like “Watch the 1-Minute Summary.”

If you’ve created relevant thought leadership videos for your YouTube channel, social media, or blog, start repurposing those within your email marketing program.

Then, use a creative subject line that includes the word “video” to pique their interest, include some short introductory copy that includes words like “short,” “2-minute,” or “exclusive” to make the content feel even more irresistible. Also, add a thumbnail image for your video with a nice big play button on it that takes them to a landing page to immediately watch!

  • Tip videos en email

Although social media is inherently defined by one-to-many communications, email marketing allows you to be more targeted by creating recipient lists based on their company size, industry, job title, and even their previous content consumption behaviors.

Videos that tend to work well in automated email marketing and nurturing programs include: • High-level thought leadership videos with broad appeal to your overall audience, often used during the early stages of automated email nurtures and for a broad segment of your list. • Targeted thought leadership videos with specific appeal to subsegments of your audience, typically used during mid-stages of automated email nurtures and for more narrow segments of your list. • Customer journey videos that showcase how you’ve helped other businesses or consumers solve problems or meet their goals, often used in later stages of automated email nurtures. • Product or service overview videos and online demonstrations to encourage your audience members to self-educate on your products or services, often used in later stages of automated email nurturing campaigns. • Custom videos to support specific offers, campaigns, product or service launches, content asset launches, and more, often sent out in a timely manner to support key priorities and initiatives.

The three key email marketing metrics you’ll want to watch are: 1. Click-to-open rate (CTOR), or the percentage of people who open the email, which is heavily dependent on the subject line and preview copy. 2. Click-through rate (CTR), or the percentage of people who click through on the main link or call-to-action in the email, which is heavily dependent on what the offer is and how it’s positioned. 3. Post-click engagement rate or conversion rate, or the percentage of people who actively engaged in the content or submission form linked to from the email. You know, the real action you were trying to drive from the email.

For emails that include a video as a call-to-action, try adding the word “video” somewhere in the subject line. The latest research suggests that emails with “video” in the subject line generate a 19% higher open rate than those that don’t.

First, start the email with some short copy to set the necessary context for the video. Pique their interest with some of our favorite tactics—pose a big question, challenge conventional wisdom—something that tees up your video as something that simply can’t be missed. Whatever you do, keep your introduction short and let the video do the talking. Second, include a big, beautiful thumbnail image for the video immediately after your enticing introduction with a play button smack in the middle. Visuals like this will draw their attention and the play button will make it clear that there’s a great video to watch. Step things up by using an animated GIF image for your thumbnail that loops every three seconds! An animated thumbnail will draw more attention because of the visual movement and will often demand a higher click-through rate as a result.

  • Tip emiail

[Video] Get creative and smart with your subject line Make it clear in your subject line that an amazing video awaits them within this email message. Use the word “video” or “watch” within the subject line or try adding [Video] at the beginning or end. Split test different variants if possible to see what works best for your audience to maximize your click-to-open rate.

Tease out your video content but don’t spoil the surprise. Include two to three short sentences of copy to set the context for your video, but keep it short and direct. Use this copy to capture their attention, to set the stage for the video, and to create a sense of urgency to watch—but don’t spoil the key takeaways! Use terms like “short” or “1-minute” when referencing the video or within the hyperlinked call-to-action to maximize your click-through rate.

thumbnail image is worth a thousand words While you can’t embed videos directly within emails, you can give your audience the next best thing! Include a large thumbnail image for your video with a visible play button in the middle to draw their attention and increase click-through rates. Make it even more irresistible by using a looping…

“Watch this!” Don’t forget to make the main CTA clear and concise. Ensure that the thumbnail image for the video is hyperlinked to a page where the video is the hero, but also be sure to include hyperlinked text or a button after the thumbnail image as your final call-to-action. The text or…

Link to an optimized destination page for your video When an email subscriber clicks on the hyperlink or the thumbnail image, they’re expecting to immediately watch your video. So, link to a page where the video is prominent and can be quickly watched—don’t force them to scroll down a page or search for it. This could be a link to the YouTube page for that video, the dedicated sharing page for that video created by your…

Consider having your video autoplay when viewers come from the email If your video is hosted on YouTube and you link directly to the page for that video, it will autoplay by default. If your video is hosted on a dedicated sharing or landing page, you can also configure it so the video will autoplay when the link in your email is selected. Depending on your video hosting platform, this may be configured as a default setting for the video itself, or you may be able to append a special value…

Don’t forget closed captions for those who prefer to read along Remember, people will be clicking through to your video as they’re going through their email inbox and, just as with social media, they may not have been planning to sit down and watch videos with their headphones on. Closed captions enable your viewers to quickly watch the video with their sound…

The problem I’ve seen time and again is that businesses get caught up in the idea that they’re launching a new product or service, as opposed to solving a new problem for their customers.

Whatever it is, your goal is to tell that story. The story that brings their problem or pain point to life in a way that’s relatable, emotional, and creates a sense of urgency to act.

You can use scenario-based “skits” to bring that pain to life, have one of your own employees speaking to the viewer on camera explaining the problem directly, or capture one of your customers talking about the problem in a way that others can relate to. Once you’ve showcased the problem and made it painfully clear to your viewer, offer a short teaser of your new product or service and a deep dive demo of how it actually works. This can all be done via a single video, but it often makes sense to create one promotional video to tee up the problem and a teaser of your solution, and then a second educational video that walks the viewer through the new offering (education) in a more comprehensive way. Your prospect or customer should walk away after a few minutes of viewing with a clear understanding of why your new offering exists, what specific problem it solves, what it actually looks like, and how they could apply it within their own business or personal life.

Another approach to maximizing the impact of major content assets is to create video content that acts as a companion to the written piece or to create a full video-based version of the hero content.

“Our goal in marketing is not just to generate marketing qualified leads (MQLs) but to also move the needle by guiding a prospect through the buyer’s journey so we see the impact to our bottom line. We decided video would be the most useful media for achieving that goal. It allows us to humanize our brand, products, and stories and it provides us with detailed analytics for tracking engagement,” Glenn Hughes, video producer at Gordian

Whatever the program may be, the goal of a lead generation campaign is to engage a targeted audience in your message and to convert as many of them as possible on the desired next step, such as clicking a link, completing a form, booking a meeting, or even buying now. These types of campaigns help marketing teams generate a spike in new qualified leads and/or accelerate demand from their existing prospect database.

Make your product or service launch truly resonate by bringing their pain to life Video is the perfect way to share why you’re launching a new product or service and to show how it will help. Use video content to bring the problem you’re solving to life, and to show your customers exactly what it delivers in a clear and memorable way.

Use short videos to promote your major content assets If you’re using major content assets like e-books, guides, or research reports to generate new leads, create short promotional videos to tease audiences with key takeaways, and to generate interest in downloading the full content piece.

Reinvent your e-books and guides as engaging and memorable videos You’ve already got the content mapped out, now, deliver it in a fresh new way to engage a broader audience! Translate your main e-books, guides, and reports into educational videos or multi-part video series that you can package and promote in different ways and even use for new lead generation activities.

Use creative storytelling to drive engagement in key lead generation programs Whether you’re promoting an event, driving registrations for a webinar, advertising a new offer, or re-engaging your list of dormant prospects, use the power of video to tell a bigger story and to make your promotional content more educational, engaging, emotional, and empathetic.

No one wants to buy from a company that can’t prove that they’ve helped someone else like them achieve great results. On the flip side of that, everyone wants to buy from the company that gets rave reviews from their customers.

Video-based customer stories not only make your testimonials feel more trustworthy and authentic, but they also give you the opportunity to bring out the passion and emotion of your clients in a way that can get future customers truly excited.

When approaching a video-based customer testimonial project, all three stages of planning (pre-production), recording (production), and editing (post-production) are extremely important to walking away with a compelling story that captivates your audience. While the same could be said for any video you create, it’s especially true for customer testimonials because you don’t have the opportunity to script the narrative or define the storyline prior to starting the project. You’ll often need to capture more footage than you’ll end up using, and (in many cases) the real story that you end upbringing to life may be different than what you had expected going in!

The real magic is in how you edit your footage down to a fast-paced and engaging video that is no longer than three to four minutes. Distill your content down to its most essential parts and use “b-roll” content such as footage of their office or home and shots of your product in action to make your finished product dynamic and engaging.

□ Use the power of video to infuse your customer stories with emotion and empathy

Planning is the most important stage of a visual customer story production

Filming and production is also the most important stage Make your customers feel, look, and sound like a star! Be prepared to have good lighting, clear audio, and two cameras for recording at different angles. If possible, do your interview recording at the location where the results have been realized (their office, home, etc.) or get scrappy by recording onsite at a conference or even via video chat.

And post-production editing is also the most important stage

Go beyond testimonials to make your customers truly relatable

The power of video at this stage of the customer lifecycle is in its ability to train and educate customers in a more effective and memorable way than text or static imagery.

You don’t need to “wow” customers with flashy content and clever scripts; onboarding videos can easily be recorded using webcams, screen capture software, and smartphones. Keep it simple and direct, use your internal experts, and focus on clearly showing customers how to accomplish common tasks. In many cases, shorter is better for onboarding videos!

Instead of creating a one-hour walkthrough of every feature and function, start by creating short “micro demos” for individual features, functions, or services. Each video could be less than five minutes long.

Second, it makes your content easier to update as your products and services evolve. If instead, you record a one-hour video walking through your full product, and then a single feature changes, it may be frustrating and time-consuming to re-record the entire thing. But with the “micro-content” approach, you can simply re-record that short feature-specific video. Finally, it makes your content more modular and customizable. For example, if a certain customer only has access to a limited set of features or services, you can create a customized playlist that walks through those specific features for a personalized viewing experience that aligns with what they have purchased.

  • Importante onbording

When using video for customer onboarding, your primary goals are to help them be successful within their first 30 days and to ensure they have a positive brand experience as they roll out your solution. With that in mind, start by focusing on the content that will have the biggest impact on achieving these short-term goals.

This is very common in today’s business world, where customers purchase a product or service with aspirations to use all of the wonderful capabilities. In practice, however, they only end up adopting a small set of those features or services. When this happens it can pose a serious risk for customer retention or repeat sales and can make trying to generate expansion or upsell opportunities next to impossible. Customer marketing can play a key role in helping to drive awareness, adoption, and utilization of key products and services—and video can be the perfect way to do it.

Visual content gives you the opportunity to not only educate customers in a more effective way on products or services they may not be using to their full potential, it can also help to humanize your brand and showcase that you genuinely want to help them succeed.

When approaching this type of content, think creatively about how to make it fun, interesting, and a little bit more human. You’re not trying to win them over as buyers; you’re trying to connect with them as real people who have real problems you can help solve.

  • ImportAnte

There are numerous ways to get your people on camera to introduce themselves to new accounts. Much like creating “micro demos” for your products, you can also create “micro intros” for people across your company that can be used in different ways, as needed. For example, when a new customer comes on board, send them a “Welcome to the Family” video that pulls in introductions from different people they may interact with over time. By the way, I’m not just talking about a formal introduction of name, title, and role. I’m talking about a personal, human introduction that has them laughing on camera, sharing their favorite recipe, showing off photos of their pets and kids—whatever it is that makes them tick as real people!

  • Idea videos intro

A second way to delight your customers is to deliver engaging and entertaining campaigns throughout the year that are purely designed to share your appreciation, showcase your culture and values, and build affinity towards your brand. It’s the type of content that most marketing teams don’t actively consider, but can be the most memorable and impactful to your existing customer base. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for how each business can use culture videos to delight their customers. Generally speaking, inspiration needs to come from within and should be an authentic manifestation of your culture and values.

Videos to celebrate customer lifecycle milestones,

Videos of your team members participating in timely trends

Videos sharing stories from any giveback or corporate social responsibility

Fun and creative videos at the end or beginning of the calendar year

Lighthearted videos to celebrate other holidays and culture days

In many respects, Axonify has two very different user profiles within each of their accounts they need to keep engaged and make successful: the individual(s) administering the overall employee training program (typically, HR professionals) and the employees within that business who are the end consumers of the training programs. If either the administrators or end users don’t see value in the platform, they can quickly become a churn risk. On the flip side, if product adoption is strong and brand sentiment is high, there may be a significant opportunity for expansion, upsells, and referrals. As a result, Carrie Cardoso Côté sees her role as much more than just customer communications.

“The customers who use more features of the platform and see higher employee engagement are the ones most likely to renew their contract and expand their deployment. Our account management team is responsible for ensuring individual clients are successful, particularly those with larger deployments, and they do a fantastic job. But our customer marketing team plays a key role in delivering one-to-many programs across all of our customer tiers to generate awareness and adoption of new product features, to educate administrators on how to increase utilization by their employees, and to delight them with experiences that humanize our business and increase brand affinity. The result is higher renewal rates, improved net promoter score (NPS), new expansion and upsell opportunities, on a closer connection to our brand and our people.” Carrie Cardoso Côté, Head of Customer Marketing at Axonify

One of the most important stages of the customer lifecycle is initial onboarding and training. While their account management team provides customized onboarding for many new clients, this approach wasn’t able to scale as Axonify’s lower-tier customer base expanded and as new administrators took over the helm within existing accounts. To create a more scalable onboarding solution, while preserving the feel of “white glove” service, they invested in a series of onboarding, training, and how-to videos to enable new users to quickly ramp up via on-demand content. More than just a set of tutorials, the videos offer clear and concise walk-throughs of how to accomplish common tasks to ensure those who are new to the platform can get up to speed with nothing being lost in translation.

  • Importante onboarding

Once the customer is successfully launched and starting to see value from the solution, the role of customer marketing shifts to driving feature adoption and keeping users engaged in the platform—this is when the real magic happens.

Automated email nurturing sequences now start to drip through to each customer with tailored content to help guide them on their journey as an Axonify customer. Short explainer videos expose them to new features that haven’t yet been activated, showing them exactly how they work and the benefits they offer. A branded video series called Meet the Features is introduced as a fun way to learn about other aspects of the platform. Shot in the style of a television dating show, each feature is personified by an individual on their account team where they vie for your attention and hope to be the next feature that you turn on and take out for a date.

In addition to incorporating videos into their automated nurture streams, Axonify turned their new product release notes into video-based content with massive success. Prior to this initiative, new product releases were supported with text-based emails and knowledge articles summarizing the updates, fixes, and new features available. However, the click-through rate and engagement in that content was low, resulting in missed opportunities for new product adoption. That all changed with video. Each product release is now supported with a short video clearly explaining what’s new and what the related benefits are. With video, they can show exactly how it works, while building a greater sense of connection by featuring their own employees, executives, and even product developers.

During the month of December, while most businesses are busy sending out disposable greeting cards and templated holiday emails, Axonify truly delights each customer with a highly anticipated personalized holiday video that tells a fun and memorable story.

“We went from having little one-to-many communication with our customers outside of release notes, to building a full-fledged calendar of automated communications where video plays an integral role at every stage. Customers now expect—and love—the educational and entertaining videos we share regularly to help them be better with Axonify. Customers are watching 100% of our videos, even for those that span close to four minutes! Feedback is overwhelmingly positive from our customers, as well as our own internal employees, who truly appreciate how we’ve used video to share our knowledge in a more effective way and to connect on a more personal and human level.” Carrie Cardoso Côté, Head of Customer Marketing at Axonify

When it comes to building more personal relationships with your customers at scale, video is the next best thing to being there in person.

Use video-based tutorials to deliver exceptional onboarding and training at scale

Use targeted video content to drive adoption and utilization

Use video to humanize your brand and connect your customers to your people

Delight your customers and stay top-of-mind with culture-based content

Take your relationship from B2B or B2C to H2H—human-to-human!

Empower account management and customer service with one-to-one video

Identify where you have challenges or inefficiencies in your current buyer’s journey and use video to address those head on!

If your greatest challenge is building an audience, start with educational videos for inbound marketing, social media, YouTube, and your blog. Focus on generating awareness and building your brand through helpful and human video content.

If you have a strong online audience, but your website performance is lagging, focus on using video strategically on your website, landing pages, and pricing page to reduce your bounce rate and increase conversions.

If you have a strong database of leads but are struggling to convert them into sales opportunities, look for ways to use video in your content marketing, email marketing, and outbound demand generation programs to earn their attention and show them exactly what they’re missing out on.

You must create a culture of video and embrace in-house video creation. Not just within marketing, but across your entire business, and it starts at the top.

Someone must “own” (at least eventually) your video production in-house—i.e. a videographer. • Your team must clearly understand the what, how, and why of video, while also being willing to learn how to effectively communicate on camera.

In 10 years, the position of “videographer” will be just as important and prominent to an organization’s success as a “sales manager” is today.

During the interview process, focus heavily on seeking out the following traits in your videographer hire: • They are able to work with a team or on their own. • They own the production process and do what it takes to make great content. • They are self-starting and treat the brand as if it were their own. • They deal well with constructive criticism and are able to receive feedback easily. • They have great communication skills and are able to interview and make people comfortable. • They are energetic and able to excite others on the team to be on camera. • They look at the content from the eye of the viewer to create the best experience. • They are lifelong learners and eager to identify new learning opportunities.

Remember, this is a “creative” position. Ultimately, their practical skills will make all the difference.

POTENTIAL FIELDS OF STUDY • Journalism • Education • Video production • Graphic design • Photography

TECHNICAL SKILLS • Proficient with video editing software (Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro are the most common) • Experience with Adobe After Effects or Motion is preferred • Experience with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator is a plus • Can conduct research and purchase needed equipment • Can operate and maintain proper levels and calibration of cameras, audio and video recorders, and other production equipment • Embraces new technology, such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), etc., as it happens • Understands the importance of tracking video marketing metrics CREATIVE SKILLS • Proficient at storyboarding, scripting, and concepting • Understands basic and advanced composition techniques • Understands the fundamentals of branding • Detail-oriented and able to identify quality issues in audio and video others might miss • Understands the basics of social media platforms, native social video, and content promotion through social channels VIDEO PORTFOLIO • Has a YouTube, Instagram, or Vimeo channel • Has a personal website with a portfolio

There is one important thing you need to remember—your candidate must display traits that lend themselves to business storytelling and not just cinematic knowledge.

What’s your favorite part of video editing? What is your least favorite? • What websites or resources do you use to learn new strategies and techniques, and improve your skills? • What don’t you like about the video production process? • What are the most important steps in pre-production? • Tell me about a time when your footage didn’t turn out as you had hoped. What did you learn? How did you fix it? • Who are some of your favorite videographers, channels, or influencers? (If they don’t have any, this could be a sign they don’t love learning.) • What makes a perfect visual story? • What videos have you seen online that were poorly done? • When you see someone doing something wrong on camera, how do you generally offer feedback? Can you provide specific examples of those instances? • How, specifically, do you deal with someone who doesn’t feel comfortable on camera? • What’s the toughest piece of feedback or criticism you’ve ever received for some of your work? Was it valid? (Self-awareness is essential for this position.) • In your opinion, what makes a business video different from, say, a short film? • From what you know about our company so far, what’s an important element of telling our story that’s missing? • What do you feel are the most important videos our company could produce right now?

Have your videographer candidates make a video explaining why they want the job.

Give a specific timeframe to complete the video—between two and five days.

Have them develop a script or storyboard to accompany the video.

Allow them to be creative, and think outside the scope of a traditional marketing video.

It’s simply not the case, which is why the moment you and your team start seeing the camera as a person—yes, I really mean that—and not as a camera, everything starts to change. I have personally witnessed this again and again.

RULE NO. 1: DON’T STOP

RULE NO. 2: BUT YOU CAN DO IT AGAIN

RULE NO. 3: THE 3-SECOND SMILE

wise man once said, “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.”

The first reason is because, once the video starts, you want to be coming off of your smile, not going into it. This establishes an immediate tone that is warm, friendly, and trustworthy. The second reason goes back to the subject of nerves. It’s much harder to be nervous when you’re truly smiling than when you’re not. If you don’t believe me, try. It works.

Just as Tyler mentioned at the beginning of this book, it’s going to be clunky. Not all videos will come out as you hoped. Not everyone is going to be great on camera the first day. Not every video will take off as anticipated. But it will be worth it. So, embrace the messy. Get through the learning curve, and when you come out on the other side, you’ll ultimately humanize and add soul to your business in a way you never realized would be possible.

To further enhance this new sales approach, we also produced a “how-to” video for potential customers showing them how to take photos of their property, therefore allowing our sales team and designers to “see” the backyard. With those photos, our team could then provide an accurate quote for a new in-ground swimming pool to a motivated potential buyer without having to physically be in the backyard.

As you can imagine, the efficiency, on both a personal and professional level, quickly went through the roof. Our sales team members could now complete three entire sales appointments one evening… and still have time to sit down and eat dinner with their family.

The lesson here is that change, even when positive, is disruptive by its very nature. In fact, change of any kind is hard. That is until you are presented, particularly as a business, with a “do or die” scenario. Then it gets really easy.

11 IRREFUTABLE LAWS OF EFFECTIVE VIRTUAL SALES MEETINGS 1. Never assume your prospect or customer understands the technology (ZOOM, GoToMeeting, etc.) and has been on it before

  1. You must require that cameras be on for all parties, no exceptions Studies have shown that closing rates are more than 10% higher when the prospect has their camera on, which makes total sense. I mean, think about it—when you’ve done a video conference call and the other party didn’t turn on their camera, how did the meeting go? Could you even tell if they were truly focused on what you were saying? While it may feel uncomfortable at first, you must not be passive about this requirement. So, when preparing the prospect for the meeting, say something like:

Use less text in any presentation slides you prepare

  1. If you are using a slide deck, turn “sharing” mode on and off throughout the presentation, so as to induce better conversation
  1. If you are meeting with a group of people—and they’re sitting around a table or in a boardroom—write everyone’s name down first
  1. When meeting with a group, always ask questions directly to the various attendees by name

When you ask questions openly to a group, you will often unintentionally create awkward moments in the conversation because attendees may be too shy or timid to speak up, for fear of talking over someone else. By singling an individual out every time you ask a question, you’ll greatly improve the flow of the conversation and earn more trust with the entire audience because of their mutual engagement.

As the saying goes in the speaking world, “You’ll never get a standing ovation by sitting down.”

Therefore, tell them the purpose. Make it clear what you’re going to cover, what defines success within the context of your discussion, and anything else that will help everyone on the call see exactly where the meeting is supposed to be headed.

If something is a distraction, call it out and fix it. If someone needs to be muted, mute them. If your discussion needs to get back on track, guide it back swiftly. Do everything with tact, of course. But remember, the momentary discomfort will be well worth it in the end once you’ve gained the customer’s trust and, ultimately, earned their business.

Anything that you and I think must be sold face-to-face will eventually be sold digitally and online.

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