George B. ThomasDo you have a hard time leveraging video for your sales and marketing efforts?
If you ask most sales and marketing professionals out there, the answer is a resounding yes.
It would be great if someone created a video launchpad to get you soaring with your video efforts. Well, we did so check it out when you’re done here.
This article will cover five strategies that will help you make more sales and marketing videos for your company.
Each of these strategies will help you build relationships, drive revenue and help you develop your personal and professional brand as you create a fantastic library of sales and marketing video resources.
Ready to get into the good stuff? Yes?
Then let's go!
Have a Video Strategy Before You Start
So many times, we see sales and marketing professionals pick up the mic and camera and start running. The problem is, they’re running in circles. The sales and marketing teams’ vectors are not aligned. Your company never sees the full ROI of the energy spent, creating its first batch of videos.
Because of the lack of ROI, some smart person says, “Video doesn't work for our industry” and the video creation process dies, and your potential success dies with it.
That is why it is imperative to have a strategy in place for your entire team. In the past, I wrote an article on The Ultimate Video Funnel For Sales, Marketing, and Service. In this article, I talk about the age-old problem of siloed sales and marketing teams. I share my thought on excellent communication and how it can help both teams to:
- Humanize Their Brand
- Simplify The Complex
- Disarm Potential Leads
- Educate Their Customers
- Evoke Emotional Responses
I even dive into what types of videos you can create throughout the entire funnel.
That is where your teams should start, by the way, with the funnel!
Think of the top, middle and bottom of the funnel. Then think, “What do our prospects, leads, and customers, need to know? What questions will they have? What value can we add?” Then start building videos around those topics.
I would suggest that you start with the bottom of the funnel items as they will produce the most ROI the quickest, and then someone will say, “Wow! This video stuff is terrific. Let's do more!”
1: Focus on Quantity with Your Sales and Marketing Videos
Speaking of doing more, think quantity when you get started with your sales and marketing video efforts.
There are two reasons you should focus on quantity first.
Each video you create is like having another fishing pole with a worm on the end of it in the pond of business. If you have one fishing pole, you can only catch one fish. If you have 5 or 50 poles, well, you can catch a ton of fish!
The second reason you should focus on quantity when you first start creating your sales or marketing videos is that you will get better faster. You see, the more videos you do in a short amount of time means, the more you are working on your communication skills through those videos.
You’ll also be able to focus on technical issues like sound and lighting and getting your background set just perfect!
And all of this will happen in a month or two versus the first year. Velocity is the key to your initial video success.
2: Focus on Quality with Your Sales and Marketing Videos
If you want to understand more of my thoughts on quantity versus quality, you can check out this interview with Rob Balasabas from TubeBuddy.
Before we move onto the next strategy, I want just to reiterate, quantity is key as you get started but quality will also be a huge factor as you move forward with your video strategy.
Remember, as I said in the video above, make quantity your process and make quality your checklist. Don't make quality your excuse for not hitting that publish button.
3: Think Bulk When Creating Sales and Marketing Videos
This strategy will help you and your potential viewer tie your content together. I want you to think bulk from the start of your video process.
Instead of what single video can I create today or this week, I want you to think about what videos you can create today or this week to fit together. Think of it this way.
If I were going to create a video on reporting using HubSpot, it would be three videos.
The first video would be what is and why reporting is essential for your company. This video is very top of the funnel.
The second video I would create might be HubSpot versus Marketo, which has the best reporting features. This type of video is the middle of the funnel video as it focused on a comparison topic.
Finally, I would round it off with how a marketer can leverage HubSpot to do reporting and talk about a reporting audit they could check out. That’s very bottom of the funnel since it is about a specific persona as well as company, and leaning into a reporting audit sales opportunity.
Now you have created a thread about reporting that can travel through the entire sales and marketing funnel. Each video can stand alone or be presented together.
As you move forward and create the videos, you should think in bulk as well.
- Create all your scripts.
- Then shoot all your videos.
- Then edit your videos.
- Then upload your videos.
- And finally, publish your videos over your desired timeframe.
Then, rinse and repeat. By thinking bulk through the entire process of making your sales and marketing videos, you allow yourself to get into the zone and build linkable videos that create a chain of value that your prospects, leads and customers will love.
There are a ton of things to think about when it comes to thinking bulk. You may want to know the entire video creation process a bit better as you move forward. If so, you can check out our Marketers Guide to Video Marketing.
4: Be Human in Your Sales and Marketing Videos
By all that is holy! Please do not put on a persona or a mask when you are in front of the camera!
This one action will only put your viewer's BS meter on full alert.
Just be you.
Be empathetic to where they are in their journey. Be happy to serve them with a smile. Get in the trenches with them. Be their guide through all the questions they will have.
Focus on serving them over just selling them. Think about moving them, not just marketing to them.
By serving them and helping to move them from where they are to where they want to get, you become one of their most valued assets.
An easy way to make this happen is to create a compass that you follow. For me, my guiding compass has become four simple words. I aim to be:
- Happy
- Helpful
- Humble
- Human
When I start the creation of every sales or marketing video I ask, “How can I accomplish each of these words in this video?”
My suggestion is to create your compass with your words and let them be a guide for being as human as possible in your sales and marketing videos.
5: Make Sure Your Sales and Marketing Videos are Relevant
Too many times, we see people sharing videos with no regard to their relevance.
You have to spend time asking yourself, “Is this relevant to this person having this problem right now?”
If the answer is no, leave that video on the shelf until it is needed. If you don't have the right sales or marketing video for that moment, create it.
Either way, make sure it’s relevant!
If you think about your videos as ways to communicate with humans in a digital world, it changes how you think about sharing your videos.
Let me explain.
Imagine someone comes to you and shares they are having an issue with reporting their marketing and sales success. They ask if you know any tips or tricks on reporting.
You pause, think for a second, and then say, “I like pizza!”
What the heck? How does that have anything to do with reporting? Nothing!
But, it does show that you were not listening. It shows that you aren't focused on serving, that you’re not being human!
Now What?
As you move forward, use the five strategies we covered in this article to get better results with your sales and marketing videos.
If you are trying to get your sales team to leverage 1:1 personal videos in their process, you may want to check out the Sprocket Talk course on Personalized Videos.
If you want to dive deeper as a marketer into this whole video world, you could check out our Definitive Guide to Video SEO.
Either way, make sure if you have questions, you reach out and ask! I'm passionate about helping folks just like you change their lives by crushing it with video in their sales and marketing efforts.
