For forward-thinking salespeople, video emails offer numerous advantages in comparison to more traditional outreach methods.
If you’re looking to modernize (and humanize) your cold outreach so you can better appeal to and engage with your prospects, take a look at how using video emails can be used to increase your pipeline and close more leads.
To send video emails, you’ll first need to decide on a video platform. Vidyard and Wistia are two industry-leading video hosting platforms developed for businesses.
You can download either platform’s browser extension for free here: Vidyard: GoVideo or Wistia: Soapbox.
This Soapbox ad, created with a $1000 budget, does a great job of identifying a problem, presenting a unique solution, and demoing the features of the solution.
Before you dive in, it’s important to determine the goal of your video.
Are you looking to educate?
Highlight product or service features?
Do a breakdown of your company’s offerings?
Help a lead identify his/her problem and provide solutions to it?
As you begin to establish your video objective, remaining mindful of the goal will force you to establish a direction and purpose for it. Check out these examples for inspiration:
Here’s a video from Vidyard’s GoVideo that demonstrates how to incorporate video in sales outreach emails.
This video from Soapbox Wistia has a bit of added production, but once you get past the opening scene, it quickly showcases Soapbox’s unique features and the value it provides.
We recommend videos for demos, tutorials, walkthroughs, testimonials, and pretty much any message that benefits from being conveyed visually. The trick is creating videos that accomplish your predefined goals, which is why setting goals is the first step in video production.
The great thing about using videos in your emails is that they help you stand out in a number of ways. Furthermore, they can be made for general outreach or customized for specific people.
However, while general sales video content can be useful for cold outreach, it can be easy to fall into the trap of losing that personal touch.
If your video isn’t personalized, try to at least make sure the copy in the email is – whether that means adding the recipient’s name or just a quick mention of their company, a little touch of personalization can go a long way.
Lighting can make or break your videos.
Too much light, and your video will appear washed out; too little light, and your recipient will be straining to see what’s going on. Keep lighting behind the camera and in front of your subject. Use softer lights if possible.
Keep the camera at eye-level.
When your camera is above eye level, viewers will feel as if they’re looking down on you. On the other hand, if the camera is too low, recipients will feel as if you are looking down on them.
While this may seem trivial, meeting someone eye-to-eye over video sets your future relationship up for success by laying the foundation for a mutually beneficial partnership.
Be personable and engaging; use humor and emphasis appropriately to evoke specific emotions from your recipients at the right times.
Of course, knowing how and when to use humor is vital in any outreach attempt – you don’t want to make the mistake of having your product or service seem like a joke.
If you’ve got a budget for video, you can start to get creative with your videos by adding a little production.
Post-production allows you to incorporate visuals and cutscenes that help you communicate points more effectively.
Looking to incorporate video into your sales strategies? Start a conversation with us today!