Sales prospecting with video is a fantastic way to find new clients and generate more sales. Whether you are a first-time entrepreneur or are a VP of sales at a much larger company, video can mean the difference between just falling short of your sales goals and reaching your company’s fullest potential.
It is that powerful.
At the same time, there are plenty of sales professionals who don’t know how to use video. And then there are situations where sales professionals are uncomfortable using video.
Not to worry. In this guide, we are going to explore sales prospecting with video and how you can use it to reach your company’s goals. From converting that one important prospect to getting many more leads with less work, we are going to cover a lot of ground here.
Table of Contents
The Three Stages of Sales
The Value of Sales Prospecting With Video
Sales Prospecting With Video: Some Tips and Tricks
Don’t Obsess Over Your Gear
Speak From the Heart
Leverage Calls to Action
Keep Creating Content
Getting Started
Start Prospecting Today
The Three Stages of Sales
Whenever we are talking about sales prospecting with video, it is helpful to start the conversation by looking at the traditional elements of a sales funnel. The goal of the sales game is to take a stranger and turn them into a game-changer.
During this process of transforming a prospect into a trusted client, you quickly see how rigorous it can be. Plenty of things can go wrong. There are certain things that are out of your control. However, the other side of the coin presents massive opportunities to both provide value to a new customer and to transform the course of your business.
There are three stages of the buying cycle: awareness, consideration, and decision-making. Video can help you build strong relationships at all stages of this cycle.
Let’s start with awareness. In some circumstances, you may come across a prospect who doesn’t know that they have a problem. They may be dealing with a suboptimal situation in their professional or personal life, yet they may not recognize that there is a product or service that can fix (or even eliminate) that situation.
For instance, let’s assume that you are a VP of sales at a fairly large company. You are hoping to get more conversions for your business, yet you aren’t seeing the numbers that you want to see. A first reaction may be to hire more salespeople. You may also think that you need to spend more money on ads. You may start thinking of even more creative solutions to drive up your conversion rate and reach your sales goals.
That may work well in some circumstances. That said, there may be other situations where the sales strategy isn’t working because you aren’t aware that your targeted prospects are in the awareness stage. As you have more conversations with these prospects and start to understand their problems, they may start to discover what some of their options are.
Critically, if they are in the awareness stage, they are not ready to buy. It is a fool’s task to try to sell to them. For example, if you are trying to sell sales-enablement software that helps sales professionals become more authentic and they don’t recognize that they have this problem, it is going to be virtually impossible to convert that prospect. Selling a solution to someone who doesn’t understand the problem can lead to frustration and wasted time.
After the awareness stage is consideration. In the consideration stage, the prospect actually understands and recognizes the problem that they are facing. For instance, that VP of sales knows that they are struggling to convert because they aren’t creating real, human connections with their prospects. In that specific case, they may want to try out Dubb, which is a video communications platform that can help you generate more sales.
As you can guess, the solution to the problem here may not be getting more people into the sales funnel. It may be doing a much better job converting the prospects who are already in that funnel. In this type of situation, it is probably well worth your time to focus on those in-funnel prospects rather than the mythical “perfect” prospects that may exist somewhere else.
In this consideration stage, you can be much more upfront about presenting options and possibilities. You can show that you both understand the problems that they’re facing and that your product or service can help solve the problem that is in front of them. By doing this, you can become a viable candidate for a future purchase.
Finally, there is the decision-making stage. This is when your prospects are ready to buy. They know of you, your product or service, and how it can improve their lives.
While your prospects are making the decision themselves, there are several things you can do to improve your odds. For instance, you can leverage social proof. You can create a testimonial video that shows the smiling faces of your happy clients.
The bottom line, however, is that your prospects want results. If you are a personal trainer and you take on a new client, they will want your guidance to help them develop the body they envision. If you sell productivity software, your prospects will want your software to help them save time and become more productive. Whatever your business is, focusing on your prospects’ desired results will make the decision much easier for them.
So what does this all mean? For starters, there is a defined path to turn your prospects into paying clients. While there are plenty of things that can go wrong, there are plenty of things that can go right. No matter what you are selling, you can traverse these three stages and make a sale.
But what if you want to make your job easier? The great news is that you can engage in sales prospecting with video. When you are doing this, you can create a more visual, engaging experience for your prospects. You can be more authentic and trustworthy. The end result is getting more connections and conversions.
The Value of Sales Prospecting With Video
If you have decided to engage in sales prospecting with video, congratulations. You have made a fantastic decision and one that will help you get much closer to your business goals. Moreover, by using video to prospect, you can make faster decisions. Using a tool like Dubb, you can quickly create a video, get it in front of your prospects, and build real relationships with them.
Throughout this entire journey, I urge you to keep the power of video in mind. Specifically, there are several things that video does that are more difficult (or impossible) to do in other forms or mediums.
- Tell More Engaging Stories: Simply put, video is made for storytelling. Using just your smartphone, you can tell smart, engaging, and even funny stories that your audience members will love. Better yet, studies have shown that audiences prefer visual storytelling over other forms. And with our brains naturally attracted to images over text, video attracts viewers (and repeat viewers).
- Make More Personalized Videos: Using a tool like Dubb, it is incredibly easy to create personalized videos for your prospects. Whether your prospects are at the awareness, consideration, or decision-making stages, you can make hyper-personalized videos for any type of prospect. With this personalization and attention to detail, you can develop stronger relationships and get that much closer to the sales finish line.
- Leverage Calls to Action: This is one of the most exciting parts of video prospecting for sales. Dubb and other video communications platforms create video landing pages for each of your videos. You can think of these pages as central hubs for your specific videos. On those pages, you can have call to action buttons below your videos, and these buttons can easily move your prospects down your sales funnels. From scheduling calls on your calendar to letting a prospect reply to your video with one of your own, you can develop strong prospect relationships—even when you are sleeping.
These are just some reasons why video prospecting can be so powerful. It’s important to note, however, that sales is about providing a human connection and providing value. This latter point is especially important. You don’t just want to talk about yourself and what you have accomplished. What you’ll quickly discover is most people won’t care.
Instead, what you want to do is identify where the prospect is in the buying cycle and then create valuable video content for them. By doing this, you can create more relevant content and get them much closer to making a purchase.
Just think about it this way: prospecting is all about identifying the lead’s problem and willingness to solve their problem through your product or service. Obviously, there is no guarantee that the lead will become a paying customer. The key here is to qualify that lead or prospect.
Some of the stages of the funnel that you’ll have to navigate include a lead, prospect, marketing qualified lead (MQL), sales qualified lead (SQL), opportunity, and then closed won or closed lost. As you probably already know, this is the common nomenclature in many CRM systems (including Dubb’s CRM).
The great news? You can cater to all of these individuals through the power of video. From creating an introductory video for a brand new prospect to a complete product demo through a lengthy screen recording, sales prospecting with video makes your job much easier.
In the end, prospecting isn’t just about getting your lead into your CRM system. It is about creating opportunities. You create opportunities by sharing value as you guide them through the awareness, consideration, and decision-making stages. You focus on them and their problems.
If I can leave you with one thing, it would be this: when you are creating video content, provide hyper-focused value for all of your prospects. It substantially increases your chances of a sale, whether that sale occurs now or in the future. Ironically, by focusing on them and their problems, you get closer to what you actually want.
Sales Prospecting With Video: Some Tips and Tricks
With all of that said, let’s now talk about how you can actually prospect with video. Like any skill, it may take some practice to see the results that you envision. However, if you follow some of the tips and best practices below, I strongly believe that you’ll see much quicker progress.
Don’t Obsess Over Your Gear
If you are sales prospecting with video for the first time, it can be all too easy to obsess over the gear that you have. You may spend hours (or even days) contemplating the microphone or camera that you want to buy.
I’m not saying that gear isn’t important. At the same time, the great news is that you probably have great equipment already, meaning that you can get started right now. Really, all you need is your smartphone and video editing and distribution software. With these two things alone, you can create stellar content that you can later share with thousands (or even millions) of people. It really is that simple.
Sure, you can invest in a better camera, lighting, or microphone for your sales videos. At Dubb, we wrote an entire blog post on some of the things you should think about when investing in video equipment. However, if you aren’t sure what equipment to buy or aren’t interested in investing in other equipment, you’ll be perfectly fine with a smartphone and video software combination. Once you have started creating video content on a consistent basis, you may then want to invest in some other equipment.
Speak From the Heart
Related to the above, it is easy to get intimidated when you are recording your video content. That fear can bubble to the surface when you are in the early days of your content creation journey. In some circumstances, that fear may be so prevalent that it may prevent you from creating videos at all.
Obviously, this isn’t an ideal outcome. But like the point we made above about expensive gear, you don’t need to be the smoothest, most slick salesperson to create the best possible sales video. In fact, doing this may actually hurt your chances of making a conversion.
You don’t need a highly edited video. With modern technology like Dubb, you can create extremely compelling (and persuasive) video content—wherever you are.
For instance, if you decide to use Dubb when sales prospecting with video, you get to leverage a whole host of features and software. As just one example, the Dubb Chrome extension lets you record compelling webcam and screen recording videos for all sorts of audience members. If you want to give a product walkthrough for a key prospect, for instance, you can click on a little Dubb icon in your Chrome browser. You can then create a screen recording video with your digital product or service. You can even use the annotation tool to draw your prospect’s attention to certain things on your page.
Whatever tool you are using, you should just relax and be yourself. Ask yourself this question: if you had a 15 minute meeting with your prospect in their office and had the ability to present visuals, slides, and/or video, what would you do? From there, ask yourself how you can create a 90 second video from your answer.
In all likelihood, this is going to be the video that is most valuable to them. It is going to involve you authentically thinking about and discussing their problems and struggles. In that same video, you can close with a sense of validation. That validation comes from the fact that you have a viable solution to their problems and needs. If, for instance, you can save your prospects tens, hundreds, or thousands of hours, they will be much more likely to resonate with your message and become a paying customer.
As a side note, this is where some salespeople have a real problem. They suffer from “death by chase.” These salespeople burn out and change professions because they are spending most of their time chasing prospects. This is happening because they aren’t providing value. They aren’t building trust and aren’t invested in their network.
This is critical to remember when you are sales prospecting with video. You need to both speak from the heart and add value to all of your video content. That value can be everything from speaking about a specific problem that the prospect has to entertaining them on their lunch break. However you provide it, speak from the heart. Be yourself. By doing this, you will get that much closer to accomplishing your business goals.
Leverage Calls to Action
As I mentioned above, calls to action are fantastic tools to guide your prospects through the three stages of sales. No matter what type of video you’re creating, you’re going to want to include them below your videos.
If you are a Dubb user, for instance, you can leverage all sorts of call to action options on your video landing pages. They include things like:
- Schedule a call: Using a Dubb video landing page, you can easily have your prospect schedule a call on your calendar. Dubb’s software lets you incorporate your calendar on many of the world’s most popular calendar tools, including Calendly. That way, your video landing pages can be prospecting for you while you sleep. After watching your video, you can have an interested prospect on your calendar and ready for a follow up.
- Complete a form: This is a great call to action option for prospects who are at the top of your sales funnel. Using a tool like Dubb, you can include forms that are as simple or complicated as you’d like. Just make sure that you aren’t asking for too much in the beginning stages, as longer forms make it more likely that your prospect won’t actually complete the form.
- Download a white paper or eBook: If you have some sort of digital asset that your audience finds valuable, you can include it as a call to action option below your video. In fact, you can include your white paper or eBook as a lead magnet to have a top of funnel prospect complete a form. However you choose to go about it, offering some sort of digital asset shows the value you can provide and how you can actually help the prospect.
- Reply with video: This is one of our favorite call to action options. Here, your prospect can reply to your video with a video of their own. For starters, this can be a more convenient way for your prospect to respond to your video. But beyond that, the reply with video option is a great way to gather testimonials. You can then put all of those testimonials into a compilation video, which shows social proof and reveals the value that you have offered to others. Pretty great, right?
- Make a purchase: If you are sales prospecting with video, you may find that it makes the most sense to offer your prospect a purchase option. Obviously, this is more valuable for individuals in the decision-making stage. However, the option is there if you want to use it.
There are plenty of other call to action options at your disposal. Feel free to experiment with them as you’d like. The bottom line? You should be using at least some call to action options when sales prospecting with video. Your future self will thank you.
Keep Creating Content
It’s a simple thing, but it bears repeating: the people who succeed the most in sales prospecting with video are the ones who keep at it. Even if they aren’t seeing the traction they want to see in the beginning, they keep making content.
It can be easy to put your video prospecting work to the side. After all, you are probably fighting many different fires throughout the day. If you aren’t seeing an immediate payoff, it’s easy to move on and do something else.
I encourage you to stick with it. For most (if not all) people, it will take some time to see the results that you want. As the old saying goes, it takes years to become an overnight success. It may seem difficult at the moment, but consistently creating valuable content drastically increases your odds of reaching your goals.
Because of this, commit to creating sales videos a certain number of times per week. As always, make sure they are valuable videos. Step into your audience members’ minds and give them what they want. By doing this, you will get much closer to the results that you want to see.
Getting Started
With these best practices in mind, let’s wrap up this post by talking about how you can get started when sales prospecting with video.
First, you need to figure out your ideal target audience. If you are creating a sales video for anyone but one person, this can be tougher than you think. It’s easy to just take out your smartphone and start recording your video without thinking of who the video is for. While speed is certainly an important element in achieving your business goals, you don’t necessarily want to create a video without some planning.
Considering this, I encourage you to take some time before pressing the record button. Think about who you want to watch your video and the ideal messaging for that audience. In some circumstances, you may want to be extremely careful being too salesy. In other circumstances, you may want to actually be more salesy. There is more art than science here, so it really pays off to spend some time strategizing here.
Also, before you begin reporting, think about the visuals that you can include in your video. When we are talking about video prospecting with sales, we are usually talking about selfie videos. Essentially, you (or one of your colleagues) speak to the camera. However, this doesn’t mean that your videos need to simply include you talking to the screen. Instead, you can include other visuals. It can be as simple as creating several slides on Google Slides or Canva. You can also use a tool like the Dubb Chrome extension to create a quick screen recording clip that you can add to your video. The choices are essentially endless.
From there, think about how you are going to distribute your sales video. Once again, there are plenty of options here. You could send a video email to one specific prospect. You could create a sales video and quickly distribute it to your social media channels. You could even make a quick video on some breaking industry news and distribute it to your email list. However you choose to go about this, there are plenty of ways to get your sales videos in front of your prospects.
If you are looking for a more advanced strategy, I’d recommend that you leverage email drip sequences. If you don’t already know, email drip sequences automatically deliver certain emails to your audience members depending on the actions they take. It can offer a fantastic way to deliver more relevant content to your audience members—all while you are doing something else.
As just one example, let’s say that you created a sales video for prospects in the awareness stage. They are at the top of your funnel and are just hearing about your company. You can create a drip sequence that sends a follow up email if a prospect only watches a certain percentage of your video. You can also create a follow-up email that is only sent once a prospect clicks on a specific call to action button.
And to be clear: these follow up emails can include emails. Using a tool like Dubb, you can automatically insert a three-second animated GIF in the body of your email message. From there, the prospect can click on the GIF and be taken to that video’s specific video landing page. This means that you can incorporate video within your entire sales and marketing process.
Finally, I couldn’t talk about sales prospecting with video without mentioning artificial intelligence. AI is the technology that we are all talking about today. Tools like ChatGPT and Bard have already started to change the way that we work. Not only that, but these tools are getting exponentially better. Who knows how much they will be adding to our lives in the next year or so.
But having said this, AI isn’t perfect. It is still improving. You want to be strategic in how you are using it in your sales and marketing work.
For instance, if you decide to use Dubb’s sales and marketing software, you can take advantage of Dubb’s AI tool called IRA. IRA can help you write copy, generate ideas, and even write with a specific tone. When you are using AI, however, you will want to review the copy that you are actually publishing. AI tools tend to be too big for life and use words that you may not necessarily want to use. Even considering this, AI tools can make you much more productive when sales prospecting with video, so don’t hesitate to take advantage of them.
Start Prospecting Today
Right now, you have a fantastic opportunity to get started on your video prospecting journey. Whether you are just learning about sales prospecting with video or want to get more out of your video prospecting work, I encourage you to implement the tips and advice in this post.
And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out! At Dubb, we are obsessed with helping people leverage the power of video in their sales and marketing work. If you want to learn more about how Dubb can help you, click here. You can also click here for a free 14-day trial of our premium plans.
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