4 Video Lead Generation Strategies for More Engagement

The use of video lead generation in sales and marketing has been growing in popularity over the years. I’ve been on the marketing, sales development, and account executive side of the business enterprise, and it’s clear from my personal experience that fewer people are picking right up the phone. Between that and overcrowded inboxes, it’s challenging to get someone’s attention nowadays, even to express “no” quick (when you actually want a “no,” or even a “why?”). Here are four video to generate leads strategies for more engagement.

The Stats Don’t Lie, Either

Due to the 54.6 billion total robocalls made this past year, trust in answering the phone has declined to a point where less than 50% of all calls received are answered, based on Hiya’s State of the Call Report. Couple that with only .02% of B2B lead list cold calls converting, and significantly less than 1% of cold emails getting replies, it’s evident that you need to take action extra to stand out.

Trying the next strategies for video attempting to sell might just land you several solid leads (I know it did for me). For privacy reasons, I’ve left out personal statistics in the next examples.

The LinkedIn Native Video

While this 1 is undoubtedly the riskiest, it can also pay dividends when done effortlessly. Putting a vid on LinkedIn involves making a video where you speak right to the prospect who you want to talk with (speaking in to the camera), upload it to LinkedIn publicly, and tag them inside. Here’s one that worked when I was trying to get some engagement with a wearable device company at the end of 2017.

That video managed to get about 15,000 views (unfortunately, the analytics disappeared after 60 days, according to LinkedIn, so I don’t have the hard proof that). Our guy sent me a note on LinkedIn later that night, and complemented the video. Then, he referred me to the person internally who we needed to consult with on his team.

To be clear, this will act as a final resort all things considered standard contact methods have already been exhausted.

Their company had no direct phone lines, and we couldn’t scrape up any phone numbers through tools like Zoominfo or Datanyze. I had tried messaging him on LinkedIn, and through email several times first, too. The other thing is that since these videos take a moment to make (at least this video did), the company you’re working to engage needs to be considered a whale of a prospect. Unfortunately, the referral that he gave me never changed into anything in the immediate future. We had just missed the boat making use of their compelling event.

Even though I never viewed Hootsuite’s LinkedIn video guide when I made my videos — it’s worth skimming over this post before making a video for your business. Also, be aware that 45% of people will simply watch for the first 30 seconds, so there needs to be a compelling hook (a great piece of video) right at the start.

I planned for the video to be looked at with no sound (at least at first), and added the visual hook of an insane amount of weight on the bench. If you’re wondering, it was 585 pounds. I’m a little too small for that. I also didn’t fuss at the beginning of the video, and quickly let them know we’re able to help them with their (publicly mentioned) world wide growth goals.

Key Insights on Selling With LinkedIn

Many companies saddle their salespeople with LinkedIn Sales Navigator subscriptions, and for justification. The site has over 500 million users by 2019, and 78% of B2B marketers rate it as the most effective platform in achieving specific objectives for their organization.

Even though you do not have to be connected with anyone to tag them in a video post (they it’s still notified) it doesn’t hurt to add them to your network first. One connection message that I found to have accepted most of the time and commence conversations was simple:

“Hi, Dr. Brenner,

Bob Buckley here with This College Life. I stumbled upon your profile and was hoping you can help me out. Do you mind if I ask a few quick questions?

Thanks,

Bob”

Here’s an example of a fruitful conversion from the message like this (sometimes I needed to followup asking if we could talk one more time):

Even though I just plugged LinkedIn Sales Navigator above, the majority of my success with LinkedIn actually came from simple connection requests with a custom message included, such as the one stated earlier. Having the subscription to Sales Navigator will allow you to send a few more connection requests than with a non-premium account, so it’s worth the trouble for maximizing your network. Once I started doing that, it became much easier to find out which companies could have needed our product.

Sending Video Via Email

After having some success with a public video on LinkedIn but little with sending videos through the platform’s messenger, I started considering whether it had been possible to send a video via email. This lesser-known (although growing) strategy for obtaining a prospect’s attention can be really powerful for cutting through their crowded inbox. Depending on which type of email client an individual has, it can even be possible to have a video play within the message. Unfortunately, there’s no way to share with what your prospects are utilizing for email ahead of time.

I’ve always used a photo with a play button in the middle for the greatest delivery rate. You must also include a hyperlink within the image, then when clicked, it opens right into a new browser window where in fact the video is hosted after which it plays. I used Wistia for the first few videos that I sent via email as an SDR.

Wistia can be a great platform to begin with.

I’m still leveraging Wistia in video-related marketing efforts today with This College Life. Since the private finance internet site Salt (saltmoney.org) was shut down only a little over this past year, there hasn’t really been a site dedicated to financial literacy and education loan resources for college students the direction they were. At some point, one of their marketing reps must have been working with my university because I started getting emails from Salt about once per week at my .edu email.

It seems easy theoretically to send an email about picking up where Salt left off, but even having the right person’s attention at a school can be challenging. One time, I emailed someone in the administration at mine with a budget question and it took over monthly for them to get right back. Video to the rescue. At minimum, I can use Wistia to see free analytics on whether some body watches my pitch or not. Here’s an example:

How would you add a picture of a video to an email?

Adding one of the links to a graphic is fairly straightforward. The initial thing you need to do is pull up the page where you may play your video. Then, open up the screenshot tool on your computer. If you have a PC, search the “snipping tool” in the bottom left search bar. If you’re on a mac, press “shift-command-4” along with your cursor will turn into a crosshair. Clicking “new” when the snipping tool opens on a Windows PC will turn the cursor into a crosshair. Click in the top left of your video and drag until the box is covering your video. You want the play button showing in the image, too.

Open up a blank email draft in your email client (I use Outlook) and click in the draft and so the cursor is blinking there. Then, if you’re on a PC press “CTRL + V” to paste the still image of the video. On Mac, it’s “CMD + V.” Once the image drops in, you will likely need to resize it. That can be done by clicking on the image once and then clicking and dragging one of the 8 white dots to change the size. I suggest the far bottom-right corner dot. After your image is the correct size, copy the link to your video from the address bar where it’s hosted.

Right-click on the image and choose “link” from the menu that opens up. The window titled “Insert Hyperlink” can look like you have to pick a local file on your pc. The very good news is, you don’t. Right-click inside the “Address:” field after which select “Paste” to drop your link in there. Click “Ok” and you also now have your video setup with a hyperlink. Add in whatever text you think is essential within the e-mail to get them to click it.

Keep the message short, something like “I thought it would be better to get on camera to tell you this” or “to ask you this.” You could also want to right-click on the image before sending and choose “Edit Alt Text” where you could type 1 or 2 sentences explaining what the image is in case your prospect’s email client doesn’t fully load the picture. That way, they won’t be left looking at a URL with no direction.

If you have Salesloft in your tech stack, then you should certainly look at trying Vidyard for sending video emails. The integration is very smooth, and at the very least a few of the videos I sent from my Vidyard-Salesloft-Outlook combo were watched 20-30 times with the e-mail itself opened 100+ times. Both Vidyard and Wistia have free options, when you signed up for those two platforms, you can send eight videos, total without paying anything to start out.

There are many compelling common-sense reasons to adopt video emails in to your to generate leads strategy. Think about what’s easier to pass around an organization: an email with a few sentences and might be good (when it seems like the same thing people get bombarded with every few minutes) or something which looks just like what a person might click to laugh at and unwind (and no reading required). Plus, almost 60% of executives prefer watching a video than reading text, based on Wordstream.

At least a few of the videos I sent via Vidyard’s platform were watched 20-30 times. These will positively make a direct effect on people who open them. Consider this case study of Vidyard’s customer Gordian, a construction technology company. They brought in 6 million in revenue with just 5 very compelling videos. They saw 736 market-qualified leads, 21 sales opportunities, and 11 closed opportunities to incorporate up to 6 million in revenue. Even other companies outside of business are using videos to drive further engagement. Just look at Loyola University Maryland’s technique to welcome admitted students with personalized video.

By doing this, they stand out from the numerous other college choices.

When the team sent the first video campaign to 8,000 admitted students at the end of 2017, there have been over 10,000 views. More importantly, 4,000 reviews. The takeaway? They made an extremely positive first impression with prospective students and rendering it personal paid. If you’re nervous concerning the time investment for personalized video in your B2B company or other organization, ask yourself the next question: Can I really afford to send another 10,000 canned emails?

Facebook Targeted Ads

You should be careful about direct Facebook to generate leads. Making almost any move like this could be taken the wrong way. Imagine walking around someone’s house outside of work hours for a B2B meeting request. It probably wouldn’t workout so well. The very good news is, you are able to still leverage the platform in a non-intrusive way through their Facebook for Business advertising.

As of December 2019, there are 2.5 billion active users on the Facebook platform. Overall, user statistics might not be as essential, but you should still recognize the sheer volume of people there. Facebook’s lead generation advertisements are several of the most cost-effective to leverage in B2B advertising, too. You can collect prospects’ info directly on Facebook instead of risking losing people when they click right through to your website. The site offers helpful guidelines for utilizing their ad platform and you will find useful guides all over the web for making content that converts.

You may even target specific people with advertisements if you have their email. It should be noted, though, that those emails need to be those used for their Facebook accounts. Video ads will play automatically as you scroll listed below and include sound, but play it safe by let’s assume that your prospect will have sound turned off and try getting their attention without it. As many as 85% of all video views on Facebook happen without sound, according to Digiday. Fortunately, you can try plenty of time-tested methods for keeping some body in the initial three seconds with just a visual. You will find great examples on the blogs of companies like Hubspot and Buffer for getting viewers to stay.

The neat thing about Twitter and Instagram is exactly how many prominent folks have public profiles. Even better, you can tweet at or tag some body, and they will be notified if they follow you or maybe not. Before putting too much time in to these platforms, make sure they routinely post and/or build relationships other accounts. No sense in contacting them there if they never check it!

Someone else may additionally run their account.

Be aware that somebody else might also be managing an executive’s Twitter or Instagram. Although that’s more pro athletes than anyone. You can say the same of a LinkedIn profile. Regardless, in the event that you make something creative enough, it should cut through all of the noise. I’ve only tried one Twitter video before, and it was a contest entry for winning some funds from Vitamin Water. While it was unsuccessful, it did get me into putting a video on the platform.

Key Insights on Selling With Twitter and Instagram

Hopefully, you took a review of some of the resources mentioned above for making video hooks. The data points to the exact same strategies working for making compelling videos on Twitter and Instagram, too. Creating an eye-catching thumbnail and title are both pivotal in getting someone to start the video. Planning a striking visual in the initial 3 seconds that doesn’t rely on sound is equally important. Consider all the places people browse these apps where they can’t hear sound anyway.

Not so surprisingly, 90% of Twitter video views were happening on mobile immediately after the feature was added. When Instagram first introduced videos, over 5 million were shared in the initial 24 hours. Since then, it’s only grown more as the preferred way people consume content. In 2019, 93% of brands could acquire a new customer on social media through video. Don’t let your organization be in the 7% that leaves scrolling customers at night about your product. Remember, it can be as simple as propping up the smartphone camera for filming a 30-second message.

Tying It All Together

The longstanding advice for attempting to sell anything is taking a multi-pronged approach of exploring every avenue (phone, email, social, etc.). This plan of attack will typically yield results, assuming you retain diligently following up and continue maintaining a laser-like focus. As new tech opens up more approaches to fill your pipeline, don’t be afraid to dig in and take to them. They could make the difference between hitting several or maybe not if you can can get on the right person’s radar at the right time by protruding from the crowd. In choosing B2B selling strategies, a video should make your final cut.