At Grow With Inbound 2020, Tyler Lessard of Vidyard shared how video content can explain what businesses do, answer key customer questions and build personal, trusted relationships.
All before a meeting is scheduled or a demo is booked!
The untapped potential of video content
Tyler kicked things off with a personal story. During the peak of the pandemic, when physical test drives weren’t allowed, he set about researching new vehicles on Google. Not the best time to be looking for a new car, right?
Two of the dealerships he reached out to responded as expected — with an automated email saying “Thank you for your message, we’ll follow-up as soon as possible. Please note that due to COVID-19 we are unable to…”
Well, you know the rest.
Luckily, Tyler struck gold with the third dealership. A proactive employee went above and beyond with a video experience that had Tyler reassessing how we as marketers sell to people through the buyer’s journey.
Are we actually listening to what prospects and customers really want? Tyler answers that question by unpacking what made his video experience so special in the video below:
That’s the kind of initiative that closes sales. Not only does it communicate the product’s selling point in an inventive way, but it also makes the prospect feel valued because of the effort that went into creating the videos.
In Tyler’s own words, the above represents a “terrific, wonderful car buying experience”. If Will from the dealership can walk people through it remotely — without relying on friction points like booking meetings, scheduling demos, etc. — then so can sales reps and marketers.
Visibly on a roll, Tyler then introduced the HubSpot Flywheel to keep things turning.
Attract, engage & delight ad infinitum with the Flywheel
The Flywheel refers to the momentum businesses gain when they align sales, marketing and service teams around delivering a remarkable, memorable customer experience. For more information, read our Flywheel breakdown here.
Tyler expanded on generating frictionless momentum and how it relates to video content:
“The way to make the Flywheel go as fast as possible is to minimise the amount of friction in the system. If you can spin this wheel in the absence of any friction — in the vacuum of space — it will spin forever.
“If you spin the wheel with a bunch of rubber pads on the side, it’s going to slow down very quickly. Those rubber pads causing the friction? They’re the big CTA buttons that say “Book a Meeting” and “Schedule a Demo”, or the 40-page eBook that prospects are prompted to read to learn more about a product or service.”
“But who has the time to read a 40-page eBook?!”
These obvious points of friction in the sales process will turn strangers, prospects and clients away, leading them to seek alternative solutions from competitors.
But video — be it one-to-one or one-to-many — can play a pivotal role in removing friction from the Flywheel and delivering on-demand information that is transparent, visual, personal and trustworthy. To illustrate the power of video content in reducing friction, Tyler highlights how video can be used at each stage of the buyer's journey.
ATTRACT — moving strangers to prospects
On-demand video content that’s helpful, human, and relevant will motivate people to learn more about you and your services. But are you delivering what people want, or what you think they want to see? Tyler encouraged us to analyse our personal buying processes:
“When you, personally, are learning about new topics, what are your preferred mechanisms to do that? Is it to read blog posts, eBooks and guides, or to attend webinars?”
The majority of answers on the day were in favour of using blog posts and videos as the primary research material. The question is: in your professional capacity, are you providing video content to your prospects in the same way that you want to consume it personally?
Video content does not need to break the bank to be effective. Tyler provided a few persuasive examples of how sales and marketing teams can craft budget-friendly, in-house video that turns strangers into prospects at the beginning of the buyer’s journey.
1. Outside perspectives and best practices: Videos offer new and creative ways of unpacking topics you’ve probably already been exploring with blog posts. The format allows you to include people from outside of your organisation for fresh takes and perspectives.
2. Instructional videos: How-to video content is highly effective in the Attract stage as prospects will be on the hunt for solutions to their problems.
3. Educational deep dives: Proving the effectiveness of educational video content in the Attract stage, Tyler showcased a valuable series of videos by Gordian, which resulted in $5 million in revenue in just 18 months. Tyler explains what lead to the campaign’s success in this video:
There are several ways to use video at the front-end of the buyer’s journey to build brand affiliation and to help people learn more quickly through visuals. Using Vidyard as an example, Tyler asked the question:
“What main CTA would you most likely engage with? For most product companies it’s ‘Book a Meeting’ or ‘Get in Touch’. If you’re a services company, it’s usually something similar, like ‘Book an Appointment’ or ‘Let’s Talk’ — that sort of thing.”
Great — you need directives like these at some point in the journey — but most people say they’d rather watch a demo or see the work in action before they book a meeting or talk to someone.
The friction point here is that so few businesses offer these options on their websites. Beautiful Instagram product pics and glowing client testimonials can only go so far:
“If you’re a product company, I want to dive deeper and see what this really looks like. If you’re a services company, I want to see a bit about your process, I want to learn about your people because that’s what makes you different.” Tyler added that at this point in the buyer’s journey, nine times out of ten ‘Book a Meeting’ is the only way to move further along.
“Show me! Just show me!” Tyler pleaded, before admitting that he’d have moved on to a competitor’s website at this point. This is a shame because these moments are perfect opportunities for videos to reduce friction. To drive home his point, Tyler listed a few successful examples of this. Watch the video below to see them:
ENGAGE — moving prospects to customers
At the Engage stage, you’re probably deploying email marketing workflows with CTAs to read blog posts or schedule meetings. Very rarely, Tyler says, are emails asking prospects to ‘Watch This!’ or ‘See How We Do Things!’. For sales reps, this does make sense, as once we have someone on a call we can control the process.
But we can no longer rely exclusively on meetings to move things forward — especially now.
Tyler referred back to his car dealership experience as the perfect example of how video can drive sales during these times. Before the first two car dealerships could so much as set up a meeting, Tyler had already moved forward with the sales rep who’d taken the initiative to make contact right away.
To remove the friction from the sales process, we need to get into the heads of our customers and find out how they really want to buy. If sales reps can tap into prospects’ mindsets, they can reduce the friction and deliver what people want, not what sales reps think they want.
Check out the video for examples of this, including one from our very own Matthew Creswick!
DELIGHT — from customers to promoters
Don’t forget about your existing customers! It’s easy to fall into the trap of treating them like second-class citizens because you’ve already sealed the deal. The reality is that renewing, upselling and turning clients into promoters is critical for lasting business growth.
Tyler explained that he’s seeing more and more businesses use videos as post-sale assets to train, onboard, connect and share information with customers. Personalised videos can make existing clients feel like they’re part of your family, which can build relationships, generate retention and turn customers into brand champions.
For more information and insight into this subject, read our article on why customer delight is a marketer’s secret weapon.
Find the points of friction in your buyer’s journey that video content can solve
Right now, you’re probably wondering how you can practically create the impactful videos that Tyler highlighted during his presentation. Thankfully, he had a list of easily accessible equipment on-hand:
In our digitally driven world, the true measure of whether a business is customer-centric is how simple it is for people to move through the buyer’s journey. On-demand video content that provides real value and actionable solutions is one of the most effective ways to deliver a frictionless experience, from stranger to prospect, prospect to customer and – finally – to brand champion.
For the full catalogue of Grow With Inbound 2020 presentations, click here.
