How to Sell Products Online with Video for Sales

With many businesses moving to full time remote work, now is the perfect time to start selling products with video for sales. Sales videos are easy to create and share, give a personal touch to interactions with prospects and customers, and deliver increased returns. It makes sense, then, that 61% of marketers view video for sales as an extremely important part of their marketing strategy.

In this post, we’ll break down why you should be using video for sales, and how you can use video marketing to drive business.

Why should you use video for sales?

Spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic, video has become an important part of many sales leaders’ marketing strategies. Videos are useful for so much more than product demos. From outreach to sealing the deal, you can use a selling video to connect with prospective customers in a way that feels just as personal (but less time-consuming!) than face-to-face contact.

Video for sales isn’t going anywhere. With a growing number of marketers using sales videos to engage customers, increase returns, and build valuable sales relationships, you should consider video marketing as we enter an increasingly digital world.

Remote selling is here to stay

After a year of stay-at-home orders and adapting to the work-from-home lifestyle, our work landscape is changing. For safety and convenience, many sales teams are reevaluating their 9-to-5 model and embracing virtual selling.

Remote selling has been on the rise for years, but quarantine has sped up the trend. A RAIN Group study shows that before the pandemic, only 27% of sales leaders were conducting sales virtually; compare that to May 2020, when the number of virtual sellers jumped to 71%. With video marketing booming throughout the pandemic, sales teams are now making all things video a permanent part of their sales strategy.

Remote selling isn’t a passing phase: with sales leaders seeing the benefits of video marketing during the pandemic, using video for sales will continue as we move into a post-pandemic world.

Video is more engaging

Humans are visual creatures. The human brain processes image 60,000 times faster than text, and as a result, viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video. This makes video the perfect medium for sales because sales videos capture viewers’ attention in a way that static images or text can’t. Sales videos play to people’s visual nature by delivering important information in a digestible, captivating way.

From engaging sales videos comes increased ROI. Customers who end up on an e-commerce site through a sales video are 184% more likely to purchase a product or service. Most marketers agree that video delivers a higher return on investment than images and text, so creating an engaging sales video is a surefire way to generate new leads and nurture these relationships before you close on the deal.

Plus, sales videos are easy to make and share. You don’t need extensive video knowledge or editing tools to make an engaging, effective video. Start with a basic selfie video to introduce yourself, or a screen share video to highlight your product’s new features. And once you have your videos ready to go, Minimal effort for high returns makes video marketing a sustainable strategy.

Build trust

With sales videos, you have the unique opportunity to put a face to the name. When creating sales videos, you can position yourself as a friendly expert, opening the door for leads to reach out with questions. Using selfie videos or personalized marketing videos for outreach allows you to build relationships from afar, creating that face-to-face connection we’ve been missing out on while in lockdown.

Instead of expending effort on sales emails or calls, sales videos help you effectively reach new prospects. Sales videos create a unique first impression compared to a run-of-the-mill sales email, meaning prospects will be more likely to click through. Boost your reply rate by 26% by prospecting with sales videos. You can nurture existing customers with video marketing, too. Video content showing off new features or products, how-to videos, or periodic check-ins help you stay in touch and foster important business relationships in a personal, meaningful way.

Video for sales uniquely enables you to build trust with sales prospects and existing customers. It’s the next best thing to in-person meetings, with the added bonus of hooking in prospects by making a unique, clickable first impression.

How can you use video for sales?

The applications of video for sales are as unique as your customers themselves. From prospecting to closing, you can incorporate video into any point of the sales cycle to engage customers, demo your product, or even host events to generate interest and create connection.

Here are a few ways you can use video for sales to drive your business’s growth.

Virtual sales meetings

Virtual sales meetings through a video engagement platform like Livestorm can build on other videos you may have used to target new customers. They’ve seen your selling video and learned about you, now host a virtual sales meeting to learn about your prospect and tailor your sales approach.

To maximize returns on virtual sales meetings, keep them short, sweet, and specific. Because we’ve become all too familiar with “Zoom fatigue,” shorter, more frequent virtual meetings are more effective than long-winded calls when connecting with customers remotely. Actively listen to your prospect’s questions and needs to create a personalized experience and build trust. And make sure to follow up with a personalized video to help you seal the deal.

Virtual events

Hosting virtual sales events will help you expand your client base. They’re great for generating and engaging with new, previously unreachable leads. You can target global audiences that may have been out of the question when conducting business in-person, since virtual events are easy to join from the comfort of your home.

Virtual events are also an excellent way to nurture your prospects. Using virtual events to engage prospects with programming featuring relevant guest speakers, audience interaction through polls and live Q&As, or industry networking opportunities is a proven way to convert leads to customers. Engagement is key: make your virtual sales event a conversation, not a lecture.

Personalized video marketing

Personalized marketing videos are customized and relevant to individual prospects or customers. There are endless ways to personalize videos to make them really resonate with your target. Think holiday greetings with your customer’s name, thank you videos summarizing key takeaways from the latest virtual sales meeting you had with a prospect, or personalized video invites to your next virtual event -- anything that puts your customer front and center.

Personalized videos create a special user experience that fosters conversation and engagement with your product. Customers appreciate being seen as an individual; in fact, 91% of consumers prefer to shop with brands that use personalized outreach strategies. Create a custom user experience and develop one-on-one relationships with endless personalized marketing video formats.

Customer onboarding

Ensure that your customers know how to use - and enjoy using! - your product from the get-go with customer onboarding videos. 60% of product users abandon a new product in the first week because they don’t understand how to use the product or don’t see the value. Onboarding videos walk customers through the process of using their new product to its fullest potential, which improves retention on your end.

Customer onboarding videos can look like an explainer video on your homepage, pop-up tooltip videos, a welcome video in an email, or even a library of onboarding videos answering FAQs about your product. We know that our brains retain visual messages much better than text, so make sure your customers get the information they need, and fast, by communicating essential info through onboarding videos.

Video for sales: the way of the future

Expect video for sales to continue to take off as we adapt to a post-pandemic sales landscape. Sales videos are proven to be more effective than text or static images to convey an impactful message and increase ROI. Convenient, customizable, and a worthwhile investment for your sales team, now is the time to start building your video for sales strategy.