We all like to believe that we do our best to improve our outreach efforts and increase sales.

But, when was the last time you took a long, hard look into your content strategy? When did you invest in new formats, tried some things out, and reaped the benefits?

In our experience, this kind of approach can often help you shake things up and get the results you were looking for.

While lead hunting, customer data, USPs, and other factors can have a dramatic impact on your sales strategy, the type of content you create still plays a major role. These days, it seems to be all about video.

So, how can you use video for sales to get the most out of your outreach efforts and turn those leads into customers?

Why use video for sales?

First of all, why would you use video for sales?

Well, we wouldn’t be advising this without any data to back it up!

In our own experience, video can help you increase your trial-to-paid conversion rates by 32.7%. By simply introducing personalized videos (that were incredibly easy to make) into our content strategy, we managed to achieve some awesome results.

Even if you ignore our results and chalk them up to self-promotion, there is no denying that video content is on the rise: more brands are investing in this type of advertising and they’re getting a better ROI from it.

So, how can you join this group of marketers? Let’s start with the basics!

Step #1: Collect leads

To start sending personalized videos, you first need to have an audience.

And, the best thing you can do here is focus on the audience that’s more likely to convert. Do your research and start finding quality leads that will be interested in your offer.

For example, you can assume that, if you’re selling a social media automation tool, people working as social media managers and team leads will have some sort of interest in what you have to say. Certainly more interest than any other average person who doesn’t work in the industry.

You know who your customer audience is, we don’t have to tell you that.

But what we can tell you is where to find that audience. And, you might be surprised to learn some new, yet simple ways to get to those perfect leads.

Here are some of them!

LinkedIn Search

Even if you don’t have the LinkedIn Sales Navigator, the plain version of LinkedIn offers plenty of options to help you find the right prospects.

Simply enter your term into the Search bar, hit Enter, and select “People” from the options below the bar. Next to the “People” option, on the far right, you have the “All filters” button. A new sidebar will show up with plenty of options that allow you to refine your search.

You can filter for location, current/previous employer, education, industry, and even custom keywords.

After applying all the filters, click on “Show results” and you’ll have a list of targeted leads that fit a set of really specific criteria!

Play around with these filters and try to create several lists with prospects that fit different profiles.

LinkedIn and Facebook Groups

You can use the same search to find relevant groups on LinkedIn.

Following on from our previous example, you can find vibrant communities on LinkedIn that discuss social media topics and the latest trends. Unfortunately, you can’t refine results when it comes to groups the same way you can with people.

You need to enter terms into the search bar, so instead of searching for “social media marketing”, try searching “social media marketing New York City” to narrow down your search.

Similarly, you can find active Facebook groups that discuss different topics from your industry.

Once you do, you can scrape all the contacts from that group using an automation tool like TexAu and their LinkedIn or Facebook group members extractor. This will allow you to get all those contacts in the form of a single list that you’ll be sending sales videos to.

Content interaction on LinkedIn

Another way to reach people interested in a certain topic is to target those LinkedIn users that have reacted to a specific post.

But, not just any post—a post that you deemed relevant in your industry.

Let’s say a big player (like HubSpot) posts a big yearly social media report for marketers. We can assume that the people who have interacted with this post have a strong interest in the latest social media trends. Given that HubSpot targets predominately businesses and marketers, you’ll likely find some decision-makers among these people, which a perfect audience for your social media tool!

Here, you can use TexAu again—specifically, their LinkedIn post likers tool to extract all of these contacts and target them in your sales campaign.

Step #2: Create audience groups

This is a simple step that too many brands overlook.

Once you have your leads, you’ll want to group them based on the criteria they have in common. You can have an audience called “decision-makers” in which you’ll have all the people who work in executive and senior positions in the industry.

You can group people by age, interests, industry, and various other things. This is important because you’ll later be able to see which group is more interested in your content and is, therefore, more worthy of pursuing.

Source: Clearvoice

You don’t have to do this step but it will make the whole process much easier. Using video for sales won’t guarantee you results. But sending the right videos to the right audiences just might!

Step #3: Create and send personalized sales videos with Bonjoro

Now that you have your audience groups, we can get to the fun part: creating and sending videos!

Bonjoro makes the process of creating a sales video easy and fun. Here’s how you can start doing video sales with Bonjoro in just a few steps!

Uploading a CSV file

The first thing you’ll need to do is add contacts to your task list. These are the people that you will be sending your videos to.

If you’ve done anything we’ve mentioned in the “Collect leads” section, you should already have a .csv file with contacts. If you do, everything will take just a few moments!

Here is how you do this:

1. Log in to your Bonjoro account and click on the “New” button. This will start the process of creating a new Task. From the dropdown menu, select “Upload CSV”

2. On the following screen, click on “select file”. This will open your laptop/PC storage and allow you to import the CSV file with contacts. Just make sure that your file has an email column because we need those addresses to know where to send the message, naturally!

3. Upload the file and select a team member to whom you’d like to assign this task. Click “Confirm” and you’re done!

Recording a message

Once you’ve uploaded your contact list, these people will show up in your Tasks menu, on the left.

So, when you start creating videos, you’ll want to create different videos for each audience member and really drive home the personalization aspect. You can mention their name, their relationship with your product, anything!

Here is how you record a video:

1. Click on the Task (person) you want to create a video for and, on the right side, click on the “Record Now” button. Once you do, the app will open your camera and you’ll have the option to start recording immediately. Before you do, make sure your audio and video settings are correct by clicking the Settings icon on the bottom left. Here's a video showing you how it's done:

2. Hit the red ”Record” button, start your video, and hit the same button again when you’re done. As soon as you’re finished, you’ll be able to select a thumbnail for your video. We recommend starting each video by smiling and waving as that will then be your default thumbnail every time. Your video thumbnail (or GIF) will feel positive and inviting to your recipient, like this:

3. Select a message template and edit it to make it even more personal or play around with different options. Here's another video created by our Video Producer Summer:

4. Click “Next”, then “Upload and Send”. After a few seconds, your video will be sent to the prospect and you’ll be taken to the Results page. Here's a quick run-through of all the tracking and reporting you can see in Bonjoro.

Now, imagine if we did this without software. You’d have to manually hunt down leads on LinkedIn and scrape through groups, film videos with your smartphone, and send them via email to each prospect manually.

With video selling software like Bonjoro, this takes only a few moments. Combine this with a tool like TexAu or similar data extractors and you’ll be leveraging the full power of automation! 

Step #3: Track your success and adapt

Finally, no sales strategy is complete without metrics and KPIs.

To find out which of your messages are working and which of your audience members are most interested in your offer, you’ll want to monitor your results for each campaign. If you want to go deeper, you can use sales record software to see how this is impacting your business as a whole.

In Bonjoro, you can see your metrics on the Results page.

Simply navigate to Results in the main menu, and you’ll see a page that looks like this:

Here, you’ll be able to see:

• What percentage of people opened your messages;

• What percentage of people watched your messages;

• What percentage of people liked these messages;

• What percentage of people clicked on the CTA in your messages and

• The percentage of people that replied to your messages.

In Bonjoro, you can also reply directly to these replies from your customers and have entire conversations!

Different types of videos for different stages of the customer journey

Finally, there are several types of videos you can create (either with Bonjoro or other production methods) that can be used in different stages of the funnel.

To put it simply, you wouldn’t want to send the same videos to customers that have just created a paid account on your platform, customers that are in the free trial period, and those that have never heard of your brand.

Each of these customers needs a different message and a different type of communication.

Here are some examples:

• Awareness: in this stage, people are just discovering that your product can help solve their problem. You’ll want to reach them with educational videos that promote your brand and tell a story. Animated explainer videos and product promo videos are great for this stage.
  

• Consideration: here, your prospects are actively researching your brand and comparing it to other options on the market. To get their attention, you’ll want to promote your hero products and key features that separate you from the competitors. Tutorials, demo videos, and special offer videos can be a perfect way to do this.
  

• Purchase: we can say that a prospect is in the Purchase stage when they display significant purchase intent. Think of actions like putting products in the basket, signing up for a free trial, etc. To convert these customers, you’ll want to send them personalized welcome videos and similar messages that show them how thankful you are for their time and how dedicated you are to giving them the best experience.
  

• Loyalty: once your prospects make their first purchase, your job is not done. You’ll want to turn those first-time buyers into loyal advocates that keep coming back. You can do this with thank you and onboarding videos that aim to make deeper, personal connections with your customers.

The final word

Using video for sales isn’t an easy task. You need to roll up your sleeves and take the time out of your schedule to create content regularly.

More importantly, you need to take the time to make sure that content is reaching the right people.

All of this can be easier with some help! Register for a free trial of Bonjoro and learn how you can record, send, and track personalized videos easily.