Margie Barkley: Video Aware or Video Productive? Which one do you prefer?

Over the past few years, the number of salespeople who believe in using video to sell has increased. Hippo Video’s ongoing interactions with sales professionals have given us valuable insight into their use of videos in their daily activities. The following video challenges are common to sales professionals:

It is difficult to create contextual videos for different touchpoints as their options are limited to screen-sharing or plain webcam videos. This results in less engagement. Due to the extra effort and time required to create videos, sales reps may not be able to use them for all touch points.

Despite the immense potential of video in sales there are two types of video users: video aware and/or video productive. Let’s explore the differences further and find out which one of you is.

Video Aware vs Video productive -> Which one do you prefer?

Both a video-aware sales professional and a video-productive one understand the importance videos. There is however a crucial difference between the two. A video-aware sales representative may make use of videos but they are limited in their use and don’t necessarily take full advantage of them. Video-productive sales professionals, on the other hand, recognize the importance of video integration in their sales process and use it as part of their overall strategy.

Let’s break it down and explain more based on their process:

“Save time and increase productivity.”

Salespeople have a common goal: to save time and increase productivity, no matter how many tasks they are handling at once. Sales professionals can focus on their task by retrofitting the same video to multiple platforms with an in-house feature.

1. Recreating videos vs. repurposing them

A video-aware person might create videos from Sctrach for every touchpoint. However, a video producer simply repurposes a clip to contextually personalize it for the touchpoint it is being used for.

2. Making videos from scratch vs. creating videos using templates

Video aware people would create every video from scratch for each prospect they wish to send, while video productive people would send more videos hyper-personalized in fractions of the time by using time-saving features like video flows.

Hippo Video offers pre-designed templates that can be used for different purposes such as prospecting, deal progression, follow up, closure, sales enablement, account management, and greetings. Here’s how each template will look inside:

You can watch the video

3. 1:1 Personalization vs. 1:many personalization

Personalization options for a video-aware salesperson are limited to personalization of first names or holding whiteboards with company names, salutary greetings, and friendly faces. A video productive person, on the other hand, knows the value and can hyper-personalize videos with minimal effort using Humanize AI. What is Humanize AI? This unique feature allows you to only record one video and then use Humanize AI for hyper-personalization. This tool’s standout feature is its ability to call out each prospect’s names in your video, without extra time or expense on your part.

You can watch the video

“Achieve greater engagement by using more effective communication”

4. Plain webcam videos Vs Interactive video

Video conscious people will limit themselves to plain webcam videos, a.k.a vanilla video. A video productive person will choose an interactive video. Let’s take a look at the key differences between interactive and plain webcam videos.

a. 1 Way vs. 2 Way

A webcam video is a one-way communication. The viewer cannot see the video so it’s known as a 1-way communication. Interactive videos allow viewers to interact with the video through clicking on links, filling out forms, and even taking polls.

Example of an interactive video created using Hippo Video

b. Linear flow vs custom video flow

In a linear video, the sender decides the flow of the video, meaning, the viewer can only see what the sender records in the video. Whereas in an interactive video, the viewer can decide the viewing path by choosing the options provided in the video.

Watch the video here

c. Limited action Vs A world of possibilities

With a webcam video, the actions you can incorporate are limited to, say, booking a demo or a CTA that takes them to a particular page. Whereas, with an interactive video, you can do all this and all other dimensions of video messaging such as running polls, surveying the lead generation forms, etc. In fact, an interactive video will also help you cut down on the back-and-forth emails sales reps generally send to find out the prospect’s pain point, a convenient meeting time for them, their feedback on the videos you’re sending or even on the service you’re providing—the list goes on and on.

For eg: Rather than spending valuable time and energy on multiple emails or calls aimed at uncovering customer pain points, you can create a simple video that contains possible pain points as sub-videos. This allows prospects to click on the relevant point they are experiencing and be shown a video specific to their issue.

You can watch the video below

5. Videos that are not contextual vs. videos that are contextual

Instead of sending prospects a generic video message, make your videos more contextual by adding elements that are relevant to them and the deal scenario.

You can use our video flow feature to achieve this. This allows you to use your prospect’s LinkedIn profile or website background for the background video. This will capture their attention and make them stand out from the many emails and videos that sales reps send.

Video Selling as a Strategy – Data is King

6. Unclear intent vs. Complete intent captured using analytics and interactivity

Video analytics is a wonderful feature. A video-aware salesperson, however, will only rely on the video view rate and the video open rates. Video productive people will, however, use CTRs on interactive elements to gauge user intent. This allows them to deliver contextually tailored experiences at every stage of the sales process.

Conclusion

For many years, video has been an effective tool for sales reps. Its popularity and effectiveness cannot be denied. Many sales reps are only video-aware. This is not the case. Hippo Video makes it easy to create high-quality videos. Hippo Video’s extensive features allow you to create amazing videos in a fraction of the time. Are you ready to transform from being video-aware to becoming a video-productive sales rep? We’d love to hear your comments below.