As a SaaS company with over 10 years of experience in the industry, we’ve seen our fair share of marketing tactics. And we tried them too. One marketing tactic that we have had great success with is using video for account-based marketing (ABM).
Since our product is an enterprise video platform, we naturally had a head start when working with video. So much so that we always have customers and partners who ask us for tips.
That is why we want to share how we are integrating video into our own ABM efforts so that we can help companies achieve success with video in their own account-based marketing programs.
Use video for lead scoring
Lead scoring videos in your ABM programs offer more flexibility over traditional conversion tactics. With the ability to assign different scores based on the type of video and the duration of playback, you have more opportunities to improve viewers’ scores faster and get them to become a qualified account.
A great source of new accounts for your ABM funnel are the incoming accounts that match your ICP (Ideal Client Profile) that come in via other highly motivated marketing programs like webinars and virtual networking events.
Video as the first touch
Videos are a great first touch, whether sent by your sales or marketing team to groups of the same person within an account. Record an introductory video sharing your target account’s website and highlight any weaknesses that your product solves. Personalized videos can also be scaled and sent to an entire account.
Based on the number of times the various people within the account have viewed the video, the video viewing data can then begin to qualify the account. This will give you a better understanding of the areas of interest within the account and allow your sales team to begin contacting them in a more personalized manner.
Nearly 90% of salespeople report the importance of accessing video display data to qualify leads, attract potential customers, or influence business. You can also take advantage of the video viewing data by analyzing it to understand what your prospects are interested in. You can then choose what kind of content you want to keep sharing with them.
Videos and content to increase conversions
1. Make content out of content
Overall, we’ve had great success breaking down our extensive pieces of content – like case studies, guides, and webinars – that are robust into more bite-sized pieces.
By making them easier to digest, we can share them with potential customers in a drop-down email campaign, on social media, or through individual sales reps in combination with an asynchronous one-on-one video. Suddenly, one piece of content becomes five shareable pieces of content that tease out information and encourage potential customers to download the full protected material.
It’s really easy. Which email would you prefer to receive from a new contact? An email asking you to read a 10-page guide, or a 30-second introductory video from a sales rep and a small infographic? We have seen this approach work in practice as conversion rates have increased in over 50% of sales professionals who use video as part of their closing cycle.
2. Personalization at scale
Content doesn’t need to be customized or created for each account. You can scale with video. Create a short video explaining why you think the content could be useful for your target account. By sending out a personalized introductory video, you create a premium experience for the account and give your sales team two touchpoints for follow-up.
Did you watch the video and study the guide? Brilliant! It is definitely worth planning a follow-up.
3. Direct mail and unboxing videos
Large-scale gift promotions are not new. For decades, sales reps have used direct mail and gifts to grab attention, attract customers, or get their feet in the door.
Trying to deliver a gift to everyone on an account we’ve hired is a bottom-up and top-down approach. We try to arouse broad interest among individual contributors within the account so that when we hire a decision maker with purchasing power, they are already familiar with our brand through their team.
Then we monitor who is accepting our gift within a timeframe and we have a sales rep unboxing video. This video is exactly what it sounds like – a video showing a sales rep unwrapping the gift you just sent to the prospect. The nice thing about videos is that you can choose an eye-catching thumbnail and, in this case, one that shows you how to unwrap the gift the recipient just received.
Now the video stands out even more in their inbox because it’s something the recipient (hopefully) recognizes and it’s intriguing enough for the person to click play. This approach adds another touchpoint and plays with the fact that everyone loves a good gift.
When sales and marketing work together
As marketers, we typically focus on three things:
- What content will we share
- How are we going to share it
- How are we going to convert them?
But none of that matters if your marketing team isn’t focused on sales. The key to running a successful ABM program is having the approval of your sales team and working together on account selection and processing.
Record the results of a video-guided ABM program
We started our ABM pilot program with just 100 accounts and were able to generate 8.5 times our normal pipeline in just one year – all with a video-guided ABM program.
We hope that our success with a video-led ABM program will help inspire your organization, and we encourage you to use our action plan as a model for your own endeavors.
You have this. Start building now.
This article was written by Alanna Gurr, Content Marketing Manager at Vidyard.
