Become 3x More Effective with Video Prospecting

If you’re in sales and you’re facing a day of prospecting, you’re basically ready to give up by 8:40 AM.

You email a thousand or a million people, but all you’ve achieved is making a thousand or a million people irritated at you.

And yet…if you don’t do prospecting, how will you make sales?

Exactly.

Recently on my podcast, I interviewed Jason Bay, Co-Founder and CRO of Blissful Prospecting, everyone’s favorite topic—
I mean, least favorite topic—prospecting.

“When it comes to prospecting, no one likes to do it, and everyone knows they need to do more of it,” Jason said.

Do Most of Your Prospecting with Video

If you don’t know who you’re prospecting—if you don’t speak their language and understand their pain points—you won’t make any headway.

One way to cut through the clutter is with personalized video directly to a named prospect whose pain points you understand.

Why video? Three reasons.

“Authentic is definitely the way to go. These types of videos don’t need to be overproduced.”

Jason Bay, Co-Founder and CRO of Blissful Prospecting

1) Video gets you noticed

There are so many automation tools that create clutter on email and social.

“Companies that started using video and found a way to cut through the clutter in an email by using something that’s so obviously personalized that you have a much higher success rate of getting a meeting,” Jason said.

It can be three or four times more effective at getting a meeting than cold emails.

2) Video is easier than writing

If you’ve ever agonized over a three-sentence email, you get what we’re saying.

“Video’s a lot easier to do than actually write the personalization because I can hop on real quick, and it takes 45 seconds,” Jason said.

3) Video makes a good impression

Two scenarios: You’re tracking opens on your email and let’s say you see this. Out of 100 cold emails, 50 opened it, and 10 of those opened it several times.

“Send a video to them. Videos get triggered based on their engagement,” Jason said.

The other scenario is a way to stand out by sending a video straight away. “I’m willing to do a video on the very first email because I want to make a really good first impression,” he added.

“It is a process. You have to be patient,” Agnes said. “You have to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s trial and error.”

“When it comes to prospecting, no one likes to do it, and everyone knows they need to do more of it.”

Jason Bay, Co-Founder and CRO of Blissful Prospecting

Video Guidelines

“Authentic is definitely the way to go,” Jason said. “These types of videos don’t need to be overproduced.”

Bonus: You don’t have to be in a fancy office, and you don’t have to be that good looking, either.

“The messaging is way more important than the medium. If you don’t have something good to say, video’s not going to be your saving grace,” Jason said.

That said, try these things to increase your chances of getting a response.

• Embed your video right in the email.
• Capture the prospect’s name in the thumbnail.
• Keep the video about 45 to 60 seconds long.
• Smile.

Jason shared his framework for these videos. They’re only about three to five sentences long, but they pack a mean punch.

“In about 45 to 60 seconds, I want to show that I have some sort of personalization in here, I want to include my value prop, and then I want to have a call to action.”

(It’s actually how Jason contacted me about being on the show. Absolutely one of the best prospecting emails I’ve ever gotten.)

“I’m willing to do a video on the very first email because I want to make a really good first impression.”

Jason Bay, Co-Founder and CRO of Blissful Prospecting

Overcoming Video Prospecting Barriers

If the messaging is more important than the medium, how can you overcome your own hesitance toward using video in prospecting?

Understand your prospect.

“Some reps really don’t understand what their prospect’s challenges are,” Jason said.

One way to know if that’s you is if you get rejections that sound like this: Why are you even reaching out to me?

Fix this by being relevant, not generic. “You need to get very, very tangible,” Jason advised. Reps can do this by digging into challenges during discovery calls.

Try these questions:

• Can we take it a little bit deeper?
• What does that mean for your day-to-day?
• What happens if this continues for the next six months?
• How does this affect you?
• Do you have any sort of external pressures or pressure from management?

“You’re going to be so surprised at what people say. They’re going to give you all kinds really sticky things that you can use word for word in the email,” Jason said.

“If you really spend the time to understand your prospect’s challenges and how they buy your products and services, the messaging actually becomes relatively simple,” he added.

Use multiple methods of contact.

Email, phone, social—which to choose?

Well, you’ll do them all, but it circles back around to understanding your prospect to know which ones to do first or most.

Very generally, Jason advised doing email and phone first, followed up by social. That varies by the person’s generation, interests, and job type (sales will be easier to grab by phone, for example).

“If you’re not doing multichannel, you’re missing out a ton there in terms of a number of touches,” Jason said.

“We recommend spreading the cadence out over 30 to 45 days, with at least 10 to 12 touches. That might look like five to six touches via email and three touches via phone,” he said.

“If you’re not doing at least email and phone, you might be missing out on people that just don’t respond to cold emails, but they’ll pick up the phone or vice versa,” Jason said.

Contact Jason by getting in touch on his website. Actually, Jason created a definitive guide to video prospecting just for my podcast listeners at blissfulprospecting.com/Chad. His website has a lot of other free resources, too.

This blog post includes highlights of our podcast interview with Jason Bay, Co-Founder and CRO of Blissful Prospecting. For the entire interview, you can listen to The B2B Revenue Executive Experience.

If you don’t use Apple Podcasts, you can listen to every episode here.