In a recent episode of The SalesStar Podcast, Jonathan Lister, COO at Vidyard discussed the growing importance of videos in B2B and how videos can especially be used to drive sales, marketing and even hiring efforts in the B2B tech market.

In this summary, we draw snippets and best practices from the original episode:

First Off, Sales Teams Should Get Used to Videos

Sales processes for B2B tech teams are still largely hybrid, with many pursuing a combination of virtual meets and in-person meets to close deals. When it comes to virtual meetings, seasoned sales and marketing leaders have often cited the importance of keeping the video on during a virtual call as a default practice.

However, often times, newer sales reps or those with introverted personalities may find it difficult to follow this best practice as a natural order. The secret lies in training teams across the board to get used to the use of videos early on in the cycle.

Keeping videos on as a default practice, getting different members to self-shoot under-1 minute videos to use as part of their outreach, making videos a natural part of both, the marketing and sales cadence can all contribute to building a healthy practice in which video becomes as natural a part of the sales and marketing cycle as email usually is!

Align a Purpose to Every Video

Many times, new sales reps find it difficult to keep their video on during virtual meetings or to even record videos to use as part of their outreach. They may not know what to say, how to say it or what to use to shoot or record their video.

What is important is understanding why a video should be or could be used to align to different sales purposes.

If a salesperson’s purpose is to convey a visual story about the brand they present, aligning the goal to the messaging will help create the right kind of video script as a starter step that can in turn support the output of that video.

If the goal is to build trust with new prospects, it helps for sales people to keep it simple, focus less on fancy editing techniques and more on the natural tone of the conversation while highlighting the key brand points in the video with less focus on elements like lighting, color, etc.

Knowing what to fuss about and when based on the purpose of that particular video will help understand how to create a video because you have the why aligned to the purpose.

Keep in mind, different videos need to be made for different purposes and for each purpose, the way the video is made will differ too.

Read More: SalesTechStar Interview with Anthony Soohoo, Member of the Board of Directors, Spryker

Identify What Action You Want Each Video to Take

Like every marketing campaign needs to have a desired action a marketer wants the recipient to take (example: ‘’download now’’ or ‘’read more’’), when it comes to video, B2B sales and marketing teams need to identify what action they want the recipient to take with each video they make.

A video that is built to portray the top features of a product or service will need to be recorded and shot in a very different way and the desired action will differ from a teaser video that is being made simply as a pre-explainer video, for instance.

Keep the Human Element Strong In Your Videos – It’s Not About Only Having Well Shot Brand Videos

Every marketing and sales video needs to have the human element embedded into it. Animation helps up to a point but using your customers within your videos to drive impact about the strongest points on your brand or using your sales people to add their personality and create tailored videos – all this allows for teams to scale that original brand message and overall concept as well.

Read More: SalesOps and MarketingOps Tips for B2B Team

A Few Last Words

Video is still in its early days when it comes to sales and marketing cadences. Going a step further, even job hungry candidates can stand out with video today by summarizing their resumes in an under 01 minute self-shot video. Imagine how well brands can use simple, sophisticated, natural videos to stand out too. Using different kinds of concepts, implementing videos to share meeting summaries or a brand summary can all add to driving the impact in a prospecting conversation.

As a last note, remember, videos don’t have to be long, they can even be short snippets portraying the best of your latest conversation or brand story in as natural a manner as possible.

Don’t Miss – Episode 163: The Benefits of Video in Sales, Marketing, HR and more with Jonathan Lister, COO at Vidyard