As a SaaS company with 10+ years in the industry, we've seen our fair share of marketing tactics. And we've tried them, too. One marketing tactic that we've had great success with is using video for account-based marketing ( ABM).
Of course, since our product is an enterprise video platform, we had a head start on being comfortable working with video. So much so that we often have customers and partners alike ask us for tips.
That's why we want to share how we incorporate video into our own ABM efforts so that we can help organizations find success with video in their own account-based marketing programs.
Using Video for Lead Scoring
Lead scoring videos in your ABM programs can provide more flexibility over traditional conversion tactics. With the ability to assign different scores based on the type of video and how long they watch, you have more opportunities to bump up viewers' score faster and push them toward becoming a qualified account.
A great source of new accounts for your ABM funnel is the inbound accounts, that align with your ICP (ideal customer profile) coming through other high intent marketing programs like webinars and virtual networking events.
Video as a First Touch
Video is a great first touch, whether sent by your sales or your marketing team, to groups of like personas within an account. Record an introductory video screen-sharing the website of your target account and highlight pain points that your product solves. Personalized video can also be scaled and sent to an entire account.
Based on how much each different persona within the account watched the video, video view data can then start to qualify the account. That then gives you a greater understanding of the areas of interest within the account, and your sales team can begin doing more personalized outreach.
Nearly 90% of sales professionals report the importance of accessing video viewing data to qualify leads, engage prospects, or influence deals. You can use video view data to your advantage, too, by analyzing it to understand what your prospects are interested in; you can then determine what type of content you want to continue to share with them.
Video and Content to Increase Conversions
1. Make Content From Content
Overall, we've had great success by taking our larger content pieces—such as case studies, guides, and webinars—that are robust, and breaking them down into more bite-sized pieces.
By cutting them up to be more digestible, we can share them with prospects in a drip-down email campaign, on social media or by individual sales reps, combined with a one-to-one asynchronous video. All of a sudden, one piece of content becomes five pieces of shareable content that teases out information and encourages the prospect to download the full gated material.
It's simple, really. What email would you rather receive from a new contact? An email asking you to read a 10-page gated guide, or a first touch 30-second intro video from a sales rep and a small infographic? We've seen this approach work in the field as close rates have increased for over 50% of sales pros who use video as part of their deal cycle.
2. Personalization at Scale
Content doesn't need to be customized or created for every account. Video is what allows you to scale. Create a quick video explaining why you think the content could be useful to your target account. By sending a personalized intro video, you're creating a white-glove experience for the account while giving your sales team two touch points for follow-up.
Did they watch the video and engage with the guide? Awesome! That's definitely worth scheduling a follow-up.
3. Direct Mail and Unboxing Videos
Large-scale gifting campaigns are not new. For decades sales reps have been using direct mail and gifts to get attention, win over clients, or get a foot in the door.
If we're trying to deliver a gift to everyone at an account we've engaged, it's a bottoms-up, top-down approach. We're looking to create a groundswell of interest with individual contributors within the account so that when we do engage a decision-maker with buying power, that person is already familiar with our brand through his/her team.
Then, we monitor who accepts our gift within a time frame, and we have a sales rep send an unboxing video. That video is exactly what it sounds like—a video showing a sales rep unboxing the gift you just sent to the prospect. The beauty of video is that you can pick an eye-catching thumbnail and, in this case, one that shows them unboxing the gift that the recipient just received.
Now the video in their inbox stands out even more because it's something the recipient will (hopefully) recognize, and it 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 is the content we're going to share
- How are we going to share it
- How are we going to convert them
But none of that will matter if your marketing team isn't aligned with Sales. The key to running a successful ABM program is to have the buy-in of your sales team and to work together on selecting and working accounts.
Record Results From a Video-Led ABM Program
We started our ABM pilot program with only 100 accounts, and in just one year we were able to generate 8.5 times our normal pipeline—all with a video-led ABM program.
We hope 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 to kick-start your own efforts.
You've got this, Now start creating.
This article was written by Alanna Gurr, content marketing manager at Vidyard.
