Zachary Basner, Director of Inbound Training & Video Strategy - IMPACT

Inbound Training & Video Strategy at posiçãoImpactpowerhouse, a digital sales and marketing company that helps companies become the most trusted voice in their iemandustry. We specialize in helping companies in sources all of their content production. So whether it's video or written content, we help them essentially become masters of their own destiny who don't rely on an agency to do all of their sales and marketing. So my role at Impact is to empower our clients, videographers, sales teams, marketing teams, even leadership teams, to really have an understanding of not only video, but communication and how to connect with their buyers and become the most trusted voice in their space. And the reason that's important for video, obviously, is because with video, you have the power to allow your prospects to see you, hear you, and know you before you see, hear, and know them. Five years ago, we weren't having a conversation about video like we're having it now. And the funny thing is the technology has brought it to be a necessity for any business to connect with their buyers. So if we're really saying that video is so powerful because it allows us to connect with prospects because they can see us and hear us and therefore know us, then we have to get good at not only communication in general, but understanding the technologies, understanding the platforms, and understanding what our buyers really need to see and hear from us in order to be trusted. There's at least two major trends that we know are gonna continue on to the next five, even 10 years from now, with video. The first one being personalized video or one-to-one video, which is made for one person. It's communication, short communications, that enhance sales conversations, enhance a marketing conversation, enhance just maybe a leadership conversation to their staff. But again, because it's so easy now to create these videos, it allows us to connect on this more intimate level, see here and know us before we see here and know them. So that's amazing. And once again, we weren't having this conversation two, three years ago because the technology wasn't there. Now it is and now we can do it. So that's the first major thing. Second major thing is how video can be used in sales. We at Impact believe that video, first and foremost, is a sales tool that happens to have favorable marketing results. So here's what I mean by that. If you look at the way that the sales team is using video, or probably not using video right now, you look at the potential for it. In other words, the sales team has the ability to connect with prospects and build trust before they even meet, before they even shake their hands. So we have something at Impact that we teach our clients, which is called the 80% video. And it's amazing because it allows a salesperson to answer major questions before the first sales appointment and therefore improve the quality of that sales call and also shorten the sales cycle in general. We call it the 80% video because if you go to most sales teams and you ask them, out of all the questions you get on the first sales appointment, what percentage of those are the same every single time? Most are gonna say about 80%. So if we know what those questions are, what would happen if we addressed them before the first sales appointment? Obviously they would build trust with you, that first appointment would be shorter, and likely the whole sales cycle would be shorter. But we know this is gonna continue to be a trend using video actively in the sales process, especially before prospects even meet with sales. Measurement is so important. When it really comes to any video, but especially if you're talking about sales, because first of all you have to measure what matters at the right time to know if video is actually viable in the sales process or to gauge how well you're doing with it. But also if you don't have intelligence at any point in the sales process, then you're probably missing out on something or you're missing an opportunity to enhance the conversation. So the first thing is measuring what matters, of course, at the right time. The biggest way to fail with video is that you just try it out and you start measuring the wrong thing. Like, you know what, I've been sending these one-to-one videos and I haven't now closed any deals because of those videos. That would be the wrong thing to measure first. Don't expect revenue after the first eight videos that you've sent. But if you're measuring what matters, did all of those videos actually get opened? Did they actually make it to the prospect's inbox? When they watch it, how much did they actually watch? Are we getting 100% of a view? Are we getting 50%? So you have to measure what matters. And without the right technology, you can't see these things, right? The second thing is if you are lacking intelligence, then you're probably missing out on an opportunity to enhance a conversation with a prospect. So for many of our clients, sales teams, they can see how many videos or what videos a prospect has watched before they have the conversation. And if they know that this prospect has already watched a lot of content about the cost of the solution or the benefits of the solution, well then they don't have to bring that up again. And they don't have to beat the client or a prospect over the head with information they already know. And so measurement is important not only for proving ROI long-term and sticking with video, but also measuring in terms of analyzing the data before you have a conversation. So if you talk about video in terms of how it applies to the flywheel, right, which is the new thing, or just the funnel, which is still a very viable model for sales and marketing. If you look at how it applies there, it's actually much easier to base your strategy off of a funnel, which is based on where the customer starts and then where the customer ends in their own journey. I think it's more important to focus on what they're doing versus what we think they should be doing in some sort of flywheel. The major thing is this, what are the questions that come up at different points in the funnel for that customer? The questions they have when they first become aware of their problem are very different than the questions they have when they're looking for a specific solution to that problem. And so the way that any sort of content, especially video, would apply to the funnel is, okay, if a customer has just become aware that they have this problem, what are the major questions that they're gonna have at this point about how to solve it? We like to focus on the decision stage of the buying journey or the bottom of the funnel in many cases because that is where most companies aren't willing to be straightforward in the way they communicate on their website with video or with written content. And so what we teach our clients to do is to address those major questions that other companies aren't willing to address on their website. Questions about cost, questions about comparing different solutions, everyone wants to find the best and not the worst solutions, we're talking about the best this or best that, best widget, best solution, best company, and if you focus on the decision stage or the bottom of the funnel and you focus your video content on how you can apply it in sales, then it really applies to all parts of the funnel. But that's usually where you have to start. You don't start at the top of the funnel, you start at the bottom, very bottom of the funnel. So you see these amazing studies, like the ones done by Cisco that say by the year 2022, something like 82% of all consumer internet traffic is going to be video. So obviously it's very clear that we need to be making video. And there is really a threshold of video creation and the technology's cheaper and all these things, right? It's easier now to create a video than it's ever been, ever in the history of ever. But we have to figure out how high above that threshold we're willing to aim for, right? And I think that's really where businesses should be looking is not only just creating video, but how high above the just video creation plateau we're willing to go. So as we look ahead into 2020 and the next five or 10 years of video, there are a few major things that I think a lot of organizations need to prepare for. And that is that we've always had the conversation where video is a marketing tool. But we at Impact believe that video is actually first and foremost a sales tool that has favorable marketing results. And so here's what companies need to know to get ready for this. First thing is the role of in-house videographer will be as common as sales manager in the next five years. It's not sooner than that. We wouldn't think of not having a sales manager at our organization. It's gonna be the same way with having a videographer. We're gonna go, well yeah, of course we have a videographer. Our sales team needs a lot of video content and we need to be nimble and ready to create these things all the time. And so I think companies need to really start figuring out how are we gonna insource this? How are we gonna find somebody who aligns with our organization and can make us a lot of video content for sales? But also in the way that we use video just to communicate in general, we've gotta get the whole organization prepared to communicate on camera. This is another thing that, the reason we have to prepare for it is because you can't just throw your stuff in front of the camera and say, well this is important now so you've gotta do it. We have to start training our staff to not only be comfortable and confident on camera, but be comfortable and confident representing the company in any conversation. Aligning everyone around a common vision, getting a shared doctrine about the way that we talk about our products and services. This way at any time anyone's prepared to be in videos.