Happy Friday Sales Hackers!
Cheers- You’ve made it through another week! I’ve put together some of the highlights from our LinkedIn Community this week. We round up the best content that we can for the blog, but we’ve realized there are so many good discussions going on in our community that we don’t want overlooked!
Please let me know if you have any feedback, or have something to contribute to next weeks Community Round Up. I look forward to hearing from you! Enjoy the weekend… you earned it!
Best,
Jessie Barnes
This Week’s Question:
Erik Ducker: Using Video in Outbound email campaigns?
Video is being widely used in marketing nurture campaigns, but I’ve yet to see an Outbound campaign with video. Has anyone tried to include a video introducing who you are and who your company is?
My hypothesis is, receiving an email with a video would be a welcomed variation to the onslaught of heavy or sparse text only emails.
I would love to know your thoughts as we are beginning to look at doing this ourselves.
Best Responses from our Sales Hacker LinkedIn Community:
Taft Love: I’ve done just this recently. I created screen capture videos (less polished feel than marketing videos) that show how PandaDoc works with a certain segment’s CRM. I’m waiting to see the results, but several people have said that they like it.
The trick I’ve used is to utilize a screen capture program. A Youtube video screams impersonal mass email.
Joshua Natella: Using an image of a video is effective in increasing CTR, this is a common strategy just don’t overdo it.
Actually trying to embed video will more than likely just cause deliverability issues and display issues, especially in b2b.
Brandon Redlinger: If you’re doing straight up cold outbound emails, I wouldn’t try to put a video in there. Your deliverability is going to go down. The ESP will see a large file attached and might flag as spam, especially since it’s your first time sending to that person. If you’re sending in bulk and not using a platform that has email throttling, chances drop even more. If your email does get by the ESP, then your prospect might think the same thing: “I have no clue who this person is and he/she sending me an attachment… strange.”
In traditional marketing, yes, having an image of what appears to be a video will increase clicks. But again, that’s coming from someone who has already got permission to send emails.
Also, when I get a video from a relatively unknown person, my first reaction before I click (if I ever click) is, “Not another MLM pitch.”
But if you’re so inclined, test it out in a small batch and tell us how it works.
Ray Carroll: I run the SMB Sales team at Marketo. One of our AEs tried out the Vidfluent product referenced above on a cold prospect that was dark on us. The guy responded in an hour with an e-mail back to us. With the influx of e-mail prospecting technologies like Outreach, Yesware, Tout and Sendbloom, you’ve got to find ways to stand out outside the norm. I think companies like Vidfluent and OneMob are on to something. Those are the two to check out. I think it’s finally time for video to really emerge in the Sales Stack.
Scott Ward: Ran into the CEO of OneMob at at trade show and was impressed with the concept and response rates. Looks like Vidfluent is similar. Any experience with OneMob? Wondering if you closed the guy that responded or did you at least get to DQ an opp that went dark and take it off the forecast? Like Ben says, Yes’s make me money, no’s save me money, and maybes cost me money so I could see it being useful for the first two.
David Lewis: Really cool idea. I’d be interested to know what the rate of adoption looks like for outbound with video, as well as if there’s been any significant measurement of ROI. It sounds like a feature best used for the hyper-targeted prospects. Sending an email blast with a video in it (one that’s supposed to address each prospect) sounds a little more like marketing at that point.
