Since COVID-19 hit, up to 80% of B2B ordering operations have gone remote or digital. Despite the slow shift back to normalcy, this trend hasn’t faltered. Digital and remote are the new normals for B2B– and it’s time for sales marketing efforts to catch up!
While many sellers might fear remote operations lose the necessary personal touches required to close deals, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Take video brochures, for example. These tiny marketing tools have a massive impact on buyers and leads.
A video brochure is a great way to add personality and originality to your sales outreach efforts. To help you make the most out of this great technique, we’ve put together the following guide on how video brochures can help you close sales in a post-Covid world.
What Are Video Mailers?
Video mailers, also called video brochures, are marketing tools in the form of physical videos. Businesses can send video mailers to existing and potential clients to aid in marketing efforts like:
- Advertising upcoming sales
- Showcasing new products
- Highlighting product features/advantages
- Addressing customer pain points
- Establishing brand image
Like TV commercials, video mailers are informational videos that last no longer than 3 minutes. They’re a personalized way to show the customer what they will get when they purchase your product or service and how they will benefit from it.
But, mailers don’t only come in brochure form. They can also provide real customer testimonials or video business cards.
How Did COVID Impact B2B Sales?
COVID has changed the course of B2B sales forever. Most selling activity happens in digital spaces and sometimes doesn’t require any human interaction. What’s more, the buyers love this new normal.
The pressure of sales placed on B2B buyers is often overlooked. Sellers are so eager to meet their bottom line they don’t realize how confusing the buyer sometimes feels. B2B buyers prefer digital sales because:
- They’re easier to schedule
- They save money on travel for business/meetings
- They feel digital shopping is more secure
However, sellers are welcome to adapt to their buyers’ needs. Up to 70% of B2B sellers say they’re game for moving their businesses online. The real struggle comes with adapting to changes in marketing strategies and competition.
The pandemic forced us to take our business from the office to the homestead. Instead of wearing suits and shaking hands, we wore sweatpants and sent thumbs up in video calls to close deals from 2020. It blurred the lines between professional and personal conversations, making it easier for competitors to steal customers with proactive marketing strategies.
But that also introduces avenues for you to take advantage of. Blurring professional lines strategically can help increase your sales in a post-COVID world by creating a better rapport with clients and earning loyalty. Integrating video brochures into your marketing strategy is one way to accomplish that goal.
The New Normal: How Video Brochures Can Help Sales Post-COVID
Post-COVID is the perfect time for B2B sales team to meld the digital scape with innovative, personalized marketing. That’s where video brochures come in handy.
Now, your teams can send physical videos with personal messages to every lead and customer in your Rolodex. There are 4 main reasons why video brochures are impactful marketing techniques in a post-COVID world.
1. Physical Mail Is Exciting Again
Emails are a dime a dozen– everyone gets them, and everyone ignores them. While email marketing may never go out of style, it likely accounts for a small portion of your total business interest.
On the other hand, people respond more to physical mailers. Not only is physical mail less common these days, but people have a newfound appreciation for them since the COVID-19 pandemic. For the first time in the digital age, people are more excited to see their mailman than their Gmail notifications.
Therefore, video mailers make a more significant impact. They’re unique, new, and hard to forget. Potential clients will watch your video mailer with amusement, tell others about it, and remember it when they have a problem you can solve.
2. Video Marketing Is Effective
In today’s fast-paced world, reading is as overrated as it is inconvenient. And we’re not talking about slowing down for a nice read on a Sunday afternoon. We mean reading advertisements and brochures.
Not only do people not have time to read these marketing messages, but they also don’t have the patience. Video marketing is the most effective way to reach all audiences.
By combining audio and visual messaging mediums, video marketing is convenient for:
- Disabled populations
- People on-the-go
- Multi-taskers
- People with low attention spans
And we can’t forget people who wouldn’t bother reading a brochure. While all those people would sooner pass on reading your marketing materials, they would have no qualms watching a quick video brochure.
Now that most B2B sales have migrated online, video marketing is more important than ever. Clients and leads are less likely to interact with your written content. But, when you deliver a personalized video mailer to their door, they’re inclined to listen.
3. Creates an Invaluable Emotional Connection
Leveraging loneliness post-COVID seems like a seedy business tactic. But, you’ll feel as good reaching out to potential buyers as it makes them feel when receiving your personalized messages. Tapping into the emotional connection generated by video marketing is the ultimate win-win situation.
Video mailers work because they allow you to deliver a concise story about your brand and product, highlight its benefits, and show how it works. It’s as though your recipient gets a live demonstration every time they watch the mailer. It feels personal and personable, two things people (buyers and leads are people too!) appreciate.
That emotional response helps your marketing efforts twofold. Now that the customer has a connection to your brand, they tend to stick with you. That’s why video marketing yields a customer retention rate of up to 95%.
But, they also feel inclined to hold on to the video mailer. While most advertising mail gets tossed in the bin without a second glance, video mailers stay on the coffee table for months. There’s a sentimental value to keeping these mailers– sure, it’s an ad, but it’s more robust, novel, and unique.
4. Video Brochures Bridge the In-Person and Online Gap
Moving from in-person to online sales is convenient. But, it removes a lot of human interaction from the sales process. For many buyers, that’s part of the point.
However, we can’t ignore that charisma and personality help boost sales. Sure, buyers don’t always love listening to pitches and ads, but if they didn’t get them, they 1) may never know about your product and 2) may never find solutions to their problems.
Therefore, we need video brochures and video marketing to help bridge the gap between in-person and online sales. They help cut through the monotony of interacting with computers all day. But, they do so without interrupting a buyer’s day with a sales call; another win-win for video brochures.
4 Tips to Create Great Video Brochures
When marketing your business, video brochures are an innovative way to show off your product. Here are five tips for creating great video brochures:
1. Create a Clear and Concise Message
Use the same best practices in your video mailers that you use in your other video content marketing efforts. Avoid filler, use proactive language, and remain concise.
2. Keep Your Message Short
How long will you listen to an ad on YouTube before pressing the “skip” button? You have 8 seconds to captivate your audience based on average attention spans. And after a minute, most people stop watching, so keep your video content short.
3. Highlight Unique Features of Your Product or Service
Do not give your customer information they already know. Make sure you conduct enough audience research to cut through common knowledge and knowledge about your business before making your video mailers. Providing new, exciting information about your company, product, or service will help maintain the mailer recipients’ attention and motivate lead conversions and sales.
4. Include Testimonials
If you have a good enough product, chances are existing customers are willing to go to bat for it. Reach out to some buyers with whom you have a good business relationship and ask if they’ll speak on your behalf. Include testimonials in your video brochures to increase trust with potential buyers.
The Best Way to Make Video Brochures
Making a video brochure is not an arts and crafts project most businesses want to bother with. While it’s possible to go the DIY route, hiring experts is the best way to make and disseminate your video brochure. Video brochure companies can help you:
- Determine how many mailers you need
- Design your mailers
- Provide creative support
- Manufacture and supply mailers
Using video brochures for marketing is a breeze with professionals making video mailers for your business. Plus, you get all the hands-on customer support you need, which is essential when trying something new.
Get a Video Brochure Quote Today!
Video brochures will cut through the digital noise of email marketing and sidebar advertisements. They’re a guaranteed way to get noticed by potential buyers. Get your video brochure quote today if you want to enhance your marketing efforts with a 65% engagement rate and outperform email 9 times.
Cards in Motion is the premiere video brochure production company for B2B businesses. We have the experience you need to create a promotional video to boost sales in a post-COVID world. Visit our website for a free custom quote today!
