Got your team on board with using video? Now it’s time to implement it. Learn how to put together a comprehensive sales rollout plan for video to drive adoption and ensure success.
Once your team is sold on the idea of using sales videos for outreach, it’s up to you to get everyone using—and succeeding with—it with a video for sales rollout plan.
Using video for sales outreach has increased response rates for more than 70% of sales reps. If one sales rep is using video for sales prospecting, great. But if your whole team is embracing video in their cadences, then just think of the results your team could see. A harmonized team with a unilateral approach will be able to target accounts holistically from the top of funnel with video through personalized videos, marketing videos and educational videos.
In order to fold video into your sales and marketing strategy successfully, you’ll need to create a detailed sales rollout plan, launch it, measure it, and incorporate feedback.
- Contents
- 1. Create Your Video for Sales Rollout Plan
- 1.1 Identify the Teams That Will Drive Adoption
- 1.2 Identify One or Two Initial Use Cases for Sales Videos in Your Rollout Plan
- 1.3 Set Organizational Expectations
- 1.4 Leave Time for Learning and Experimentation
- 1.5 Create Channels for Feedback
- 1.6 Identify Major Milestones in the Rollout Plan
- 2. Resources for Sales Reps to Get Started with Video for Sales
- 3. Want to Build a Video-First Sales Culture?
- 4. Practice Until Video for Sales Becomes Second Nature
- 5. Time to Get Your Video for Sales Rollout Plan Started
Create Your Video for Sales Rollout Plan
Putting together a sales rollout plan is an essential part of launching a new tool to the team and video is no exception.
Identify the Teams That Will Drive Adoption
Start out by listing the primary roles who will use video for sales, such as sales reps and their managers, as well as secondary roles who will need to be involved.
Other teams and roles who need to be involved will likely include:
- IT Support: An integration contact who will integrate the video tool with the CRM and marketing platform
- Marketing Support: The team will design branded sharing pages, video CTAs, and starter video content for reps to share
Identify willing participants in each group who can act as champions and help lead others.
Successfully deploying new SalesTech across your team and can be tough. But, even if it’s the best tech out there, if your reps don’t embrace it and see early success, adoption falls flat, and the results won’t come. Leaders in sales enablement from Sendoso, Corporate Traveler, PatientPop, and Chili Piper share their tips and secrets to get your sales teams onboard with new technology.
Identify One or Two Initial Use Cases for Sales Videos in Your Rollout Plan
Video is versatile, but don’t overwhelm your team. Select one or two video selling use cases to start with, such as prospecting or proposal review, and the formats that suit them, such as webcam and screen share recordings.
Start with these, then scale up once they’re successful.
Morgan Jacobson, Principal Manager of Sales Strategy and Systems at HubSpot, shared a few tips about driving video adoption in a team spread across five continents.
- Video can be useful for both prospecting and deal progression. Map out your typical sales process and then map out the type of videos you may use and embed them at the right points in the buyer’s journey.
- Create evergreen content. These are videos you’ll be able to use over and over again.
- Demo the use of video to your sales team in three acts: 1) Why use video; 2) How to use video; and 3) The results they can achieve using video.
Learn more about the process Morgan used to implement video at HubSpot in this case study.
Set Organizational Expectations
Set a goal for the number of videos you expect reps to send each week. Start slow and account for some ramp-up time to allow reps to grow comfortable using video. If your organization uses a points system for tracking rep activity, assign points to creating videos and give them more weight during the rollout.
Leave Time for Learning and Experimentation
Adopting a new practice may create a temporary dip in reps’ productivity, and your plan should account for that. If reps are expected to make 50 calls per day, they can’t keep that up and do a good job of learning video.
An all-in-one video selling resource to support your strategic planning, SKO, and ongoing enablement. Get the Kit Create Channels for Feedback
Give reps and managers a place where they can give feedback on the video program and the rollout. This can be as simple as a shared Google Doc and as complex as a formalized survey.
Identify Major Milestones in the Rollout Plan
Set expectations for how much video you want your team to create and the impact you want it to have in the first 30 days, six months, one year, and beyond.
Use these milestones as check-ins to decide whether to scale up your video program. For example, as the team successfully adopts video, increase the number of video use cases, the number of teams using video, and the number of videos expected per rep.
Sales has always been about combining art and science. If you are adding video to your modern selling toolkit, you need to keep that in mind. From a science perspective, your formula must include: what types of videos to create, when to consider using them during the sales process, and best practices for things like video formats, length, and thumbnail images. But on the art side, you’ll want to let your creative side fly free and to ensure your personality shines through. Science + Art + Modern Selling = More Revenue!
Trish BertuzziBridge GroupFounder and CEO
Resources for Sales Reps to Get Started with Video for Sales
The easier you make it for your reps to get started and be successful with video, the better your shot at getting them to do it.
These are a few things you might want to consider offering to your team as part of your video rollout.
Sample Messaging: Involve leadership and the marketing team in crafting video scripts and templates that speak to buyers’ needs.
Use proven formulas to create sales videos that get results. Get video scripts and email templates that work. Download Now Record Example Videos: Have top reps record the gold standard for what each type of sales video should look and sound like. For inspiration, check out some great examples from the Vidyard community.
Record Demos of How to Use the Video Tool: Leave no room for ambiguity—walk reps through using your chosen recording tool and platform step-by-step.
Create a Weekly Tracking Log to Activity Goals for Each Rep: Follow your video rollout plan and make sure each manager is helping reps hit their goals. Be sure to collect and assess qualitative feedback on how things are going and what can be improved.
An all-in-one video selling resource to support your strategic planning, SKO, and ongoing enablement. Get the Kit Want to Build a Video-First Sales Culture?
In a video-first sales culture, teams have fully adopted the use of video and rely on it at all stages of the buying cycle. To lay the foundation for video excellence in your sales organization, you should:
In a hurry? Grab the pocket-size, shareable version of this guide. Download Guide Practice Until Video for Sales Becomes Second Nature
When reps see themselves on camera for the first time, it can be strange, but it’s no different than cold calling. They get used to it and it becomes second nature.
Remind reps that the goal isn’t to record perfect videos, but to get results. Tell them to give each video two or three takes, after which they should send it and move on.
Too much preparation can even be harmful. If your reps sound scripted, they may come across as disingenuous. Far better to be an imperfect, but real and relatable person.
Time to Get Your Video for Sales Rollout Plan Started
There you have it! Everything you need to prepare your organization for video sales and to roll it out successfully. Once your team is up and recording, you’ll notice a subtle shift in how prospects respond—sales become personal again.
Prospects will become familiar and feel connected to your sales reps because they’re seeing their faces and hearing their voices right from the beginning. They’ll feel appreciative of what feels like high-touch service and they’ll speed through the sales cycle when reps show, not tell, how their product can help.
Video quickly becomes an unbeatable advantage for sales teams.
So, want more conversions, responses, and closed-won deals? Evolve beyond video conferencing and explore the world of asynchronous video. Your team’s prospects and your quota will thank you for it.
This post was originally published on January 23, 2019. It was updated on January 12, 2022.
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