There’s more than one kind of sales video. Learn more about the four main types of sales videos and how you can use them in your communications with prospects and customers.
Using sales videos as part of your outbound communications gets you and your message in front of more buyers. It can kickstart a conversation, help explain something better suited to be shown vs. written or reignite a stalled deal. It can even elevate the post-sales experience by assisting customers in troubleshooting common problems, reducing churn, or upselling accounts.
When it comes to creating a video for sales, it can be as simple as pressing the record button. However, there are several different types of sales videos to choose from to create and share. Each one is suited to distinct goals you’re trying to achieve, and some may fit better than others for different points in your sales cycle.
The more precisely you match your sales video format to your prospect’s mindset, sales stage, or message type, the more effective your sales videos will be.
- Contents
- 1. These Are the 4 Most Important Videos Types for Sales
- 1.1 The Webcam Video (a.k.a. Selfie Video)
- 1.1.1 Tips for Recording a Successful Webcam Video
- 1.1.2 How to Take Your Webcam Video Recording to the Next Level
- 1.2 The Screen Share Video
- 1.2.1 Tips for Recording a Successful Screen Share Video
- 1.2.2 How to Take Your Screen Share Video to the Next Level
- 1.3 The Video Playlist
- 1.3.1 Tips for Building a Successful Video Playlist
- 1.3.2 How to Take Your Video Playlist to the Next Level
- 1.4 FAQ Video (or the 80% Video)
- 1.4.1 Tips for Creating a Successful 80% Video
- 1.4.2 How to Take Your 80% Video to the Next Level
- 2. 3 Must-Know Pro Tips for Creating the Best Sales Videos
- 2.1 Make Your Thumbnail Memorable
- 2.2 Use Video CTAs to Push Your Viewer to Action
- 2.3 Don’t Neglect Your Supporting Copy
- 3. Now It’s Time to Put These Types of Sales Videos into Action
The most effective style of video depends on your use case and the message you’re trying to deliver. Webcam videos are great for introducing yourself and delivering short, personalized messages to build a relationship. Screen capture videos—with or without your webcam turned on—can be more versatile, offering a great way to deliver a longer message or to share knowledge. With screen captures, you can easily add supporting visuals to explain how you can solve their problems, walk them through a contract proposal, demonstrate your product, and more. It’s all about being able to show and tell!
Michelle BenferHubSpotVP of Sales
Learn the fundamentals behind effective video selling in our free 20-minute Video Selling Master Class. Take the Class These Are the 4 Most Important Videos Types for Sales
Below we’ll dive into the four types of sales videos every sales rep should have in their sales toolbox, including examples and tips for using each successfully.
1. The Webcam Video (a.k.a. Selfie Video)
Great for: Introductions, building relationships, and video prospecting.
In a webcam video, a sales rep records themselves speaking to the camera. It’s the next best thing to an in-person interaction: It travels anywhere an email does but earns you face time where prospects would otherwise only get to know you through cold-hard text.
In his pre-meeting reminder video for a prospect, Salesloft’s Jordan-LeuVoy sends a quick webcam video message ahead of the meeting as a reminder to his prospects. A quick and simple template he uses that’s cut his no-shows by over 20%. Give this template a try for yourself.
Because webcam videos familiarize prospects with your voice and face, they kickstart the relationship early. And because they transmit emotion, they’re shown to increase prospects’ attention and recall.
You can also use props to add an element of personalization or capture the viewer’s attention.
Explore outreach and deal acceleration video examples to help you connect with customers and prospects. Get Inspired Like all outreach, webcam videos must be relevant to earn responses. Reps should aim to intrigue prospects to click their video by selecting an interesting thumbnail that features a bit of personality and personalization.
Tips for Recording a Successful Webcam Video
- Consider using a prop to add an element of personalization or capture the viewer’s attention.
- Once the video recording begins, get right to the point of how you can help.
- Have a clean, uncluttered background behind you.
How to Take Your Webcam Video Recording to the Next Level
Your sales videos don’t have to be perfect. In fact, with imperfection, you will come across as more authentic and relatable. That said, you should consider asking yourself if your video and audio quality allows you to demonstrate your presence effectively. There are home office recording setups for every budget level that can help you put your best self forward. Clear audio and light (preferably natural) positioned behind you will go a long way.
2. The Screen Share Video
Great for: Explanations, product walkthroughs, video emails.
Screen share recordings allow you to show and tell and are ideal for explanations—like the reason for your outreach.
Sales reps often use screen shares as part of their video outreach to review the prospect’s LinkedIn profile to explain why they’re an ideal buyer or to explore their website to highlight areas where the seller can help.
If the salesperson reviews something the prospect will recognize, like their own profile, the rep can use that image to personalize the thumbnail to make it extra intriguing.
This example of a screen share video focuses on using the recipient’s LinkedIn profile as the background.
Reps can also record demo videos to walk prospects through a particular feature or benefit. Demo videos excel at convincing unsure prospects to commit to a longer call or eliminating the need for a second or third live demo to speed up the deal.
Tips for Recording a Successful Screen Share Video
- Turn off notifications and close unrelated or irrelevant tabs
- Organize the recording flow (such as putting your tabs in the order you’ll speak about them) ahead of time
- Optional: Do a trial run beforehand
How to Take Your Screen Share Video to the Next Level
Try recording your screen and yourself at the same time. This hybrid style of sales video lets you deliver complex information like a pricing proposal or demo while keeping things personal and putting a face to your name. Bonus: Reps report hybrid video performing the best at getting the highest response rates from prospects.
Always adapt to the situation. If you’re trying to get your foot in the door, 45 seconds is probably plenty. But if you’ve spent months together in a drawn-out sales cycle and you’re trying to answer a question for their IT team, 20 minutes could be perfectly acceptable.
Here are some rough guidelines:
- Cold Outreach Video: 30 to 45 seconds
- Explainer Video: 90 seconds maximum
- Demo Video: 6 minutes maximum
Curious how long other videos should be? Learn more about video length.
3. The Video Playlist
Great for: Saving time and making pre-recorded videos feel personal.
The video playlist isn’t exactly a type of sales video, more of a collection of videos. And an important addition to this list.
With a video platform built for business, reps can make video content playlists to share with prospective buyers.
Whether it’s a library of videos you’ve recorded yourself or curating all the great marketing videos your company already has, a video playlist is excellent for saving time.
Consider recording and adding a personalized video introduction to a playlist featuring explainer videos, micro demos, or customer testimonials.
In this example, Taylor from Vidyard records a personalized introduction video to play at the top of a video playlist.
Tips for Building a Successful Video Playlist
- Remember to feature your account-level or one-to-one personalized intro video as the first video in your playlist and highlight what other videos are shared and why.
- Try to keep the other videos super relevant to your audience or ones that directly answer questions that have come up in other conversations with you.
- Consider including banner and post-roll calls to action (CTAs) to push your viewer to the next desired step.
How to Take Your Video Playlist to the Next Level
You can build and collect the videos that you share more often with your prospects, but your entire team could benefit from a centralized library of video content to help scale efforts. You could work with your sales enablement or marketing team to build, tag, and organize commonly used video content you and your team can pull from to build your playlists.
4. FAQ Video (or the 80% Video)
Great for: Pre-qualifying leads and saving time on discovery.
An FAQ video, or what we like to refer to as the 80% video, is one you may need help from your marketing team to create—but you’ll be glad you did.
The 80% video aims to answer the top four to six questions you get asked as a rep eighty percent of the time.
By leveraging this type of video, you can send pre-discovery to get ahead of those questions you get over and over again. Not only can your champion review ahead of live calls, but the 80% video is also easily shareable with other stakeholders in the account.
In this example, members from Vidyard’s sales and marketing departments answer the questions we get asked most often.
Tips for Creating a Successful 80% Video
- What questions do you get asked most often as a rep? Share these with your marketing team, so they know what questions to cover.
- The video’s focus should be on the top four to six questions and under 10 minutes in length.
- Adding video chapters to the 80% video lets the viewer easily navigate the content.
How to Take Your 80% Video to the Next Level
Make the 80% video feel like it’s made just for your prospect by recording a personalized intro video and adding both into a playlist. In your intro, encourage your champion to forward or share the video with other organizational stakeholders so you can go deeper into the account.
By leveraging a video platform like Vidyard to host your content, different copies of the 80% video can live in varied video libraries or folders and will give your team the flexibility to lead score, and measure it differently. If your marketing team uses an 80% video in programming, they can score those who engage higher and hand over more qualified leads to your sales team (saving you time and getting better leads simultaneously).
3 Must-Know Pro Tips for Creating the Best Sales Videos
1. Make Your Thumbnail Memorable
Position yourself at the start of your video so you’re not in the middle of your frame. This slight adjustment will prevent the play button from falling directly over your face. To give yourself ample options for your thumbnail, once you hit record, wave, smile, and pause before you go into your message. Consider using an animated GIF thumbnail to make your video stand out.
2. Use Video CTAs to Push Your Viewer to Action
Regardless of what type of sales video you’re using, you need to prompt your viewer on the next step once they’ve viewed it. Leveraging video calls to action are a great way to do this. Consider ending your video with a link to directly book time in your calendar so you can start to push your deal forward.
3. Don’t Neglect Your Supporting Copy
Remember to write it out, too. Sometimes prospects can’t watch a video with sound on, so be sure to write out (at least some of) your value proposition in your email or message in addition to sending the video. Adding captions is another excellent way to achieve this.
Now It’s Time to Put These Types of Sales Videos into Action
You now know the four main types of sales videos you should use in your outbound communications. The next step is to learn when and where to use these videos throughout your entire sales cycle.
This post was originally published on January 23, 2019. It was updated on December 13, 2022.
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