Using Video in Sales Emails for a Little B2B Personalization

Sales emails are a staple of any digital marketing campaign. They’re essential for maintaining connections with current customers while helping potential new ones progress down the sales funnel. And if you’ve ever had difficulty increasing your email open rate, then maybe you’ve even tried to personalize your email to help them stand out.

Luckily, there’s an easy way to establish an advantage over your competitors when it comes to B2B email marketing: video.

Using video in sales emails is one of the most effective B2B personalization strategies that exists. In fact, indicating that your sales email contains a video, typically by adding “[VIDEO]” in the subject line, can boost open rates by up to 300%.

B2B video marketing is becoming increasingly effective as the workplace continues its digital overhaul. And there are natural advantages that come with using video in sales emails -- learn all about them below:

Advantages of Using Video in Sales Emails

Think of B2B sales videos this way: If you’re on the fence about a product or service, and you receive a plain-text email that doesn’t even address you personally, are you more likely to purchase than if you’d received a personalized video?

Probably not. 

Now if that email came addressed to your name and contained a personalized video featuring a real human speaking directly to you and your concerns, then you may feel differently.

Using video in sales emails is a great way to build an authentic relationship with your potential customers. And during times when face-to-face interactions are minimal, it’s important to develop new relationship selling techniques. 

By leaning on the principles of the relationship selling process, you can use 1:1 video marketing to provide emails with a much-needed human touch. Their unexpected appearance in an inbox is also a great hook for capturing and maintaining your recipient’s attention.

There are several other advantages that come with using video in sales emails:

• The ability to easily convey information to your prospect.
• Access to helpful tools that help you make a good first impression.
• The ability to track your videos’ effectiveness using data.
• The opportunity to address a prospect individually and hone in on a sale.
• Accessibility for all, even companies attempting video marketing on a budget. 

Anyone with an iPhone and a dream can do video marketing -- 1:1 email videos don’t need to be Hollywood-quality. Especially if you follow these tactics:

Video Email Marketing Tactics

There are countless ways to incorporate video into your email marketing. Their effectiveness will vary depending on your unique circumstances.

We recommend:

• Using video to provide bonus content
• Using video to personalize your outreach
• Using video to announce updates and/or events
• Using video to display company culture
  
  

Providing Bonus Content

If your company already sends out periodical resource emails that educate your audience around a specific topic, use video to provide bonus content hyper-focused on that prospect’s needs. 

So, what can you offer? As an example, you could use video to provide a sample of a webinar you’re hosting soon. Alternatively, you could announce a product launch that tells the story of how the product came to be -- and how it solves their pain points.

Personalizing Your Outreach

Personalization is what urges your prospect to open your email, which could result in them clicking through to your website. This use of video content marketing is great for any stage of the buyer’s journey, and is relevant for nearly all industries.

So despite the differences between email marketing for manufacturers, medical device companies, SaaS providers, and any other niche B2B businesses, creating personalized video is a great way to kick-start a relationship.

Announcing Events/Updates

Using video to announce company events or updates is a great way to keep all of your prospects informed. If you’re going to host a virtual trade show in the near future, creating a video announcement could help prospects remember the event.

This is a great opportunity to track data as well. Compare your attendance numbers for even you didn’t promote by video vs. ones you did. If those numbers increase and stay increased, you’ll know you established an effective means for making your message heard.

Display Company Culture

Your company culture should be apparent in any inbound marketing video that you produce. It all starts with your expertise, enthusiasm, and general attitude when on camera, and permeates your entire staff and facility.

Some great tips for displaying company culture:

• Show important areas of your business/facility
• Show your process and how you make your product
• Show some workers in a relaxed, social environment

A prospect is more likely to become interested if they can connect on a deeper level with you.

How to Use Video in Your Sales Emails

If you haven’t been using video in your sales emails, then it’s time to start -- before your competitors run laps around you. Fortunately for you, the process of producing a video has never been easier. 

Through an app called GoVideo by Vidyard, you can record, edit, and share videos. It has a user-friendly interface that allows you to put less effort toward navigation and more effort toward personalizing your sales video.