Looking beyond view count: the additional benefits of video

Gangnam Style. Charlie Bit My Finger. Keyboard Cat. The internet is full to the brim with viral videos, and the total amount is only increasing.

When a 37 year old mother from Texas made a video that racked up over 140 million views on Facebook, which resulted in a guest appearance on James Corden’s The Late Late Show and even her own action figure, by simply wearing a $25 Chewbacca Mask and chuckling to herself in her car, it sure seems like you’re in the minority if you haven’t had a video go viral yet.

This is why it may come as a surprise to businesses who invest a small fortune in having a promotional video produced that their view count may barely pass three digits without paid advertising to give it a boost. (Do you think Chewbacca Mom paid an agency to buy ads and optimise her SEO for her before the video gained any kind of traction?)

Although sites like Youtube and Facebook place an emphasis on racking up your view count by nature of displaying it publicly, the good news is that view count is only a small fraction of the value that a corporate video can provide.

Here are some of the ways that you can use video that provide value beyond “reach”.

Qualify your leads before you talk to them

If you’re anything like me, sales meetings are an uncomfortable and unavoidable part of running a business. I often consider them to be like going to a never ending series of job interviews. Or on constant, awkward first dates.

The benefit of using video is that you can tell your prospective client the story of your business before you even arrive for the meeting, which means you can jump straight into the details of relevant products or services you plan to offer, rather than going through the basics in-person.

To do this, make sure you have a strong promotional video on your website which will help qualify prospective clients before they even enquire with you. Alternatively, you can send a direct link to your video to your prospective client before you have a meeting.

With an effective video, in-person sales meetings are only necessary to discuss the details and collect signed orders, not to sell your products; so visits are no longer a marketing cost but a cost of sale allocated to a project.

Show, don’t tell

Telling a prospective client that your business does X, Y and Z is all well and good, but being able to back it up with a video adds to your credibility immensely.

For example, a cleaning company tells a prospective client that they can leave floors looking shinier than anybody else. The prospective client isn’t going to accept that claim on face value. Showing the prospect a video case study of a particularly challenging job would immediately add to the credibility of the cleaning company’s statements.

Additionally, this approach works well for testimonials. You can talk about other clients who’ve had good experiences with your company but having a video testimonial from a previous client who loves your service is going to add authenticity and, again, credibility to your business.

Save time and money

Using video can be useful for saving time. If your product or service needs a demonstration in order for prospective clients to truly understand and buy into it, a short video that summarises a typical demonstration is going to be a huge time saver.

Using a video that summarises your approach helps to weed out the leads that are never going to go anywhere. Do you really need a site visit or could you send or request a video instead?

Take the example I used earlier about a cleaning company. In the sales process the company could spend hours transporting equipment and staff to a client site, conduct a product demonstration and then walk away with no contract in hand. That’s a waste of staff time, fuel and equipment/materials. A video that demonstrates what the prospective client wanted to see could have solved that issue.

Equally, the same could be said for training customers after the contract is signed. Recording a video is far cheaper and quicker, and having your staff record the training videos retains the human element that you get from dealing with a problem in-person.