Personalized vs. Canned Video: What to Use & When During the Sales Process [Film School for Marketers Podcast, Ep. 7]

Video is such a crucial tool to use in the sales process.

It adds a whole new level of engagement and trust during the process that plain email just can’t do. As a salesperson, you might be wondering when to use personalized videos vs. pre-made canned videos.

In this episode of Film School for Marketers, we talk about the differences of both, when to use them, and wherein the sales process they’ll be the most effective.

Listen to the full episode here (or scroll down to watch the video):

What is personalized video and what is a canned video?

Personalized video is a video that you’re one time for one person. It’s a message that is personalized to the recipient.

Whereas a canned video is very similar to a canned email template. It’s something that can be used time and time again for a similar audience. Typically the messaging is a bit more general and doesn’t call out the recipients specific name or information.

What type of video should you use for managing inbound leads?

If you are a company that has a large number of inbound leads coming through each day, and your sales team struggles to get back to people quick enough you should consider using a canned video. Reason being, the amount of time it takes to get back to someone is most important and you want to ensure the experience is quick and that you can include a personable element like video.

If you are a company that has a manageable amount of leads coming through each day we recommend you do personalized videos. Personalized videos are always the first option you should go with if you have the time as people will appreciate them even more.

It’s not to say someone won’t appreciate your canned video. In fact, we talk about how you can make a canned video feel personalized with the way you approach your messaging.

Meeting Follow-Ups

We talk about the importance of using personalized video for meeting follow-ups and not canned video. How it can ultimately save sales teams time from having to write out long recap emails. We also talk about how video follow-ups can be a powerful tool for prospects to share with their team cutting down on additional meetings with other people involved and getting a consistent message across to everyone.

Stalled Opportunities

You can use your best judgement on what will work best for your sales process - but it comes down to how your team deals with stalled opportunities. We talk about how you can use both, and how you can setup automation with video to send out if an opportunity goes cold after a certain amount of days.

SOW’s + RFPs

You should always use personalized video for your SOW’s and RFP’s, never canned. We talk about why, and how to best use personalized videos during this stage in the sales process.  

Introductions

We talk about the importance of using video during transitions whether that be in the sales process or in a hand-off post-sale. These are videos that do not need to be personalized and that you can be as effective with when canned. We talk about how this makes a big difference in building trust and ensuring no hiccups occur when introductions to new people on the team happen.

Learn about how I manage our inbound leads here at IMPACT.

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