How to Increase Conversions by Sending Personal Gifts with a Video

By Mary Matton on June 4, 2020

Here at Vidyard we’ve recently ventured into the world of personal gifting. Through personal gifting we can create jaw-dropping experiences for and our customers and prospects. With that experience in mind we figured, what better way to increase the conversion rates in our multi-channel ABM campaigns by sending personal gifts with our favorite bonding agent – video. 

Consistency Improves Conversions

Like many, we’ve struggled with losing prospects at different conversion points throughout the customer journey. Whether it’s booking an initial meeting with them, getting the meeting to hold, or expanding the buying committee post-meeting, it’s evident that generic, transactional touches slow down the forward momentum of these relationships. 

Before we dive into the video + gifting secrets, it’s important to level set.

Consistency in your outreach will always improve conversions. 

If you don’t already use a cadence to build a consistent and scalable process for outreach, it’s important to implement one ASAP. 

The highest performing cadences allow you to maximize your reach without sacrificing the quality of the relationship you’re looking to build. Not only does a cadence build consistency and familiarity into your relationship, it also prevents any critical moments from falling through the cracks of your busy day.

Using a sales engagement platform, like Salesloft, can help you and your team manage and prioritize your communication so you are engaging with the right prospects at precisely the right time.

Improve Conversions by Being Relatable and Relevant

With the timing of your communication planned and organized, what you say to your prospects has a significant impact on improving the conversion rates of your outreach.

The best performing cadences know how to transform spammy touchpoints and turn them into one-to-one moments.We at Vidyard love the 3Rs Alyce uses to explain how to create a moment. 

Those 3Rs are:

• Relatable: Bond with someone about their #5to9 interests.
• Relevant: Find the right time to connect along the Customer Journey (Right time for them! Not for you.).
• Respectful: Lead with empathy and put the prospects’ needs before your own.

You’re going to need to approach your outreach differently and use new tactics to deliver the 3Rs. 

At Vidyard, our favorite way to deliver the 3Rs in our outreach is through sending personal gifts and videos ( of course! ) to create moments for our prospects.

Using Personal Gifts to Increase Conversion Rates

One of the biggest oversights with outreach is that people rely on personalization to satisfy being relatable. Personalization and personal are not the same thing.

Inserting someone’s first name, company name, title and tech stack into your message may save you time, but it isn’t going to move the needle on your conversion rates.

Prospects can sniff out an automated outreach email from miles away. 

The key to improving conversion rates is to break up the monotony of those automated emails. To do that you need to create a memorable experience. 

A personal gift goes much further than sending a generic automated email. It demonstrates you’ve taken the time to understand what makes your prospect tick. That extra thought goes a long way to break up the white noise in your prospects’ inbox. And speaks volumes to the authentic relationship you’re looking to build with them.

Wouldn’t you get fired up if someone sent you a gift that perfectly complimented your personal passions? I sure would!

Using Personal Gifts and Video to Improve Conversion Rates

Video is an exceptional way to drive the 3Rs. After all, if you can’t meet in person, video is the next best way to get to know someone. 

Video can have a big impact on increasing engagement with your audience. Using a video message can increase the number of gifts accepted through Alyce which ultimately increases pipeline generated. Data shows a 50% increase in click-through rates and 64% of viewers are more likely to buy when you do use video, compared to when you don’t.

Four Tips to Use Video and Gifts to Schedule a Meeting

One of the most common questions I get is,

“Alyshah, I get that personal video works for my sales teams; they have the time to record individual videos. But, I’m running an ABM campaign to 2,500 recipients. How am I supposed to stay personal when I can’t make a video for all of them??”

Don’t worry, we 👏🏽got 👏🏽you 👏🏽covered 👏🏽

Video with Whiteboard: A selfie-style video introduction with a whiteboard sets context for the outreach. Plus, that personal touch of their name on a whiteboard goes a long way.

Video with Elevator Pitch: A selfie-style video introduction with an elevator pitch and a heads up that a gift is on the way is a great door opener. Plus you can position the gift as a thank you present in advance for their time.

Screen-share Video: Screen-share video of the event that made you want to reach out. This could be their LinkedIn profile or comment, a Twitter post, or an article about their company. The whole point here is to SHOW you’ve done your research and set context for why this is the right time to connect, and how your company can help them. ABM Video: An account-based selfie-style video focusing on the key problems you know are plaguing that account right now and the value you believe a meeting will bring them.

Four Tips for Following Up with Video after a Gift is Sent

The final area to impact conversion rates is during the post-gift follow-up. 

This is often a missed opportunity to deliver a personal moment that will accelerate your deal. Coupling the personal interest data Alyce provides with a personal video will increase your show rates.

Here are four ways (with examples) where you can level up your outreach follow-up to keep the ball rolling:

• Bond Over the #5to9: A selfie-style video using the Alyce gift research data to build a personal connection. For instance, if you know they have a dog, send them a video with your dog. Delivering a moment anchored in relatability is key to creating a personal bond with someone.
• Pre-Meeting Intros: If the BDR or SDR secured the meeting with a gift, utilize video to introduce who else might be on the initial call, like the AE. Or if this is a handoff call, have the AE introduce the CSM or AM via video.
• Screenshare the Agenda: Put together a screen share for the agenda of the meeting they booked with you so they know what to expect going in (point one, our favourite dog breeds, point two how we’re going to help your business grow).
• Screenshare a Product Teaser: Use video to do a screenshare with a small product teaser and how it’d relate to their business problems to pique their interest.

If you’d like to see those examples in action, you can have a peek at what real people are sending to real prospects on Vidyard’s Video Inspiration Hub.

Now that you know about sequencing your outreach, what to say when you reach out, and how to follow up those conversations with a personal gifting and video, go ahead and start trying it out for yourself! Experiment with the types of video content that is going to resonate strongest with your audience. There’s a reason apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Linkedin have started leaning more into optimizing video content – video consumption has grown 32% year over year from 2013-2018. Consumers are turning to video as their preferred content channel to learn more about the companies they want to do business with.

I’ll leave you with this final tip: whenever you’re utilizing video to connect with someone, be yourself and be conversational. The whole idea of being personal on video is so someone can get to know you, the real you. The real Alyshah Walji, country music & Brooklyn 99 fan, not Alyshah Walji, Strategic Partnerships at Vidyard.

Want to know about additional ways you can leverage video in your Alyce gift landing pages? Check out this post to read more!