When you’re wondering how to sell video production services to enterprise companies, the best first steps are the simplest and least complicated. Good common sense will get you far, as will asking the right questions of your potential clients, conveying the value of video and simply practicing what you preach.
Let’s take a closer look at how to approach your initial meeting with a prospective client, how to sell video if they’re on the fence and some tips for how to ultimately close the deal.
In the First Meeting…
First and foremost, to best sell your video production services, you need to understand the goal and the purpose of your client’s video campaign. Keep the following questions in mind when meeting with a potential client for the first time:
- Who will the campaign be speaking to and what is the communication objective?
- What creative materials does the client have on hand that they want incorporated?
- What elements, specifically, will your production studio be responsible for creating?
- What aesthetic does the company have in mind?
Beyond objectives and creative visions, it’s also important to also lay out a timeline everyone is comfortable with and get a clear understanding of the type of budget the client has in place. Will the budget not be ready until next quarter? What’s the project’s ideal turnaround once budget has been approved? Is that doable?
Ask any studio who’s had to wait on client budgets to be approved and they’ll all likely say the same thing – not having a realistic view of how much money will be available and when that money will be made available can destroy schedules and creative plans.
Make Video a No-Brainer for Clients
Within enterprise companies, there can be significant distance between Person A who ideates a video campaign and Person B who grants resources to bring the campaign to fruition. While working with an enterprise client frequently means larger budgets to play with, it can also mean more red tape and a longer approval process to get the campaign off the ground.
- There’s really no silver bullet to speed things up on the client’s end, but being organized and supplying persuasive data can greatly help to reduce friction. Here are some stats that support the effectiveness and high ROI of video communication:
- According to 120 U.S. ad agencies polled, client interest in video ads has risen 89%, with 72% of those same agencies saying they’ve found online video advertising as effective, if not more effective, than TV advertising. This means that the way people consume content is changing – more people are streaming TV online and watching video in their social feeds and on YouTube – and clients are realizing that the ad content shown to these audiences needs to change as well, largely favoring online video campaigns. It’s an undeniable trend.
- Videos under one minute achieve viewer retention rate of 80%, videos that are two to three minutes in length still enjoy 60% viewer retention and videos in the five to ten minute range achieve over 50% retention halfway through. This means that viewers are primarily watching because they’re actively engaged with the video’s message, and drop-off once they feel like they’ve gotten the gist.
- 51% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
- Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined.
- Video promotion of a brand, product or service is 600% more effective than print and direct mail combined.
- When video is present on a landing page, conversion increases by 80%.
- Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users.
- Enjoyment of video ads increases brand recognition by 139%.
- According to Forrester Research, one minute of video is equivalent to 1.8 million words.
Closing the Deal
Closing a deal comes down to showing a potential client what value you can offer them that none of your competitors can, as well as displaying what wow-factor you can provide that will set the client ahead of their competitors.
Have you worked on campaigns that did something no one else within their vertical had accomplished? Are you leaning into a new type of technology? Whether you’re putting together a show reel or sharing whole campaigns, make sure what you’re showing is of the highest quality and represents your work in the best light possible.
Signal Productions, a creative agency and video production studio in the UK, did this wonderfully when they created a “video case study” of a Personalized Video campaign they did for Tesco. Not only did the Native Personalized Video technology deliver a staggering wow-factor to viewers, the case study clearly presents challenge, solution and a “how we did it” that potential clients can benefit from seeing.
Watch their video case study here below…
Tony Jones, Digital Content Director at Signal Productions, and his team swear by these 10 things to think about when proposing video to enterprise companies:
1. Multiple stakeholders: The project will have many hard to reach senior stakeholders, who will often surface just before delivery and insist on changing something that was signed off right at the beginning. Key to avoiding this happening is having a single, reliable point of contact and a well-defined brief from the outset.
2. Technical copywriting: – never assume you can understand the nuances of an enterprise offering – we’ll often bring in a technical copywriter to bring a distinct level of expertise to the project
3. Insight: Gather as much insight as you can from the client but don’t be afraid to use other social listening tools to find out what is happening in their market.
4. Storytelling: The rules still apply – just because the narrative is corporate, doesn’t mean the format needs to corporate to be boring. Adding a human touch, a sense of comedy or a novel graphics technique can make the films more engaging.
5. Where did that come from? Consider cultural hot topics like Brexit, Trump, etc. There may be news events that affect the context of the production and the last minute changes to the script. Keep an eye on the news as your client will.
6. Platforms: How will the video be used? Website, mobile, salesware; corporate foyer videos; annual reports, conferences and exhibitions, weekly/monthly corporate communications. Ensure your video can be used across all of these if requested.
7. Personalised: The client may not have considered this but using Personalised Video can make the video much more engaging, useful and relevant to each recipient. Can you use any of the new emerging formats? Also consider VR, LIVE & 360.
8. International: i.e. multilanguage – using dynamic video can make multi-language updates and regionalisation much more cost effective
9. Budget: Either a budget has been set aside or you’ll need to quote realistically. Always submit a line by line budget so the client can see where the money is being spent.
10. Schedule: The schedule is key to the process. Every stage should be clearly agreed in advance from voiceover artists to storyboards and allow enough time for all the internal stakeholders to sign off each stage.
The short of it is that when it comes down to how to sell video production services to enterprise companies, figure out your hook – what that makes your video production services a need to have part of a successful enterprise marketing plan instead of just being nice to have? Then illustrate that point using data, previous campaigns, client testimonials…whatever you have in your arsenal, and put together a solid action plan that everyone can be held to.
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