It's 2021!
If you are still using the age-old sales strategies and techniques to send a sales proposal and follow-up with your prospects, you are missing an opportunity to create a USP.
Impress your prospects with the tools and techniques of modern-era salespeople. Welcome to the world of video email and video prospecting. With the simple asynchronous video tools, you can send a unique sales proposal to your prospects and garner their attention.
Want to know how to gain an edge over the competition, engage prospects, and blow their minds with your unique follow-up strategy?
Look no further. This blog post will cover all that and more to give you that extra mileage you deserve.
How You Send a Sales Proposal Matters!
But first things first! How you send a sales proposal matters!
Starting from the content, context, tools you use to draft proposals, your follow-up strategy, and how you send your follow-up messages - all these factors make or break a deal.
First impressions always matter, right?
Drafting an Effective Sales Proposal
Your modern buyer/prospect is always looking for something exciting and something unique. In addition, they want to optimize their time and resources.
A boring text message won't cut it anymore.
An exciting graphic element like a video email, video proposal, or video sales pitch will excite your prospect, engage and interact with your prospect simultaneously.
If you think I am talking about a professionally produced B2B video, you can't be more wrong.
To your surprise, I am talking about a more cost-effective, time-saving solution that you can implement with a single click from your electronic devices- mobile, tablet, or laptop/desktop.
I am talking about an asynchronous video that you can use to create a cold sales pitch to your new prospect and follow-up with the same format. You can record these videos quickly and create a personalized pitch to your prospect and send it via email with a call to action.
What more? The video email is delivered in real-time and eliminates the need for your prospect to” be present” at the moment. It increases win rates.
Think about the time it saves everyone!
Video sales emails are more effective than video conferences, teleconferences, a zoom call or a phone call, which demands your prospect’s time and requires a lot of time & effort to set up and needs stable connections. Or else, the flow is disturbed, and first impressions are biased.
With video emails, you can create a personalized video, talk about your product/service passionately, all the while making eye contact and humanizing the content.
Nothing can go wrong when you look and sound confident.
The result will amaze you. video emails engage sales prospects better than text emails and increase response rates and drive conversion.
A personalized video definitely has the power to convert your prospects to customers.
Meeba Gracy
Following-up on the Sales Proposal
The real work begins now! Having an effective follow-up strategy makes your prospect a paying customer.
You might send the most enticing sales proposal, but if it's not followed up, you lose the deal.
Don't wait for that cold sales pitch to do its magic. Instead, create magic by sending more engaging follow-up emails. Remind your prospect about how important they are to you and that their business is essential to you.
Create a compelling sales follow-up strategy and implement it after you send your first video pitch.
In this blog, I will take you through an effective strategy that works.
Also Read: Video Email: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners
15 Follow-up Strategies That Leads to Conversions
1. Timing
Timing is of utmost importance. Time your follow-up video emails at intervals that don't sound too pushy and create value for you simultaneously.
- Wait for two days, as a principle, if you haven't heard from your prospects before you send follow-up emails.
- Make use of analytics to time your follow-up emails.
- If your prospects opened your email but haven't responded, send them a follow-up mail after 2 days asking if they have further questions.
- If they haven't responded to the follow-up video email, send a product demo video by selecting the screen record to pique their interest after 2 days.
- You can also choose to send a video inviting them to an event, telling them about a free trial they can register to or wish them on a special occasion like their birthdays.
- If your prospects have not opened the video email, resending a proposal in a week or two makes sense.
2. Answer Questions
Make a follow-up video to ask your prospects if they have any questions. If your client has already replied to your sales proposal video email with some questions, answer those first, without beating around the bush. This proves that you are serious about business.
3. Use Analytics
Use analytics to know who is actively engaging with your video email and who has gone cold. Then, send a follow-up mail based on the engagement rates and open rates. Have a different strategy for each group.
For example, You can send a product/service demo video to the prospects who opened the email and send a more engaging sales proposal video to the prospects who have not yet opened your video email.
4. Get Straight to the Point
Don't beat around the bush. Cut through the clutter by being straight forward and offer something your prospect can't refuse. Prepare your video script ahead and plan your talking points accordingly. Unrelated things might take away the interest of your prospects.
Don't forget to use catchy subject-lines for that video email.
Meeba Gracy
5. Send a Friendly Sales Video to Follow-Up and Re-Engage
Use Video to ease up on the serious follow-up notes and send some hilarious meme collection about sales or a video that cracks you up on the internet to your prospects. It might break the ice and turn your email from cold to warm.
For example: If you find a crazy video on the internet about how a parrot is trained and used in sales, share it with your sales prospects, it might be unrelated, but brings a smile on their face and makes them remember you and they might even reply with an appreciation for the humorous bout.
6. Include a Demo Video or Case Studies in Your Follow-Up Email
Demo Videos play an essential role in making your prospects understand your product/service. Record a demo video or upload an already existing demo video and send it across to your prospects. Don’t forget to follow-up on the email asking if they need anything more or have any further questions.
7. Collect Video & Audio Responses From Prospects at Their Convenience
With your follow-up videos, provide the flexibility to your prospects to respond at their convenience. They can reply via text or use an audio response or video message. The book meeting option makes it more convenient for the prospects if they want to talk to you.
8. Introduce Your Executive Team and Customer Care Team
Including workspace footage in your Video is a great way to flaunt the skill set of your executive team and customer care team.
Show your prospects your enthusiasm and let them know that their deal is important to you and your team. This builds a sense of emotional attachment and always works in your favor.
9. Invite Prospects to Join an Event
If you are hosting an event, don't forget to make a Video inviting your prospect to the event. Both physical or in-person events need event details. So, add the event details via a call to action with your Video.
Meeba Gracy10. Follow-Up After an Event Asking if They had a Good Time
After the event or webinar is done, thank your prospects and attendees for their participation and check if they had a good time.
If you remember a remark that your prospects made during the event and mention it in your content, you have made a personal connection there. This will build strong rapport with your prospect.
Check a template that you can use right away to follow-up:
11. Check-in on Social Media Announcements of Prospects’
It is always a good practice to be informed about your prospects. When you are following your prospect on social media or content contributing platforms like Medium, bring it to their notice that you are paying attention to them.
Mention about their recent success story or how good their “opinion piece” on a subject is and that you resonate with the thought.
This exercise will definitely be remembered by your prospect, making him your customer soon.
12. Add a Personality to Your Follow-ups
Add an emotion. Record video at a more lively background like at a garden, or if you met the prospect already, make an effort to record your video at the place you previously met them. This will make your video personal and force your prospects to recollect the memory.
You can address your prospect with their first name in your follow-up emails which will make it personal.
13. Add Value Proposition
Research about your prospects' needs and offer a unique proposition that only you can provide and highlight the content in your Video. This creates huge value.
It can be a free trial of your service/product or a customized deal you can provide.
14. Use Compelling Thumbnail
Thumbnail is the first thing your prospects see after opening your video email.
So, make sure you add a thumbnail that captures your good angle before sending the video. First impressions count on all accounts.
15. Slow Down, Smile, and be Confident
Always be confident and show that confidence in your Video presentation.
Don't forget to test run your video before sending out and always remember to end your video email with a call to action, that lets your prospect take a clear action on your message.
But suppose you doubt whether video proposals really work at all!
In that case, you should read about the market research survey conducted that proves video is the most competent and effective tool which helps identify and convert qualified leads.
Try Videoform to test it yourself!
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