Four Compelling Reasons for Recruiters, Sales Reps to Embrace Video

Imagine what would happen if you could increase your prospect or candidate email open rate by 5X and your click-through rate by 8X? That’s a massive jump in the number of prospects or candidates reading and taking action on your emails. The kind of jump that has every rep and recruiter in your company asking you, what the hell are you doing to crush it?

It's video.

But even today, 17 years after Skype was first launched, video conferencing (and video email) is still an afterthought for most staffing professionals.  In fact, very few staffing industry professionals have invested the time to fully embrace and adopt video technology.  Many think of video as a "nice to have" too.  Having relied on the phone and email for years (and more recently text messaging), do salespeople and recruiters really need to add video email and video conferencing to their toolkit? 

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Absolutely they do! 

Video conferencing including video sales meetings and candidate interviews via video are FAR more engaging then a regular phone call or audio conference.  Video calls have a totally different feel and etiquette to them then phone calls. The sense of distance you get with a phone call is totally eliminated with video calls.  Not only that, video meetings are far more intimate and participants are far less apt to fall into "zombie land" or multitask as they would (and do) on  phone calls.  Video calls also enhance participant engagement.  What recruiter doesn't want to enhance engagement with their candidates? What salesperson doesn't want to optimize engagement with their customers and prospects?

We already know the massive benefits to online, video based sales and recruiter training and why leveraging a sales enablement platform is advantageous to staffing and recruiting firms. While there is still no replacing a face-to-face sales meeting or a face-to-face candidate interview, especially when a recruiter or sales rep is trying to close a deal, video is unequivocally the next best option.  In this day and age there are too many great tools and applications that make creating and sharing videos easy and simple that staffing professionals can't afford to NOT take advantage of. With video, not only can you set up video conference calls but you can send candidate interviews to your customers via video instead of sending a boring static email. You can also send fun and engaging videos of yourself to your candidates and customers.

By letting a candidate or prospect put a face to your name (and vice versa), you’re able to more effectively (and in a shorter time frame) establish credibility and trust.  Video accelerates rapport building and trust-building which accelerates the sales process. Not only that, video conferencing gives you the opportunity to read and diagnose a person's body language, tonality, and unspoken pain points or objections, all of which contributes to moving the sales and recruiting process forward. Perhaps most importantly, video gives you the opportunity to show that you're a REAL HUMAN BEING and not some robotic salesperson or recruiter who hides behind the emptiness of email or the telephone. 

Clearly that was more then four reasons your staffing firm needs to embrace video.  But here are four more compelling reasons including proven data that should compel you and your staffing firm to adopt video email and video conferencing.

1.) Using Video is Proven to Increase Sales Win Rates (Close More Deals)
The team over at Gong.io analyzed the audio and video of more than 120,000 sales calls to understand the effect of using video and closing deals. They compared deals that closed (won) vs. deals that didn't close (lost or no decision). The deals that closed showed to use video (sales reps turning on their webcam) 41% more than the deals that didn't close.  Not only that, the study discovered that top performers begin each video call with their webcam turned ON and they spend more time during their meetings with their WEBCAM TURNED ON than average performers. Instead of spending most of their meetings with their webcam turned off or sharing their screen with a pitch deck or other data, top performers spend most of their time showing their face so all of the other participants on the video call can see them.

2.) Create Personalized Prospecting, Lead Nurturing Videos
We all know how difficult it is to get the attention of today's empowered buyer and today's savvy and educated candidate. Video is the most effective way to "break through the noise," and get the attention of your candidates, prospects and customers.  As a recruiter or sales rep you can easily make your presence known by sending short, personalized videos to nurture your sales leads including those in your candidate pipeline. 

SalesLoft recently ran an experiment where they created personalized videos for 20 sales reps who were trying to close deals. By the end of the quarter, 15 of those reps (75%) had successfully closed their deals. Salesloft said this about the experiment:

"You don’t have to be in the sales game very long to know that a 75% close rate is no joke."

Why are personalized videos so much more effective than traditional phone, email and voicemail?  Personalized videos are effective sales engagement tools because people do business with people, not companies. It is far more difficult for someone to ignore you and your message when they can physically see you, your body language, and facial expressions all from within your work or home office setting.  It's personal and that is the whole point of video. 

3.) Share Your Videos Via LinkedIn
Historically, YouTube and Facebook have been the most popular channels for B2B video sharing.  87% of business on YouTube and Facebook are sharing videos where as only 51% of companies on Instagram and LinkedIn are sharing videos. LinkedIn, amazingly enough, appears to present a significant opportunity for recruiting and sales teams to share videos.  Conventional wisdom had me thinking it was already saturated by recruiters creating videos. That is NOT the case! 

Because of the nature of LinkedIn and how people use LinkedIn,  it’s the PERFECT platform for staffing professionals to be sharing videos that speak to potential buyers and candidates!  In fact, a study conducted at LinkedIn showed that finding a “quality environment” in which to run video campaigns has been a top challenge for 46% of B2B advertisers on LinkedIn.  Through the roll out  of new features such as video for company pages and video for sponsored content, LinkedIn has made it clear that it is fully embracing video.

4.) Include Videos in Your Sales Emails
A study from Drift that looked at 290 of the most successful cold sales emails found that just 13% included multimedia of any kind, and only 6% included video.  Their study showed that emails containing video received a  4x greater click-through rate vs. those without video. 

One trend that has emerged around video utilization is for recruiters and sales reps to include a video in their email signature. This is where a sales rep or a recruiter can leave a short little video introducing themselves and/or provide a brief overview of their company. You can also use the video to ask ask a question as way to engage your candidates or prospects. By giving your candidates and prospects the opportunity to see and hear you and experience your personality via video, you make the buyer/candidate experience more endearing.

So are you ready to take the plunge? Let's start a conversation about how to get started with video in the comments section below.