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Global Marketers Channel by RuthFeb. 22, 2019

Lights, camera, action: Video helps you stay in touch with customers

One problem that plagues B2B sales and marketing is coming up with relevant, timely messages for nurturing customer relationships.  A territory-based sales rep may be trying to keep in touch with hundreds of contacts at a time, but struggles to find a steady supply of good-quality reasons to reach out, without being a pest.   Here’s a particularly compelling solution to this problem: Personalized email that links to entertaining, but useful, videos.

Here’s where I learned about this:  Glenn Diehl, president of the trade show production company Genesis Exhibits, has a team of eight sales people selling custom trade show exhibits and portable displays to marketers and trade show managers in New York City and several northern counties.  Glenn came up with a program whereby his reps can send to their contact lists emails embedded with a link to an informative video, created by Mike Mraz, a trade show marketing expert with a creative knack for video production.

Mike was already producing his Today’s Trade Show Minute videos every three weeks, as a way to promote his own consulting and training services.  His arrangement with Glenn includes access to fresh "Minute" videos twice a month, plus a custom landing page with a personal introduction from each rep.

Al Mercuro was the first at Glenn’s company to adopt the program and make it part of his regular customer outreach.  His cover note is in plain text, inviting customers to have a look at the latest "Minute" video.

Customers who click through find themselves at Al’s dedicated landing page, which includes his friendly face, a short message, the Today’s Trade Show Minute video, and a call to action.

Source: http://www.ruthstevens.com

There are four reasons why I recommend this kind of program:

• The content is fresh, lively and relevant to both the recipient and the sales objective of the vendor.  The videos deliver a useful trade show success tip in only 60 seconds.

• Outsourcing the video content to a third party like Mike Mraz ensures an ongoing supply of new material for Genesis Exhibit customer communications.  The relentless need for creating new content is an ongoing challenge for B2B marketers.

• The program is managed by marketing, but goes out over the name of the sales rep, providing tangible help in relationship building with the rep’s key contacts.

• Audio/visual tactics are the fastest growing in popularity among B2B content marketers.