It’s time to make prospecting less hard and time consuming. Not only do you always have to brainstorm clever ways to get your prospect’s attention, but you have to find ways to do this at scale.

What if we told you that there’s a way you could quickly create personalized, multi-step videos that would grab your prospect’s attention, increase response rate, and get you those meetings booked?

Look no further.

This 6-step, high-level guide will teach you how to create and share interactive videos for outreach to give each of your prospects a personalized experience while saving you tons of time.

Video prospecting is an outreach method of creating and sending custom-made videos to leads, allowing you to connect with prospects in a more personal way.

In a nutshell, it’s a great way to get up close and personal with your potential customers by showing them who you are and what your product or service does, in an eye-catching and engaging way.

The power of video is no secret. Using video for outreach creates an authentic, humanized way of communicating that allows you to bring your full personality to your pitch and connect deeper with your prospects.

Essentially, video prospecting can help you reach your top-of-the-funnel goals by allowing you to:

Personalize your users' experience by creating a multi-step video! You can record a generic branching Tolstoy that you can re-use for all of your prospects, such as giving a product or company walkthrough, and then just customize the first part for each customer.
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Break the ice and make your potential customers feel special by providing a short, personal intro that will leave a lasting impression and make them feel more connected and engaged.

Add your macro video to the custom-made intro you made in one simple click.

Rinse and repeat for all of your leads - the generic flow will always be available, and all you have to do is add the personalized intro each time to give each of your prospects a personalized experience without having to add much effort.

Don't forget to link all of your video parts together so the branching flow works smoothly!

Share your Tolstoy via email with an auto-generated gif that will link to your Tolstoy!

Pro tip: When sending your email, make sure to add a short introduction before the video to give some context and add a personalized touch.

Or, you may just want to reach as many prospects as possible - in which case you can create a general Tolstoy and send it through an email automation tool.

You can even use Tolstoy for outreach on social media! (i.e. LinkedIn)

Make sure to turn on email notifications so you get notified every time you receive any new reply or interaction, allowing you to quickly follow up with prospects. You can also go the extra mile and follow up with a video response!

Keeping track of your Tolstoy's performance will provide valuable insight.

For instance, if many viewers click start but only a few reach the end, you can decide if you'd like to shorten your video, change up your filming technique, or even change up the type and placement of your CTAs, and see if this makes your video more effective!

1. Keep your video clips short and sweet.

Introduce yourself, explain why you’re reaching out, and provide a brief explanation of how you can provide value for them.

A short video (we recommend between 30 seconds - 1 minute) will increase the chances that your prospect stays engaged and actually sticks through the entire video.

2. Always provide clear call-to-actions.

When sending outreach videos, it’s important to include clear CTAs at the end (or even throughout your video) by using our various button options, so your prospects know exactly what next step to take without having to do too much thinking.

Whether you’d like to leave room for your prospects to schedule a call, leave a video reply, or be redirected somewhere on your site, we recommend guiding your prospects directly to the buttons by saying something like, “To schedule a demo, feel free to click the book a demo button below and select the time that works best for you!”

3. Include a strong subject line.

Hook your audience immediately with an intriguing and personalized subject line. You can even include the word “video” in the subject line to boost open rate and let your audience know there’s a special video waiting for them in the message.

4. Add some text (but not too much) for context in your email body.

While most of what you want to say will be included in the prospecting video, you’ll want to add some context around the video to explain why you’re reaching out and encourage them to watch it.

Keep in mind: adding some context is important, but make sure not to overdo it - you’ll want to add enough text around your video to motivate them to open it, but still leave some level of mystery to entice them to actually watch what you created for them.

5. Decide when to send personalized vs. template videos.

Depending on what you’re hoping to achieve, you may want to add a personalized intro to more quickly connect with your potential customer. But, if you find yourself wanting to speed up the process, go ahead and just use one pre-recorded template that you can easily send at scale.

6. Keep tabs on your analytics.

This will allow you to gain insight into what could be improved to boost open rate, response rate, and a better success rate in getting those meetings booked.

Some things to look out for: places of drop off (which video parts your prospects decided to stop watching the video,) the amount of time spent, and which button options were the most (or least) clicked on.

7. Be yourself.

Authenticity always wins.

Check out our own video prospecting example right here!

And as always, feel free to reach out to us at support@gotolstoy.com for any further questions.