Sales Training: 5 Reasons To Choose Video over Text
Eureka! You’re a sales rep who just invented a better way to demonstrate the company’s newest product. Customers have been blown away, as have several colleagues who’ve seen your demo in person. Your next step: sharing this technique with the entire sales force.
But how?
Most of the company’s reps are scattered across North America, and during the pandemic, face-to-face meetings are out. A conference call might work – if you could get everyone on the line at the same time.
This narrows your options to two things: You can describe your new pitch in a lengthy email and hope everyone reads and understands it. Or you can record a quick video and send it to the team.
5 Reasons to Use Video
Here are five reasons why you should choose video over text when you’ve got a new idea, customer story, or killer pitch to share.
#1 Video is much more engaging.
Emails are far more likely than videos to be ignored or skimmed. A survey by PoliteMail found that just 77% of employees open internal emails. Of those, only 37% actually read the messages while a mere 24% click through to see links or images. By contrast, Forrester research found that employees are 75% more likely to watch a video than to read documents, emails or web articles. So if you really want to engage the salesforce, choose video.
#2 Video content is easier to create.
Writing an email that contains enough clear and detailed information about your product demo could take hours. By comparison, producing a short video could be as simple as pointing your smartphone in the right direction and pressing “record.” And with a mobile video app like the Allego sales learning and enablement platform, distributing the video is as fast and easy as sending an email.
#3 Video is more accessible.
Video provides richer content that makes a concept easier to grasp. Video’s power comes from the fact that most people need visual aids to learn. In fact, 65% of people consider themselves to be visual learners. The human brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text. Because a video conveys real-time visual and audio information, including body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice, it’s a better tool for “how to” lessons. Why labor over a 2,000-word email when you can quickly show and tell the reps how to execute your demo?
#4 Video is more memorable.
A study from the SAVO Group found that just seven days after a training session, the average employee has forgotten 65% of the material covered. After six months that number increases to 90%. But when visuals are incorporated into learning content, retention levels rise to 65%. Studies have shown that viewers remember 95% of a video’s message compared with just 10% when reading text. This is because videos present information in the form of short stories. This makes videos more engaging, and therefore more memorable, to viewers.
#5 Video learning can be measured.
You can never be sure if anyone is actually reading your emails or other written documents. But with a sales enablement platform like Allego, you can track and measure a video’s impact using metrics such as number of views and whether or not the video has been viewed all of the way through. You can also measure learning progress by tracking whether individual reps are completing the quizzes and exercises that you sent to them.
For these reasons (and others), many people now believe a one-minute video is worth 1.8 million words.
Share Best Practices on Video
Today, it’s much harder to stay connected with peers to share intel and new ideas. Pre-pandemic, teams would share tips from the field in weekly meetings and or in the break room over a cup of coffee.
If you’ve got something to share, take a minute or two to record yourself on video and send your customer insights, win/loss stories, white boarding techniques, negotiating strategies, and more to the team. They’ll get the up-to-the-minute information they need—and you’ll use the power of video to help your team win.
Learn More
Download your copy of The Essential Guide to Virtual Selling for practical tips and advice for succeeding when you can’t be there in person.