One of the greatest challenges with selling high-end video production services is:
You never know exactly when a company is ready to create a video for its brand.
Therefore, it can be hard to find the right prospects to reach out to.
The best way to find potential customers is to know possible “signals” which could indicate that they are ready for your service.
LIKE: If they just raised over 1 MM and released a product in the same month — you stand a good chance that video marketing is on the top of their minds.
This article will share certain signals to look out for when trying to find your ideal target audience, and different lead gen tactics you can use for more high-quality leads.
(Interested in finding out how Salesbread generated 78 qualified leads in 60 days for a video production service? Read the case study here.)
Salesbread specializes in Linkedin lead generation, as well as cold email outreach.
The first part of this article will share how we would build a list for a video production company and reach out to their prospects on Linkedin; And the second part of this article will share other tried and tested lead gen strategies like content marketing.
Feel free to skip to the parts that interest you the most.
Signals, List Building, and Linkedin Lead Generation
As we mentioned above, to find the right companies to reach out to, you should be looking at certain “signals” or triggers that can help you build a list of your ideal prospects.
If your list is ultra-targeted, the chances of having high-quality leads that agree to a booked meeting will be so much greater.
Meaning, that your video company won’t be wasting time and money reaching out to all the wrong businesses.
(Side note on why Linkedin lead gen is a great idea: If you know how to build a targeted list of prospects and write personalized outreach messages, you can target the right businesses and get results as quickly as 24 hours. Other forms of lead generation, like digital marketing, can take time, especially if you are a startup and need new leads asap.)
Looking at signals and filters to detect buying patterns
Our job at Salesbread is to analyze current buying customers using 34 business attributes and “signals” so that we can detect “Buying Patterns” and uncover “Look-A-Like” customers that, based on data, will need what you are selling.
So we suggest that you should have a look at which businesses have used your video marketing agency within the last 6 months.
Why?
Because if you can detect buying patterns, you will know exactly who to reach out to.
As mentioned at the outset, companies who have just received 1 MM in funding and who have launched a new product, would most probably be really keen to use videos to create brand awareness.
Look for patterns. What do your current buying customers have in common?
- Are they all based in a specific industry? Like social media marketers or influencers?
- Have the businesses been funded?
- Are they all startups?
- Do the people who hire you have a specific job title? Like CMOS?
Have a look at intent data as well. You could use a program like Cognism to find companies looking for your specific service.
It will crawl through a bunch of traffic, opt-ins, cookies and tell you which companies are looking for what service or product.
Here are some other filters and signals to look at when looking at your current buying data:
- Marketing activity (paying for ads, traffic stats) This is a great signal for video production agencies because if a company is paying for marketing, it means they have a budget geared towards marketing. This means that they might be very likely to use your services.
- Communities (in the “marketing for law firms” group on LinkedIn?)
- Reviews (looking to find business owners ready to sell their companies? Check local listings for 4 and 5-star business that mention “family-owned”)
- Geography (zip code list, cities, or list of states/countries)
- Languages (show me websites that have docs in German and Spanish?)
- Industry (Fintech, Regtech, Automotive, Universities in the U.S. Social Media Influencers.)
- Local (Newly opened hotels on the East Coast?)
- Web feature (offers live chat or has a beautiful app interface?)
- Events (Did they sponsor or attend the last MOZCon, and would like future quality video production for their next event.)
- Intent data (I want companies that are searching for video production)
Below is a video that shows how we would detect buying patterns for our clients:
Once you have figured out who your ideal prospects would be, you can start building a list
Below is an example of how we created a list of the top 500 Universities to reach out to in the US for our client Local Eyes (A video production company)
Local Eyes had already sold to prestigious universities like Harvard and USC.
So it made sense to target universities. Basically, their videos would be used to attract more students to these educational institutes.
Step 1:
The first thing that had to be done was to find 500 of the top universities in America and reach out to the right marketing people.
We looked at a site called College Rankings to build this list.
(It’s important to think outside of the box when building a list. You don’t have to buy cheap data from service providers who might not have the freshest info.
Rather use programs like Clutch, Crunchbase, Linkedin Sales Navigator, AngelList, and even Yelp.)
Step 2:
We then had to find the Linkedin URLs for every university on the list.
Then once we found each university’s Linkedin profile, we then had to find the correct marketers to reach out to.
Yes, this takes time and sometimes there was ever more than one marketer at the university.
We then had to filter this list even more by looking at which marketers were active on Linkedin.
How did we do this?
By looking at “recently posted”.
Why do this?
Well, there’s no point in sending messages to prospects who aren’t active on Linkedin. If the marketers were not active on the platform, we would then send them a cold email.
By doing this our list was ultra-refined and ready for the next step in our marketing campaign, which was copywriting.
Copywriting, Personalization & No Sleazy Sales Pitches
If you do decide to use Linkedin or cold email for generating leads, remember to skip the sleazy sales pitches.
At Salesbread we use personalization for each and every message that we send out. It’s like engaging in real-time with someone who is really interested in solving your pain points.
Our form of copywriting allows us to get a foot in the door with prospects.
How?
By using the CCQ method. Have a look below:
CCQ stands for:
- Compliment
- Commonalities
- Questions
So when reaching out to your prospect, think CCQ. This means, finding something on their Linkedin profile to compliment them on, discussing a shared commonality, or asking them a question in your message.
The above example is of a content writer, who creates the most incredible videos on Linkedin.
An easy way to reach out to him would be to compliment him on the content that he has shared.
Below is a message that I sent him, and his reply.
He then accepted me into his network.
The point is, to say something personal to get your foot in the door so that you can further engage with the prospect.
In your follow-up message, you can add more personalization, say what you do for context and ask for a meeting.
Example:
As a video production agency you could do the following:
Connection message:
“Hi, I see that we are both in marketing and have shared connections in the xyz space. Mind if we connect here?”
Follow Up:
Jack, thanks for getting back to me. (If there is anyone in my network who would like an intro too, I’d be happy to arrange.)
Have a few questions about your role at xyz and what type of marketing you do for your company.
(For background, I’m in the video production side of marketing and have been helping companies like yours drive higher engagement with video content.
What does your calendar look like over the next few days for a quick chat?
Notice:
- There is no sleazy sales pitch about buying services.
- Personalization has been used
- We followed up
- And we asked for a meeting
Does this type of messaging work?
Yes, it does. We used a similar marketing strategy when sending messages for Local eyes.
And these were our stats below:
But what if your video production service isn’t ready for outbound?
If doing Linkedin outreach and cold email isn’t up your alley, you could always hop on a free 15-minute consultation call with Salesbread.
Our services will cost you less than hiring a full-time SDR, with no locked-in contracts. We guarantee 1 qualified lead per day.
But if you still aren’t ready to hire a done-for-you lead generation service like Salesbread, you could always use the following methods to generate more leads for your video production company:
Social Media Marketing
Social media platforms are a great place to showcase your video production company.
There are thousands of video marketing agencies on Instagram, and many share their skills via beautiful content that attracts followers.
With any kind of inbound marketing, it can take time to generate a brand following, but with the right amount of consistent and engaging posts, you could very well get in many qualified leads.
Through social media, you could also share testimonial videos of customers who are happy with your services.
In your bio, add a link to your website. Here visitors can find out a bit more about your services; and whether you offer different types of videos, like:
- Animated videos
- Corporate video production
- Promotional videos
Search Engine Optimization
Another way of generating leads is by making use of SEO and content marketing.
You could optimize your landing page, in order to help potential customers find you, or hire a content writer to create informative blogs that convert visitors over time.
Remember content marketing does take time.
At Salebread we use a mix of inbound and outbound marketing to find leads for our own company.
Below you can see how our number of users has grown over the past year and a half.
We started out at about 390 visitors a month, whereas now we are reaching over 10 000 visitors per month:
Bottom Line
If you need more qualified leads for your video production company, you could either do a bit of inbound marketing, outbound, or even a mix.
But if you are looking for immediate leads within 24 hours from the launch of your campaign, get in touch with Salesbread.
We have taken many businesses to the next level with our done-for-you lead generation campaigns and guarantee 1 qualified lead per day or 5 per week; with pricing less than that of hiring a full-time sales rep.
Still not convinced? Check out our customer testimonials and read this article: The “1-Lead-Per-Day” LinkedIn Lead Generation Agency