How to Create a Video Sales Letter
Table of Contents
Send a video sales letter to differentiate your message, catch your reader's attention, and introduce yourself more personally. It makes you feel more human to your prospect and can create an immediate connection.
Core questions every sales writer needs to consider when writing any sales letter:
- Who is my reader? What, exactly, do I want this reader to know or do?
- What does this defined reader care about?
- What is the best tool or channel to deliver this message?
Typically, sales writers revert to sending an email or calling a prospect. A call is a very effective option, but sometimes we don't have a phone number to reach a prospect. A written email is too often ignored.
A video sales letter can be a very effective sales writing tool!
Example of a Video Sales Letter
I downloaded a resource on buyer personas from a marketing agency for one of my executive business writing coaching clients who was beginning to develop buyer personas with her marketing and content team. I alerted them that I didn't need to hire them myself and the download purpose was to share their information with my client.
The founder and president of Horseshoe & Co sent this personal video response. It caught my attention!
Hi Mary!
You downloaded our buyer persona worksheet today and I wanted to introduce myself and see how you're making out with it.
Andrea Moxham
Founder + Hubspot Expert
Horseshoe + co.
Sales Email Template
Every sales email, written or video, must be tailored to the client and the stage. The following template provides a basis to build your customized sales email that is appropriate to the sales stage.
This basis should be followed in a sales video, also! Only the delivery tool is different with a video. Your core message you convey absolutely needs to be tailored to the client and the stage.
Subject line [a timely and personalized hook]
Greeting [address the client by their preferred name and include all appropriate recipients]
Opening [placing your solution in the context of a customer’s pressing problem]
Pitch [value proposition tailored to customer needs]
Closing [clear call-to-action and next steps for both sides, with a clear timeline]
Signature [with clear contact information]
General Techniques
- Andrea clearly had researched our company and understood our business and how her business could help us.
- It was warm and sincere.
- Her offer matched our needs. (After her introduction, it was very easy for me to introduce our client to her company.)
- Her tone was confident and clear. She expressed more interest in helping us than she did pushing a sale. This was an introduction response to an early interest resource so that was appropriate.
- Short length. She covered everything but got to the point.
- No jargon.
- Wearing her company sweatshirt was both casually authentic and real and nicely branded.
Specific Techniques
- Andrea already knew that we weren't likely to become a client based on my comments when I downloaded the resource. Her purpose with this video sales email wasn't to sell us on her services directly. Instead, it was simply to introduce herself and offer help and connect, and scope if there was an opportunity with our client. It was wise at this point to keep her sales ask on the resource and how it would be most helpful.
- Therefore, her more vague request of "let's discuss how the worksheet can be used most effectively" made sense in this situation.
- Note: If she thought we were interested in hiring Horseshoe + co, she would have overtly indicated how she could solve a specific, identified pain of Instructional Solutions and asked for a meeting. (Ideally, she would have made it easy to book a meeting with a link to book a call on her calendar.)
Recommendations for Video Sales Letters
- Keep it short!
- Identify the specific goal of the email and overtly ask for that goal. Don't let the fun and personal touch of a video sales letter cause you to forget to craft a very clear closing that guides your reader to exactly what you want.
- You don't need special technology to send an email with your video embedded. Just make a video with your software of choice and host it somewhere. (We highly recommend Loom for this.) Then, screenshot an image of the video, insert the image into your email, and hyperlink the image to the video. Simple!
Video emails are a wonderful way to connect with a prospect. Remember -- your video message needs to be just as targeted to your specific reader as a written email.
This embedded video within an email technique can also be very effective in other business writing. A video can enhance customer service issues, a welcome email to a new client, a project kick-off, an executive message to a team, annotations on a schematic plan clarification, etc.
It's a technique that especially shines in introductory and prospecting sales emails.
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