Even in the B2B world it’s people who do business with people, so you need a short video to say hello and briefly introduce yourself.

“This does not apply to us”, I hear you say. “We are B2B and our buyers make purely objective purchase decisions. They do not care who we are.” I have seen this way of thinking a lot in the enterprise software business. Just look at supplier websites and it is clear that they think their people do not matter to prospects.

As Seth Godin says, B2B buyers are just consumers spending other people’s money. People are people and B2B buyers also are also making emotional and subjective decisions. ROI studies, technical evaluations and the rest are often just cover stories.

Who are these people?

No matter if you’re selling enterprise software, spare parts for vacuum cleaners or equipment for musicians, your visitors want to know who you are.

Hide behind a corporate veil and your visitors will go elsewhere. Open businesses will keep the clicks, and the opportunity to convert their visitors into customers. A typical corporate About Us page with bios and stock photos of your management team will lose you that opportunity.

Screencasts are not the right way to say hello and introduce yourself; you need a direct-to-camera video. It is often reported that 93% of communication is non-verbal; people really do need to see you. White papers, corporate flyers or other collateral are even worse. Even if you put a lot of effort to create a funny white paper, your visitors will not read it.

While we talking about things not to do, forget about using your elevator pitch as a script. When you are at a party and meeting someone for the first time, you would not recite your elevator pitch. Don’t do it here either.

Who are you?

If you are the owner of your business then introduce yourself. It is your business and reputation, so just get out there and say hello.

If you are in a larger organization then select someone as the face of your product or service. Your CEO is too far away from the action for this. Instead, find the person most associated with the product or service and let them introduce themselves.

If you were wondering, forget about using a PR person for this. You need someone with an authentic connection to your product or service. Try to cheat and your visitors will spot it immediately.

Say hello and be noticed

Just putting a short video introduction on your website will put you ahead of your competitors. To see what I mean, have a look and see how many of your competitor’s websites are introducing themselves with a short video in this way? Not many, huh?

Get out there, introduce yourself and your visitors will notice and appreciate it. Feeling positive about you based on 1 to 2 minutes of video, makes your visitors more likely to make the mental commitment to invest the few minutes needed to take the next step.

Your introduction video is the vital first step each visitor must take for you to have any chance of converting them into a customer, viewer, subscriber or member. Remember, it is simply polite to say hello and introduce yourself. Forget this simple courtesy and your visitors will be gone in the time it takes to click on the back button.

Hi, I’m Andrew Biss

I aim to practice what I preach, so I will be adding my own introduction video shortly. Creating that video will be the subject of upcoming Sell to Camera posts, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, do you already have a welcome video on your site? If so, please share the URL in the comments. If not, is this something that you are planning to do? Whether yes or no, we look forward to hearing from you here on Sell to Camera.

Tags

About, B2B, Body Language, Brochure, Collateral, Communication, Consumer, Flyer, Introduction, Screencast, SEO, Seth Godin, Video, white Paper

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