While SaaS business revenue is projected to reach a whopping $106 billion, it is still true that a large percentage of people tend to get intimidated by software in general.

Even your most promising leads are taken off by the torrent of technical jargons and seemingly complex structure of your SaaS product.

Those technical information just bounce off the average heads.

And, we know that if there is anything worse than being a little known SaaS company, it is the remarks of your prospective clients saying they didn’t understand your software… it was too complicated for them.

Most of the time they don’t even respond back (any feedback would have been useful for you to formulate a better pitch). But, a large number of your prospects simply ignore your pitch just like Moz did.

Here’s an example of a SaaS sales pitch that went wrong.

Rand, the co-founder of Moz to which this pitch was made, flagged it as a “pester your potential leads until they hate you” approach.

Why did this SaaS sales pitch fail to get the client interested?  

“The best sales processes I’ve ever been through were already closed deals before we ever discussed the sale itself. I knew the person/team/company, liked them, and trusted them.” – Rand Fishkin

So, now we know the three factors to a successful sales pitch:

1. Get the client to know your product/business
2. Get them to like you
3. Get them to trust you

BUT wait, does this mean that you have to spend several weeks building relationship with your clients before you finally make the pitch?

Not really. There’s an easier way to accomplish all 3 sales factor in 1 shot: Just add an explainer video in your sales pitch.

Case Study: Jellyfish

By including an explainer video in their sales pitch, Jellyfish, a freight management firm, was able to close one $800,000 deal in just 7 days.

Yes, it was a cold calling approach i.e. the client had never heard of Jellyfish. And, you know how these cold pitches yield just about 1-3% success rates of getting an initial appointment with client.

But, not in this case! Before the salesman at Jellyfish could send the follow-up email to get the conversation from their side going, the client reached out to them for a meeting and the deal was closed.

And, it was all because the client saw their explainer video, understood what Jellyfish did, what benefits it provides and therefore was interested in giving it a try.

Takeaway: Explainer video is perfect for sales pitch. It not only explains your business in about 60 to 120 seconds but also does a good job of instilling trust and confidence in the viewer and persuades the prospects to respond to your call.

10 BENEFITS OF HAVING A COOL EXPLAINER VIDEO FOR YOUR SAAS BUSINESS:

1. Best Medium To Explain Your Complex SaaS Solution.

You can’t use enough words to clearly explain the complex structure, the gestures and the exciting features of your SaaS product. Software is after all magic and it’s exciting to witness the magic than to talk about it.

For example, Crazy Egg couldn’t have explained their awesome heatmap and confetti tool (see image) as good as they did with an explainer video.

Explainer videos therefore can give a quick peek of your awesome SaaS solution, perking up the interest of the viewer with exciting visuals, and convince them that they can benefit from your SaaS product.

It’s amazing how we can get sense of a visual scene in one tenth of a second. And, the best thing is that visuals are said to improve understanding by up to 400%, which means your explainer video is going to stay in the viewer’s mind for a while.

2. Even the busiest of your clients can find time to watch your 1-2 minute SaaS video.

Most of your leads just don’t have the time or are not that interested to dig through all that technical information in your webpage.

Research is a boring job. Also, the average human attention span is but only 8 seconds, and figuring out the powerful features and niceties of your software is just not anybody’s forte.

Now if you were to put an explainer video on the top of your landing page and attach it in your email pitch, then your prospects will happily watch it.

3. Explainer Video Can Say A Lot In 60 Seconds.

A 60 second explainer video is supposedly worth 1.8 million words. Hence, you would be saying a lot through your explainer video in just a minute (or two).

Besides the visuals, you would also be using around 150 words in a 60 second video pitch and with such limited words at your hand, you would have to focus only on the most important benefits of your SaaS product; you would have to say only the things that matter the most to your target audience and ticks them into responding to your call.

In light of the success that the explainer video brought to Rypple, Jesse Goldman (Rypple’s VP of Customer Success) said this about explainer videos: “The video does a great job at explaining the problem Rypple solves, more than you can do in a small number of words on the page.”

4. Explainer Video Boosts The Sale Of Your SaaS Product.

Probably the most talked about and successful explainer video is that of the Dropbox. And, rightly so because the explainer video of Dropbox contributed 10% increase in conversion rate, leading to 10 million additional customers and $48,000,000 in extra revenue.

Even the legendary Steve Jobs reached out to Dropbox in an attempt to buy it. But, Dropbox was brave enough to say “NO” to Steve Job’s “nine-digit” acquisition offer. Apple did rolled out a similar service i.e. iCloud, in an alleged attempt to crush Dropbox.

Likewise, Rypple, a social performance management platform, reveals that their explainer video boosted the conversion rates by 20%.  In light of this success, Salesforce approached Rypple and bought it.

5. Explainer Video Is A Small Investment With High ROI.

For its “whiteboard” style 2 minutes and 16 seconds long explainer video, Dropbox paid about $50,000, and in return the explainer video generated a whopping $48 million in ‘extra’ revenue.

Likewise, Crazy Egg’s explainer video (2 minutes and 38 seconds long) brought $21,000 extra income per month i.e. over $250,000 extra revenue on yearly basis. This animated explainer video, supposedly, cost them around $15,000 to $20,000* (*Demoduck hinted that the explainer video paid for itself within the first month.).

6. Explainer Video Gets Your SaaS Product Covered By Press and Top Bloggers.

The very best blogs like Techcrunch, Life Hacker, Mashable, Fast Company and such are always in the lookout for new and interesting business technologies and SaaS solutions.

Getting covered by them enhances your product reputation. Press coverage sends the word of your SaaS product to a large number of people and therefore is like the best and among the most prestigious advertising approaches.

However, the reporters of these prestigious blogs are constantly bugged by a huge number of marketers, all wanting their business product featured. As such, the bloggers don’t have time to dig through your webpage and discover the working mechanism and benefits of your SaaS product.

So, in this situation too, an explainer video can help these reporters quickly understand your SaaS business (without having to take them through a demo or tour of your software) as well as give them a good and convincing impression of your SaaS solution. And, there you have a high chance of being featured.

Moreover, since the explainer video is likely to be added in their blog post, it means that the reporter just can’t talk about your product in their way; you too would have a say in it.

7. Explainer Video Gets Seen, Liked and Shared Over The Web.

People love videos. Videos are 41% more likely to get clicked than its text version. Moreover, videos get shared 1,200% more times than links and text combined? In that sense, your explainer video can you get a large number of organic backlinks.

Google also loves videos. Videos are 53% more likely to appear on the very first page of the search results (Forrester). Also, people spend 100% more time on pages with video content according to MarketingSherpa.

What’s more, SocialBbakers report that videos reach large number of fans on Facebook than any other posts. So, uploading your explainer video on Facebook will yield you 135% increase in organic reach.

8. A Single Explainer Video Can Be Placed In Multiple Places As Part Of Sales Strategy.

There are several platforms where your potential leads might be hanging out at. You can reach a large number of your prospects by placing your explainer video at some strategic spots.

Yes, landing page is one important place where you should display your explainer video. Other than your website homepage, you can also feature your explainer video in the About section of your Facebook profile such that visitors can immediately discover your explainer video and give it a like.

Also, you can put the explainer video in the YouTube Channel Trailer too such that new visitors understand what your channel is about.
Likewise, other good places to feature your explainer video is at LinkedIn and Twitter (share the YouTube link), not to mention as part of your email pitch too.

Why should you post your explainer video in all the right places? First, you get to reach out to a large number of prospects. Second, 80% people can recall the video ad they watched on a website in the past 30 days.

Better yet is the fact that of these 80% people who watched your short explainer video, 26% go on to explore further on the topic of your video, 22% pay a visit to your website mentioned in the video, 15 % even take the time to visit the said company and some 12% decide to purchase your SaaS product.

9. Adding Explainer Video In Your Email Pitch Gives Result.

Email, says McKinsey & Company, has 40 times better chance of acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter.

According to Capterra, for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is $44.25. This is even higher when you start doing email pitches with an explainer video attached.

After all, Forrester Research states that including an explainer video in an email increased the click-through rate by 200% to 300%.

In fact, the mere mention of the word “Video” in your email subject line boosts the open rates by 53%?

10. Explainer Video Sets The Stage for Purchase Mood.

Your SaaS product video makes 52% of your prospects more confident in going for the purchase decision.

Besides the matter of confidence and trust, explainer video also increases the likelihood of a purchase by 85%.

And, it is all because explainer video uses the art of good storytelling and exciting graphics to trigger emotions in the target audience and connects with them at a deeper level.

Conclusion:

Explainer videos are perfect for sales pitch as well as marketing and lead generation.

However, to achieve the success as enjoyed by Dropbox, Crazy Egg, Rypple and many such SaaS companies, you will have to monitor, track the analytics and make necessary changes as per the results. Getting a good explainer video made by a professional company at a small price can generate a huge ROI.

While explainer video can alone influence the sales, do understand that the explainers are still a part of your whole sales strategy and as such you would have to focus on the content and UI/UX side of your SaaS solution too.

By: Sadbhav Shah

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