8 Growth Tasks Insurtech CEOs Can Automate with Video

Looking to boost valuation metrics for your insurtech startup?

A well-designed video strategy will reduce friction and improve engagement at every touchpoint in your pipeline.

Another cool fact: many of the videos you need for these tasks can be made in a single 2-hour session with no preparation.

Keep reading to see how video can do the heaving lifting to…

1. Introduce Yourself to Investors

With so many reminders that startup investors weigh the team over the idea (or the jockey over the horse), it’s pretty shocking how little of the the typical pitch deck is devoted to the founder(s) and their team.

Even if your deck has a couple slides stuffed with information about your background, you’re only telling investors what you’ve done, which is only part of who you are.

Whether they want you to believe it or not, investors are just people, and they are sizing you up in ways that have nothing to do with business metrics.

When you include an introductory video with your pitch deck that’s built from an unscripted interview, you’re sending them comfort signals that will make them more receptive to meeting you in person.

Just a few of the trust signals you send with a video that you can’t with a pitch deck alone:

  • Body language
  • Energy
  • Verbal skills
  • Enthusiasm and attitude

Even if the content of your video is entirely focused on your idea and your company, the investor will make a subconscious assessment of your suitability using the signals above.

Unlike an in-person meeting, video gives you control over your first impression. With a good interviewer, a low-pressure filming environment, and a great editor, even a generally nervous founder can easily come across as self-assured, competent, and a smart bet.

How much easier would it be to walk into an investor’s office if you knew they’d already seen you at your most articulate and enthusiastic?

2. Humanize Your Company

Most insurtech videos are dry and charmless – heavy on the information and light on personality. You can get a jump start on meaningful sales conversations by increasing your prospects’ comfort level with you and your team with an unscripted brand video.

After all, you’re not just asking prospects to buy your solution – you’re inviting them into a working relationship.

Say hi.

This is important whether or not you still personally have any involvement in the sales process. If your sales department still consists of just you, an authentic introduction that communicates your enthusiasm for solving your customers’ problems will help prospects feel receptive to a conversation with you.

Even if you don’t communicate directly with prospects or customers, your face, demeanor, and energy can assure them them that they can expect a friendly and personal experience from your company.

Insurtech brand video example

3. Show Prospects How You Can Solve Their Problems

Your explainer video isn’t the first touch – prospects need to know the WHO and WHY first. But once you’ve established a trusting rapport and awakened your prospect to their business issue through your unscripted brand video, it’s time to get to the WHAT and HOW.

A good explainer video justifies the promise and the passion you delivered in your initial touch (ideally an unscripted brand video) by giving prospects a glimpse into the thinking and ingenuity behind your solution.

Your explainer video will be of particular interest to the stakeholders whose daily workflows will benefit directly from your solution. For example, if your product is a claims platform, a video outlining the claims process and highlighting the value-adds at each phase will excite the Claims Manager at your target account more than, say, the CFO, who may be part of the decision process but will be primarily interested in ROI.

With a good video strategy in place, you always have the most resonant message at the ready for each stakeholder.

Insurtech product explainer video example

4. Attract the Right Team Members

Prospective employees who feel connected to your values and mission will put more effort into the way they reach out and present themselves to you. You, in turn, will have a more pleasant and productive experience reviewing candidates, not to mention better hires who work harder and with more enthusiasm.

To achieve this, your values and mission must be available to job seekers. Any company can post a sterile mission statement and a bullet list of carefully-curated “company values” to their website and recruiting platform profiles. That’s why a values-driven recruiting video is a great way to stand out from the pack.

A values-driven recruiting video needn’t be an expensive repetition of the same information on your website. It’s an opportunity to put human authenticity behind the words.

Haven’t strictly defined your company values yet? Creating an unscripted, interview-based video is a great way to hone in on the essence of your brand.

Much like a personal coach, a great interviewer will be able to guide you toward what really matters most to you, and they’ll capture it through visceral moments on camera. You may find that the best way to describe the real lifeblood of your company lies just around the corner in a thoughtful conversation you haven’t had yet.

Insurtech recruiting video example

5. Qualify Your Leads

Spending time with unqualified leads is easily one of the biggest time vacuums in the life of an insurtech CEO (or anyone, anywhere with sales responsibilities). I’m not crazy about it myself, either. That’s why I’m a big proponent and avid user of the lead prequalification video

I use the term broadly, but in essence, it’s a video that prospects are directed to watch after committing to a meeting, but before speaking with you or a sales rep for the first time. 

Unlike a brand or explainer video, the prequalification video isn’t about your company or your product. It’s about your process and your criteria for a successful engagement. It clearly outlines basic information that every prospect needs to know so you don’t have to use your valuable time repeating it to every prospect.

Some great automations you can create with a prequal video:

    • Explain your sales process

    • Frame the meeting: tell your prospects what to expect

    • Let your prospects know what key information they should have on hand at the meeting

    • Communicate important information about implementation, turnaround, and compatibility that may disqualify a prospect

    • Give your minimum pricing (confidently!)

    • Set yourself up for a second meeting. If the prospect is already expecting it as a routine part of your sales process, it won’t feel awkward when you bring it up.

By leveraging video to automate the transmission of essential information, you can use your time with the prospect to listen to and understand their business problems instead. Not only that, you give those who are unqualified a chance to abort without clogging up your calendar.

6. Nurture Your Leads

Keeping in touch with a prospect between sales meetings is a great idea for many reasons, but it can be a challenge to know exactly how to do this. What do you say? You’ve probably heard that each touch should add value, but what do you send? 

A collection of relevant selling point videos is a great asset for this situation. By now, you’ve probably realized that all your prospects’ main concerns fall into a limited number of buckets. By having a simple video to address each of these concerns at the ready, you’re prepared to make these value-added touches with ease.

You can even build an email template in your CRM so you can schedule these ready-made messages right after you end the first meeting.

Hi [prospectFirstname],

Great speaking with you the other day. I can see in my notes that you mentioned a couple times how important scoring model transparency is going to be as you add more data suppliers.

I couldn’t agree more! Take a look at this video, which discusses the methodology of our scoring model and how it can be viewed (and even customized and white labeled!).

Looking forward to our next meeting,

-Smart Insurtech CEO Who Knows How To Use Video Effectively

If your initial sales meeting is primarily for listening and learning about the prospect’s business problems, you won’t spend a lot of time going through your selling points, but you will know what matters to them.

Perfect setup for high-impact nurturance.

Insurtech lead nurturing video series example

7. Educate Your Team Members and Clients

The automation capabilities of video don’t end at contract signing. If a prequalification video educates about your process, and your selling point videos educate about your product features, your video library is a how-to resource for team members and clients.

How much easier would your onboarding process be for everyone if you only had to interact directly with new clients for conversations that are truly interactive?

General implementation information, application walkthroughs, and onboarding orientations are all examples of processes that can be automated with video. Our CRM, Hubspot, is fantastic at this, and I’ve frequently found myself able to skip a customer service interaction because of their well-designed video library.

A good video library is also a great time-saving resource for your client success team. Taking a page from the B2C SaaS playbook, simple video walkthroughs can easily manage the most frequent requests. 

By relieving yourself, your team, and your clients of the need to schedule time to communicate standardized information, you’re making life easier for all parties.

8. Deliver Social Proof

I probably don’t need to tell you how powerful video testimonials can be as social proof – especially when you’re selling to a niche B2B market like the insurance industry. 

Video testimonials are especially handy for saving the time and energy of your evangelist clients. Some of your clients may be willing to provide references, but it’s a lot easier for everyone if you can send video testimonials (ideally embedded in written case studies) in lieu of contact information.

Then there are prospects who just aren’t inclined to ask for references, but could be moved through your pipeline with solid social proof. 

Video testimonials are not only must-haves in today’s B2B SaaS market, they’re extra-powerful as collateral because they target specific stakeholders, rather than just giving general information.

For example, if you have a testimonial featuring a Director of Underwriting, you have something relevant to share with other Directors of Underwriting that only addresses their specific concerns. 

The more targeted your collateral, the more resonant it will be.

Insurtech remotely-recorded testimonial video example