How To Use Video Marketing at Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

Video marketing is growing because of its effectiveness at attracting people. Placing video content on your site and social media offers great reach possibilities and higher engagement rates. While adopting video to your marketing mix is a great idea, make sure you design an effective strategy behind your video topics.

Most of the videos I see for marketing purposes are intro videos that promote a piece of content or are more top of the funnel topics. Yes, awareness videos are important, but if you’re going to close deals, you need to do more than make a good first impression. Today’s customers go through more than half — and often much more — of the buying process on their own, so it’s imperative that you have a complete video journey on your website to guide prospects along the path. Video topics, like blog content, can be focused towards each stage of the buyer’s Journey.

In The Top of the Funnel

To get people’s initial interest, you need to aim wide. Create videos on high-level topics that address pain points of your target buyer personas. Be human and always be creating value, talk about how you can help viewers reach their goals rather than push your specific products. You can do this through:

• Offering how-to content. Here’s another opportunity to showcase your expertise with some deeper content showing how your products or services address a variety of needs for customers.
• Share fun content showcasing your company culture. Create videos that give people an idea of what your brand stands for. Include shots of your team working and having fun. Remember, the goal is to grab their attention and keep it.
• Host thought leadership interviews. Candid one-on-one conversations with the boss, other execs or stars of your industry can be very appealing and help browsing customers understand your company’s vision and expertise. Plus, those types of videos tend to be shared widely on social networks.

These videos should be quick and to the point. Optimal length is about 30 to 90 seconds, and I’d encourage you to keep them to a minute unless you have something important to say that takes more time.

A top of the funnel video can also be a great tool for lead generation. Use calls-to-action during and at the end of a video to refer prospects to more in-depth content, which requires them to provide a name and email address for access.

For The Middle Of The Funnel

The middle of the marketing funnel is the place to give prospects the information they’ll need to justify a purchase. Educate them on your services and what makes your brand special. The top of the funnel showed them they have an issue that needs to be solved, now show them that you can solve it. Here are a few video ideas for middle of the funnel content.

• Testimonials and video case studies. Assuming you already have a few satisfied customers, ask their permission to feature them in a short video explaining their experience with you. There’s no better advocate than a satisfied customer. Let them sing your praises for you.
• Repurposed webinar content. Record your webinars and break them down into chapters so people can quickly find the topics they need. It will make you top-of-mind for authoritative content within your industry.
• Detailed product demos. Show them how it all works. Give them a tour of what’s under the hood. Let them see how much effort you’ve put in and how you’re an expert at creating the solution they are looking for.

Optimal length ranges from 2 to 10 minutes, depending on the content. It’s probably not realistic to expect someone at this stage to commit to more than that. Take that hour-long webinar and break it into six different chapters.

Now The Bottom of the Funnel

Videos can be extremely helpful when prospects get closer to becoming real paying customers, and after the fact, videos can reinforce their feelings and turn them into brand advocates.

• A good FAQ video can come in handy as a follow-up to a conversation with a prospect who’s getting close to a decision. Send a note thanking them for the chat, and refer them to the FAQs to learn more.
• Campaign nurturing videos. Keep in touch with videos tied to specific campaigns. Know someone is going to attend an event? Create a nurture video to encourage a meetup, or promote how your service connects to that of the event sponsor.
• Instructional videos. Getting up and running with a new service often leads to a bunch of new questions that hadn’t come up before. This is a great time to cover specific issues and also to showcase your amazing support team.

As with any content, you need to keep your audience in mind and respect their time. Just because someone wants a deep instructional video doesn’t mean they want it to last 45 minutes when it could be done concisely in 15. Optimal length here can vary quite a bit. Obviously, these viewers are looking for more detailed information and are more likely to consume a 5 or 10-minute video.

The end of the customer journey is the time to seal the deal with calls-to-action that offer related materials, product demos, free trials, or free assessments. The prospect has already demonstrated they know you and are interested in your services, close the sale with a bottom of the funnel encourages a buying action.

Video is powerful and persuasive. Done well, it can help buyers work their way down the purchasing path just like a well thought out blog content strategy. Just make sure you create the right content that speaks to the right people at the right time. For more information about the inbound marketing funnel, download this free ebook for more helpful tips.