Video and marketing have been together since the beginning. This is nothing new, right? So why is it that you’re constantly hearing about video as a MUST HAVE for converting leads and boosting your business’ marketing strategy?
We already know that video is a wildly effective bridge to relate with your audiences. Even a ten-second TV commercial is a work of art in itself. But video content in the digital age has taken on a whole new meaning. Because YouTube has over 2 billion users, let alone the countless other streaming platforms, hosts sites, and social media giants that account for the daily videos watched by over half the world’s population!
The videos the world watches online are entertaining, informative and attention-grabbing. However for advertisers, videos offer the ability to work their own sort of magic. We live in a visual culture that puts an emphasis on aesthetics, and the emotional connection derived through videos. And while social media is doing its part in personalizing paid ad content, advertisers are turning to video as a high-end resource to help conduct business.
In 2019, videos were the number one way that consumers heard about a new brand that they would later buy from. In the sales world, these are considered leads, or potential customers. The intended results are simple: converting leads into customers. For experts in the digital marketing landscape, it’s a known fact that most marketers’ top priorities lie in converting leads and contacts into customers.
Video has emerged as a key player the conversion process, becoming a sort of 6th man for sales teams. Therefore, to grab the viewer’s attention and inspire action, video marketing works as a sophisticated process that is worth understanding for everyone running a business: large or small.
Like the food pyramid or the story arc, the sales funnel takes the shape of a process that it describes. At the top of the funnel is a person. Once they’ve decided to step towards it, that person is transformed into a lead, or potential customer (though they’re still very much a human too…of course). The first step is Awareness, followed by Interest, Decision, and Action (AIDA).
At each stage, the marketer requires an action of their own because whether it’s an initial friendly greeting, a follow-up, or a special offer (in the decision phase), a marketer’s role in the sales funnel can never be underestimated.
But what does this have to do with video? As we’ll explain more later, videos add a visual aid to the sales experience, and in many cases, emulate the funnel in their form.
Leads have always been a focal point in the sales process because, once upon a time, it required digging through the Whitepages and gathering personal information that may relate to your potential customers. The same concept is very much at play on the Internet today, although marketers have an endless array of tools and tactics to use at their disposal.
Social media, for one, is particularly successful with 66% of marketers claiming it as an effective source for generating leads. Other tools such as SEO optimization, paid ad content, and email marketing are making it easy for marketers to reach their target audience without going door to door.
Depending on the type of business you’re running, the sources of compiling leads are going to vary. So drawing leads from blogs, social media posts, and shared articles are great for people who prefer written content; however, the reality is that mobile video streaming is increasing 100% each year, so it’s one of the most available and effectives avenues to find and convert new leads.
Gated content is the most direct form of lead generation. It involves literally putting a gate on your video before it can be viewed: the gate usually being a form with contact information. As expected, it limits potential views; however, Wisitia’s Turnstile tool has reported a 16% conversion rate on videos with gates at the beginning of their videos (compared to a 3% conversion rate when the form is at the end of the video).
The solution here is simple: Putting your gates in the middle of the video! With a 43% conversion rate, this method succeeds because it actually allows viewers to get to the interest phase of the funnel before they move on to a decision!
The best way to move a lead through the sales funnel is to get them interested in the product. One of the most promising methods of doing so is by incorporating a landing page video. Landing page videos are found all over. They’re the videos that autoplay on pages that you visit, whether it’s Netflix or Amazon. And when it comes to drawing and converting leads, they’re a trusty source of building intrigue.
Like any sales presentation, a video should build trust. As the first thing you see on a site, landing pages need to move quick in order to captivate the viewer. Knowing that 20% of viewers click away from a video in 10 seconds or less, you want to start your video with a proposition that your viewers can’t turn away from.
Emails are a crucial part of the decision phase of the sales funnel because from the sales angle, you want to stay fresh in the customer’s mind and once a contact is made, a follow-up email is a great refresher that may make the difference when converting leads.
According to Hubspot, emails that feature video content increase click rates by 300%. Personalized videos through emails have become a clever way to draw intrigue from your leads and we’re not talking about generic [Insert Name Here] marketing videos. Instead, marketers retain advanced databases that keep track of your potential client’s product/service of interest. A personalized follow-up email may feature a video of such a product that will increase the chances of a click-through, thus making it more likely to convert the lead.
There’s a slim chance of converting leads through video without a call-to-action because calls-to-Action, or CTAs, can come at any point of a video, sometimes even at intervals. What a CTA does is suggest a new path for the viewer to explore. Common CTAs such as “Sign up”, “Get Started”, “Start Your Free Trial”, and “Subscribe Now” are just a few of the many offerings of a call-to-action and the key point is in the placement.
Placing a call-to-action can make the difference between converting leads and letting them slip through the cracks because landing pages, paid ads, and branded feature articles are all great placements for CTAs. But when it comes to CTAs in videos, the options are more interactive and relevant to the content. As Wistia’s turnstile app proved with gates, placing CTAs at various points throughout a video will have the most fruitful impact when converting leads.
The process of converting leads to customers is called a funnel because the shape it takes. In video marketing, videos take a similar shape by starting with an attention-grabbing introduction and followed by informative content to build interest, effective promotional efforts (via email marketing) to spur a buying decision, and a captivating call-to-action. So when people talk about video as a “Must Have”, it may be best to think of video marketing as a super member of your salesforce: drawing in leads and converting them through swift techniques.
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