It's 2023, almost 2024, and video content is booming across social media. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin are continuing to adopt a video-first strategy because short-form video is what their audience wants to watch. This means that the best way to get in front of your desired target audience and engage them is by making more video content. Simple!
Before you go head first into making sales video content you need to take a step back and think about the various stages of your buyers' journey which will be bespoke to your specific business.
To keep things simple we segment the modern buyers' journey into 4 stages - awareness, consideration, decision and customer loyalty.
You should then make video content that aligns with the distinct objectives of each stage of this journey, guiding your prospect from the top of the sales funnel to becoming a loyal returning customer.
In 2024, the integration of video content into your marketing strategy will not only be about creating visually appealing content but also about understanding your audience's evolving needs and preferences. By leveraging the power of video throughout the sales funnel and adapting to emerging trends, you can position your brand for success in the ever-changing digital landscape.
Video only works if it engages the person intended to watch it. To engage a person you first need to understand who they are and what they need or want from you. Once you understand this you can develop video production content that is relevant to their needs and motivations at each stage of the buyers journey.
The best way to do this is to develop your audience personas. These are essentially avatars that see your various buyer segments as real human beings with real life problems, purpose, motivations and aspirations.
With this deep understanding of your target audience, you can create better video content that will be much more meaningful to your prospect and will connect their problem to your business solution.
The reason a prospect comes into your sales funnel is due to the fact that they have a problem or a need and are researching potential solutions to help them overcome this problem.
At this point of the journey they will likely not know who you or how you can help them - as if they did they would likely come direct to you.
Therefore this stage is about ensuring you show up in their search with video content that raises awareness of who you are, what you offer and how you can solve their problem.
This animation explainer video is targeted at an audience of corporate travel managers. The purpose of the video is to raise awareness of the egencia corporate travel API platform and the value it can bring to the business by streamlining all operations into one single sign on platform integrated into your HR software.
It will be used as part of a paid media campaign across google and linkedin targeting this specific target audience persona and role.
The prospect at the consideration stage now knows who you are and how you can help them. At this point they will be comparing solutions and determining which business is the best fit to serve their needs so they will require video production content that educates them in greater detail on the products and services that you offer.
The purpose of this screen recording video is to show the prospect the features and benefits of the Egencia platform and how to navigate it.
At this point in the sales funnel the prospect is considering various other corporate travel platforms so its important to show them what the UX looks like and how to use it.
At this stage in the buyers journey they will have refined their selection down to two products or services that best suit their needs but need that final push in helping them to cross over the line.
This is the point in the journey where you need to create video content that foster trust and credibility. We particularly favour video content at this stage where you can prove your worth and show the value you have brought to other similar clients and customers.
In this customer testimonial video we meet Megan a corporate travel manager working for Expedia talking about the challenges she faced in her role and how partnering with Expedia helped her to resolve this.
The purpose of this video is to enable the viewer to see themselves and their problems through the voice of Megan. By being able to relate to a real person in a similar role who has seen value from the aprtnership helps the company build trust in the eye of the customer and potentially secure a sale.
At the beginning when you are developing your video marketing strategy, funnel, audience personas, you should also plan where you are going to share each video that you make to ensure that people coming into contact with your brand at the various stages of the sales funnel have a video that is relevant to their needs at that point in time.
The choice of platforms can significantly influence the reach and effectiveness of your video marketing efforts. Consider the platforms where your target audience spends their time, aligning your video content accordingly.
Tailoring your distribution strategy to suit each stage of the sales funnel ensures that your video content is always relevant and maximises its potential to drive conversions and boost your sales.
With awareness video production content you want to reach a large audience of potential prospects who are seacrching for solutions that you can support with.
Because your audience may not know of you or what you offer its all about sharing your video content proactively across social media and paid ads targeting people similar to that of your intended audience persona.
When deciding which social media platform to share your video on its important to know where your target audience hangs out online and their key interests. So platforms like Linkedin work really well for B2B sales videos and software whereas Instagram works really well for highly visual product videos and stories.
At this stage in the sales funnel you have already captured your target audience attention and if they are interested enough to find out more they may have provided their email from which you can send out lead nurting video content on email newsletters and direct them to dedicated landing pages
At this stage in the buyers journey the prospect will likely have had human contact with a member of your sales team and using trust building video content such as customer testimonials is a great way to build out your sales toolkit to show the value of what you do.
You could also dedicate a page on your website to customer success story videos and FAQs.
Video content is vrey much a design, test and correct medium. To measure the engagement of a video you are looking at metrics like:
If you notice that viewers drop off at a certain timeframe then you want to adjust your video content strategy for the future by making you videos shorter and making sure you get to the point and call to action sooner.
We always recommend trying to be clear in the first 8 seconds of video on what your video is about and ultimately what you viewer will get out of watching this video.
A great video marketing strategy starts with first understanding where you are and ultimately where you want to be. Be clear with your video production company on what you want to achieve with video and why you are doing this. They can help you create a suite of video assets that will align with every stage of your sales funnel and carry out the desired objectives that you need it to do to compete for that all important viewer attention.
Ultimately adding video content to your marketing strategy is going to provide a richer buyer experience and foster great customer advocates for the future.
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