No, it’s not as simple as making a single video and getting a herd of new customers pounding on your door the very next day. Using video marketing is a process that must be nurtured and takes a little patience but if done right can lead to incredible results for both you and your customer. In this article, we’ll talk about the sales process and how to use video at each step to convert a potential customer one step farther into the sales funnel until they become a loyal customer.
The Sales Funnel
There are a lot of different sales funnel models out there but using a basic model will cover most if not all the steps in more complex models. Here’s the one we’ll be using.
A successful video marketing campaign will touch on all these points in this specific order. You simply cannot have a stranger jump to making a sale with a single video. It’s not possible and this is the mistake many brands make when developing a video marketing campaign. Each step must build on the last for any person to be comfortable making a purchase.
The reason they call this a funnel is that a lot goes in but few come out. For example, if you start by making 1000 people aware of your brand, you might get 100 to interact. Then of those 100, 25 stick around to grow a relationship until 5 decide to make the purchase of your product.
Where does video fit into each step?
Each step of this sales funnel requires a different message and possibly different kinds of video altogether. Let’s take a look at each one individually and what works best in those videos.
Make strangers aware of your brand.
Once a stranger comes in contact with your brand they likely got there through paid advertising or search at this point so you have less than 1 min to make the introduction that they’ll remember.
The kinds of videos that work best here are short videos that quickly highlight a problem people have and the solution in your product. As with most videos in this sales funnel, the story should be the central element. Stay away from details and specifications at this point and focus solely on being a serious option for a problem the viewer has. To make sure the viewer connects with the video try to keep things from their point of view.
Check out how we made people aware of Tonic Studios at this link.
Generate Interaction
At this step, social media is incredibly useful. People are now aware of your brand and started following you on one channel or another. Now it’s time to engage with the viewer, get them to like, share and talk about your product and video content with others.
The type of video that works best here is again, short. However this time, people are aware of what you do and are following you so you’ll also be able to dive a little deeper with your story. Since your goal is to create interaction, this should be an emotional story (hilarious, sad, joyful, scary, etc…) that stays away from being dull or boring. Those kinds of videos rarely get shared by more than the company’s CEO. Take a look at this video by Sam Adams, it’s funny, smart but most of all, it’s been viewed about 1.2 million times more than their average video of about 5k views.
Build Trust
At this step, the user has built up quite a bit of interest in your product. They’re aware, they’re interacting, now what? At this step people are close to purchasing but are either waiting for the right time or they’re still not completely convinced so you must grow that trust with your videos in this step.
This is where you can use longer format videos like testimonials, interviews, case studies, process or company culture videos. Nothing builds trust like honesty and transparency.
Make sale
The next and most important step is to make the sale. Once you get to this step you’re now trusted and considered a great option. So there’s just one more thing needed here, the final details.
The video for this step would be shown on a product page and would be meant to give those final details. These details could be things like what your product is made of, available colors, correct usage, dimensions, etc. think about the Apple product demos. Great glamor shots with inspiring voiceover goes a long way to give your viewer any final reassurances before they take the next step.
Reward loyalty
Where most marketers stop at the “Make sale” step, there’s still more to build on after that. 40% of sales come from repeat customers. So this step should definitely not be ignored.
The video that works best here is one that thanks them, tells them about causes their money may have gone to, inspires the usage of your product or even apologizes for a mistake. (Hopefully, that’s not something you have to do though)
Video is a very versatile medium that allows people to consume content much faster than written content. While written content is still very important to marketing, using video at each step of the sales process can be the element that connects everything together. Focusing on each of these steps individually will make your customer experience more enjoyable and best of all, make you more sales.
Learn more about video strategy here.
