Video has been widely adopted by many companies as a crucial part of content marketing, as the next best way to engage and delight their audience segments. Research shows that nearly 70% of consumers want to watch short product demo videos to learn more about services and products. Similarly, more than four out of five said they decided to make a purchase based on a brand's video. -- which is significantly more than any other type of content.
Not only do videos help nurture customers throughout the buying process, they also build trust with your audience, help improve your SEO efforts, provide a way to show customers how a specific product can benefit them and how to use it. And significantly reduce your site's bounce rate.
Here are tips for utilizing video in the digital marketing process to engage and convert potential customers:
1. Develop a long-term video strategy
A big mistake many companies make when producing video is to invest a lot of time and money into creating high-quality branded or social media video content and then never use it again. Creating video content takes time and, more importantly, consistency.
To produce video content that consumers actually want to watch, it's best to start planning your video ideas months in advance. This will give your team the time they need to research, write, record and edit the video. The more you plan, the less likely you are to make mistakes.
2. Provide Valuable Content at Every Stage of the Purchase
Producing highly targeted videos for each stage of the purchase is key to converting and retaining new customers. This means you must create video content that effectively engages and benefits your customer base.
Prospects in the "attract" stage are at the beginning of the buying process. They're identifying the problems they face and how best to address those challenges. At this stage, you want to avoid talking too much about your product. Instead, focus on sharing how you can help solve their biggest problems.
During the "engagement" phase of the purchase, the video you create should focus on building a lasting relationship with the prospect.
Finally, the "Benefit" phase is all about delivering an exceptional customer experience and turning your customers into brand advocates who will be happy to tell their friends about your product and company. A great post-purchase experience provides the ability to upsell another product or service and gives the user the opportunity to trust your brand.
3. Convey industry content, not just promote your brand
If you're trying to attract new business leads, you're going to have to do more than just create a branding video about how great your company is. With an educational video that showcases your deep industry expertise, you can build trust with potential customers and establish yourself as an authority in your specific field. After all, we're constantly being marketed to by generic marketing tactics that can become aesthetically fatiguing. Your target audience prefers to witness the value of your brand through the content you create, rather than being "marketed" to.
Just like articles, videos should be created to advance the content on your website that you are trying to drive conversions.
4. Show your emotions where appropriate
Emotion is a tool that should be used in all marketing campaigns, and video content is no exception. In fact, video is one of the best ways to make your audience feel something about your brand, product or service. A great example of using emotion in video content is a mix of branded and customer testimonial videos.
Testimonial videos provide real-world use cases about how your product or service can benefit your customers. Just like when you're looking to buy a product online, checking out what customers have to say about the brand gives you some more credibility.
On the other hand, branded videos can give you insight into the type of company you work for. By using branded videos, you can connect with your customers. Even if customers get similar products elsewhere, they will prioritize your company's brand.
Wherein, friendly customer service is usually more important than the products you sell.
Because of the growing demand for more video content, companies can no longer rely solely on written content to attract customers. Producing videos may seem complicated at first, but there are many free production tools that can help make the transition easier.
What you need to be aware of is that you have to turn your attention to measuring different metrics. Just like SEO, video creation has more of an active part in the process, so make sure your goal setting is one that identifies the desired results to be achieved.
By utilizing these four tips for creating marketing videos, your company will ultimately build greater brand awareness, brand loyalty, and more conversions for your products and services.