How To Use Videos As Part Of The Customer-Decision Making Journey

Using videos in your content marketing strategy can be a winning strategy… if you do it right.

There are many benefits to using content marketing to build your business and your brand, but using video is a whole different matter. Video can be done well and drive traffic and sales, or it can turn out to be an expensive indulgence that doesn’t amount to much.

Which is why it all comes down to your ideas and your execution. If done right, you can use video as part of your customer-decision making journey to maximise your sales. Here’s our advice on how you can turn a quick video into a profit-making machine.

Say something, do something

The easiest way to encourage a customer into a sale is to show them how their life will be improved by your product or service. The big mistake many people make is to TELL rather than SHOW. A customer doesn’t watch a video in order to be told what to do — they want to see what they could be doing.

It will be so much more effective to show your customers what you do for them —  otherwise they might as well be reading text. Make it interesting and be careful not to overestimate your audience’s attention spans.

What to show

Once you’ve made the decision to show rather than tell, you need to decide WHAT to show. There is more than one type of video you could commission in order to make a sale. Three of the most popular types are:

• Straightforward ads
• Customer review videos
• How to use our product/service videos

It’s good to vary what you do and see what works best. All companies are different, and what works for someone else may not work for you.

Furthermore, it’s more important than ever to know what tone your customers expect from your brand. A video can say a lot about your brand and you want to make sure everything marries together nicely, from the actors to the background music.

This Twitter video by Pop Tarts is a perfect example of matching video tone to a brand. They have realised that, given their fun product, they have a lot of scope when it comes to making fun videos. They manage to not take themselves too seriously while displaying images of their product throughout.

Increase your conversion rate by using UGC videos

If you really want to connect with your customers in the sales funnel, then you should use user-generated-content (UGC) videos. 50% of your customers trust UGC more than your own branded content – including non-UGC videos.

There is a huge range of apps, tools, and widgets on the market that allow you to source and use suitable UGC videos. One great example is Lobster. Here’s how it works: Lobster acquires licences for countless tagged videos, then you use those tags (as well as the AI-powered parts of the system) to take away a set of hyper-relevant videos to flesh out your content.

For instance, you could hunt down all videos mentioning your brand, and pick out those matching the context. You could also find suitable videos that match the aesthetic you’re going for, helping to make your content feel rich and compelling.

Embedding your video into your sales funnel

In order to effectively use video in the customer-decision making journey, you need to decide exactly where it’s going to fit it on that path. For instance, a video could work at the beginning of the process by raising awareness. You’ll mostly find that type of video on social media, catching someone’s eye and drawing them towards your brand (social media content now plays a key role in business).

These top of the funnel videos need to be short and snappy to capture viewers’ attention —  anywhere between ten seconds and a minute long depending on the nature of the clip. These short videos are perfect to use as promoted posts on Facebook or Twitter to get people to notice you.

Many companies turn to YouTube to collate in-depth videos about their niche, but you need to be careful about what you put on there. Customers will often come across your video having searched for something they want to see or know, so it will be beneficial for both parties if you create content that suits them, slipping in mentions of your product or service only when relevant. Hair product companies are great at doing this, as evidenced by TRESemmé’s tutorial on How To Get Beautiful Boho Waves.

A clothing store will often have difficulty making that final push to complete a sale, as customers have issues trusting that the final result they get will match up with what they see on their screens. Combining product descriptions that mimic how your customers think and talk with videos that show customers what clothes look like when worn complement is the ideal approach.

Take ASOS for example; the brand’s quirky, poetic product descriptions are written to appeal to fashion-loving 20-somethings and with many of their outfits (especially high-profit items), they provide handy video links that show those exact outfits being modelled on catwalks.

Products aren’t the only things you can show off in a video. Webinars and demonstrations are also great for convincing potential customers to buy. Phit-N-Phat is a company that helps women lose weight. Founder Corinne Crabtree has found a way of using Facebook live videos that both her clients and potential clients respond to well.

She responds to people’s questions, giving little snippets of information while selling herself as a mentor and her brand. This makes people want to know more, and want to join her ‘tribe’. If you can find a way of doing this for your business, it will flourish!

Using videos as part of your marketing strategy means getting creative. Use your imagination to make some great videos that work well with your brand. The trick with getting videos right is to start off small, with short snappy videos at the beginning of the customer-decision making journey.

Once you’re feeling accustomed to the production process, you can start working on the longer and more complex webinars and product demonstrations. It’s important to take note of what your audience responds to and what they don’t, and react accordingly. Iteration is key.

About the author

Digital Marketing Consultant and founder of JD Business Marketing.