Enhance Your Marketing Funnel with Video

Regardless of the industry you work in, products you offer, or the size of your business, you will undoubtedly have a marketing funnel that all of your customers have gone through in one way or another. These funnels describe your customer’s journey from discovering your business, all the way to becoming a happy customer. This journey has become more complex than ever due to the amount of information now available to consumers on the internet. People do more research than ever before and have become more methodical buyers. A successful business needs engaging content that cuts through the noise and draws people into the top of the funnel. But the challenge doesn’t stop there. To get these potential customers moving towards the ultimate goal of converting into a customer, it’s essential to serve the right kind of content at the right time. Establishing your ideal marketing funnel is a great way to map out this content and when and where it appears. 

If you look into marketing funnels you’ll quickly discover that there’s no one model that has been universally agreed. Considering that each business is unique, we don’t think this is a bad thing. Adjusting your funnel to suit your target audience will make it more effective for your business. You may already know the path that your customers take, or you may need to spend some time establishing this. Looking into Google Analytics can be really useful to gain some understanding of how your customers interact with, and move through, your website. In the right industry, simply talking to your customers could also be extremely useful. For the sake of this post we’ll be covering the following stages:

• Awareness, 
• Interest/Consideration, 
• Action

Video fits into every stage of the decision making process. It’s all about connecting the right content with the right people at the right time. While this isn’t a new marketing concept, it’s still one of the most important! As always with marketing funnels, the key is to think about the user experience and human decision making process at each stage. What do they want to know and how you can give it to them?

Let’s break down how you can utilise video and what types of content you’ll need at each stage of the conversion process.

AWARENESS

The top of the funnel is when your customers are discovering that you exist. Your potential customers have a problem and you have the solution, you just haven’t met yet. As a marketer it’s your job to make the introductions. Your goal at this stage is to raise brand awareness rather than make a sale. Gaining exposure and engaging your target audience are key. Focus on creating a strong first impression which entices audiences to find out more. If you are going to include a call to action (CTA), it wants to be around attracting your audience to visit your website (ideally an optimised landing page) to discover more. Videos which make a big visual impact and resonate with your target audience’s values and interests work well here. Entertaining and inspirational videos work wonders on social media for grabbing attention and introducing your brand. 

Our series of short animations for SHO were developed specifically to have a huge visual impact and stop social scrollers. The bright nature of the product explodes into screens with stunning visuals and mesmerising, sleek animation as the bottles dance around. 

Video can equally pack a punch, like this high-energy promotional video for Rutland Cycling. The fast pace gets viewers adrenaline pumping whilst stopping them in their tracks and demanding attention. 

Measurement: At this stage you want to keep an eye on reach and view count. These metrics will give you a good indication of how many people have been shown your video and how many have actually watched it. Be careful as how the view count is calculated varies across platforms. You can find out more about this in our handy guide to measuring the success of your video campaigns.

INTEREST/ CONSIDERATION

Once someone knows you exist, it’s now your job to show them how your product or service solves their problem and what makes you different to the competition. You’re now looking to build a closer relationship and nurture leads. This period within the decision making process is very much an exploratory stage, so your content needs to be more informative. The things that make you different are what are important here. 

Product or service videos work well at this stage of the funnel, more specifically, explainer videos! An explainer video is typically an educational and entertaining video which explains what your product offers and what problem it solves for your customers and (importantly) why it’s the best option on the market. While they all serve a similar purpose, explainer videos can come in many forms. Character animations are great at generating a strong emotional bond with your audience and helps them relate with the message.

TIP: Customise your characters around your target audience (style, behaviour, age, etc.). Find out more about explainer videos.

Our IMEC Cadet animation is a beautiful example of an effective character animation (if we do say so ourselves). Every aspect was carefully designed to appeal to IMEC’s target audience for this campaign. The bespoke character is central to the video, presenting a relatable persona. The character’s journey is followed throughout the video, mirroring the viewers ambitions and potential, showing how they could become a reality through the IMEC Cadet Training Programme.

If your company offers a service which involves working directly with your team, it can be valuable to create a video which gives customers a glimpse inside your company culture and introduces them to the team. The video below for Bathroom Brands offers a unique look behind the scenes at their UK showroom, giving viewers an insight into their culture and creating a bond beyond a purely transactional relationship.

TIP: This type of video can also double as a recruitment campaign by showing potential employees that your company is an exciting place to work.

Measurement: Time spent watching. Get a good picture of how many people meaningfully engaged with your video, not just to ones who were shown it but scrolled on past. This metric is often represented as “engagement” and typically shows a percentage watched of the video (e.g. 90% = on average, viewers watched 90% of your video). This gives you a nice indication of how long people have stuck around to watch your video, and therefore how relevant and interesting they find your content.

ACTION

By now, you’re well and truly in the running (congrats!) Potential customers have whittled it down to just a few options and discarded those that aren’t a good fit. However, there can still only be one winner. So, how do we get these potential customers across the finishing line? By tapping into their psychology…

Our decision making process is heavily influenced by emotion, and what gets us right in the feels? A real-life story! Otherwise known within the marketing world as social proof. Testimonials and case studies finally get their time to shine. Videos offer an impactful way to present social proof, viewers feel closer to those presenting their story than with just text. Seeing and hearing previous customers share their experiences provides a level of authenticity which simply can’t be achieved in any other format. How the testimonial is filmed and edited will make a huge difference to its success. They should be personable, interesting and offer a genuine insight into your service or product.

Social proof isn’t limited just to B2C companies, if you’re in the B2B world check out the video below. Our in-house film team have collaborated with several Autodesk clients to showcase the industry-leading software in action, however, the main purpose of these videos is to let the client do the talking (and selling!). Hear first-hand how architecture and design giant Foster + Partners are able to achieve brilliance with Autodesk’s innovative technology.

Product demonstration videos are another extremely powerful tool for moving a prospective customer from browser to buyer. Offering demo videos of your product or service gives you the chance to directly answer any questions your prospective customers may have. Use demo videos to showcase the unique features and benefits without feeling like a sales pitch. By making viewers comfortable with the product and overcoming skepticism about the results it can deliver, the selling process is made significantly easier. Not only will product demo videos highlight the quality and ease of use of your product, they’re also a great SEO tool. These videos will help get you in front of all of those people searching “how to…” “what’s the best way to…” etc, etc. Positioning your product or service as the perfect solution!

We talk more about testimonial and demo videos in our blog “5 Ways to Increase Conversions Using Video”.

Measurement: Conversions. This could mean many things to you; newsletter signups, a sale, event booking, contact form submission, the list goes on. Adding tags (called UTM parameters) to the link within or alongside your video allows you to track these specific clicks within Google Analytics. You can find out more about UTM parameters in our handy guide to measuring the success of your video campaigns.

TIP: Depending on which platform your video is being distributed on, you can make use of adding links within your video directly to your app download or newsletter sign-up.

ADDITIONAL FACTORS

Loyalty & Advocacy

In this paper we’ve focused on the marketing funnel up to the point of sale, however many marketing professionals will extend their funnel to include stages for “Loyalty” and “Advocacy”. These stages are key for repeat customers and referrals. It’s easy to think that your job as a marketer is done once you’ve accomplished the goal of attaining a customer, however retention is just as important. 

If you can continue and nurture the relationship with your customers beyond the point of sale, you’re opening the door to up-selling, repeat purchases and (this is the holy grail…) customers becoming your advocate. When customers become an advocate of your product or brand you’ve hit the jackpot and gone full circle within the marketing funnel. Your customers are now recommending you within their social circle (awareness raising, aka stage 1), they’re also providing direct social proof through their recommendation as they talk about their experience (testimonial, aka stage 3). The best part? This is all for free! So it’s easy to see why investing some time in nurturing your existing customers is beneficial.

In addition to recommendations within their own social circles, the customers within these stages are also needed to generate those all-important testimonials, reviews and case studies that we discussed within the interest/consideration phase.

As a marketer you’ll want to squeeze every last bit of value out of your marketing spend and that’s exactly what investing in existing customers will achieve. By turning customers into loyal or advocate customers, you’re maximising the return on investment (ROI) from the marketing that originally got them into the top of your funnel. 

Time 

When developing video content it can also be helpful to consider the time prospective customers are willing to invest in your content at each stage of the marketing funnel. At the start, they’ll have very little time. We hate to say it but at this point you’re one of possibly thousands of voices all shouting for their attention. As they get to know you they’ll be happy to devote more time to investigate what it is you’re offering and build trust. Once this trust has been established and they move further down the funnel, the time they spend on your content will start to shorten again as they finalise their decision. 

This will impact the type of content you want to use at each stage. While it’s tempting to throw every little detail at prospective clients right away, this isn’t what they want. Instead of featuring long case studies on your landing page, consider featuring key product features in an easy to digest format (what’s that you say, like a video?) If they’re interested they’ll move on through to the next stage where loads more content will be waiting for them.

In conclusion, video not only has a place in your marketing funnel but has the power to improve your customer journey and enhance your marketing. If you start to apply the recommendations and insights we’ve outlined in this paper, you’ll soon have a fully integrated video strategy within your funnel. Keeping your buyer’s journey in mind when building any marketing strategy can help shape content of all shapes and sizes to be as optimised and effective as possible.

Now you’ve got an idea of the type of video you need, let’s get creating it! Our in-house team of producers, directors, animators and motion designers are on-hand to work as an extension of your marketing team to handcraft the perfect video for your message and audience. Get in touch with us today.