The Best Video Content for Every Step of the Marketing Funnel

What has this got to do with video content marketing? How this encourages leads down the funnel: By offering your target audience a surprisingly emotional and informative experience, you’re giving them value while asking for nothing in return. But those emails are also more effectively encouraging your leads to click through to more content, more offers, and more likelihood of moving further down the funnel. A product or service video. How this encourages leads down the funnel: Visualizing yourself using a product or service before you buy is a powerful thing. And all you need is a product or service video to help your audience move down the funnel this way. Case Study or Testimonial Videos Once your potential customers get far enough into their research, they will eventually want to know what experiences others have had with your product or service. Plus, the effects of social proof are increased with visual reinforcement, making leads more likely to trust the recommendation and move further down the funnel. An instructional or demonstration video, with plain but in-depth educational advice on how to use your product or service, will go a long way towards proving your trustworthiness to leads. Customer Thank You Videos That’s right, video content marketing even goes beyond the funnel.

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The Best Video Content for Every Step of the Marketing Funnel

Take yourself back to your childhood chemistry lessons. I bet at least once your teacher droned on about how heating up a substance would make the particles in it move faster.

What has this got to do with video content marketing?

Here’s the picture: Your marketing funnel is that substance your teacher was telling you about. All the leads inside it are those particles, bouncing around.

How do you make those leads speed up and move down the funnel faster? Well, it’s simple. You just need to energize the situation.

How Video Content Energizes Your Funnel

Video content can help raise the heat on your marketing funnel.

We all know that content marketing is about creating valuable content tailored to your audience. It should attract, engage, and convert your potential customers. Basically, it should encourage them to move down the funnel. But have you tried using video as part of your content marketing to speed up that process?

This post will give you 13 examples of how video content can be used throughout your entire marketing funnel (and beyond!) to market to your target audience—and keep them moving even faster towards purchase.

A little icon indicating the top of the marketing funnel.
A little icon indicating the top of the marketing funnel.

Top of Funnel

Your potential customers are experiencing a problem or a need, and are researching more so they can fully understand and put a name to it.

1. Brand Films

The aim of these promotional videos is to share your values, mission, and ultimately your brand with your target audience. With video, you can get your brand across through visuals, sound, and storytelling in ways that would be impossible for any other medium.

As if you need an excuse to watch it again:

Volvo’s brand film works so well for several reasons:

  • It tells an engaging story (through an interesting narrator).
  • It looks and sounds incredible and awe-inspiring.
  • It expresses the values of the brand: pushing the limit, precision, expertise.
  • The brand products and their benefits are included in a minor yet relevant way.

How this encourages leads down the funnel:

We all want to spend time with people we like. We all want to buy from companies whose values align with our own.

When first catching the attention of your target audience, you’re more likely to forge that initial relationship by focusing less on your products and services and more on your core values.

As Simon Sinek put it in his awesomely inspirational TED talk, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

So when your potential audience finds your highly effective brand film while researching their need, they’re more likely to remember your brand and feel compelled to find out more.

2. Educational and How-To Videos

People love having their questions answered and being taught new things. They especially love it when they’re in the top of your marketing funnel and explicitly looking for more information. That’s why educational videos in content marketing have become so popular—they offer real value to your audience that they can apply to their everyday lives.

In the SEO world, it’s an area Moz have found great success with in their Whiteboard Friday videos:

These videos gives Moz’s target audience unique, remarkable and highly actionable advice.

They’re also:

  • Quick and simple.
  • Delivered in a personable, entertaining way.
  • From a trustworthy source.

How this encourages leads down the funnel:

When your target audience finds the content you’re producing genuinely helpful, you’ve begun earning their trust. And once you’ve started that process, you’ve created a strong link to your business or brand.

When they trust you, your potential customers are more likely to see you as an authority and return to you for more help in the future. From there, you’ve got a great recurring hook to keep those leads moving down the funnel. (And did you know that when people trust a brand, 78% of them will look to it first for the things they want?)

3. Video Documentaries

Video documentaries used in content marketing are a relatively new phenomenon, but they’re becoming more and more popular. And with good reason: just like educational videos, documentaries teach your target audience something new—but they do it in a more comprehensive, story-driven, and stylistic way. Think of them as a mash-up of brand films and educational videos.

Take a look at this documentary about worn clothing by Patagonia for a wonderful example:

By focusing in-depth on an interesting and unusual subject (where the real spotlight is on the stories rather than their products), Patagonia succeeded at:

  • Intriguing their audience and drawing them in.
  • Reinforcing their brand values.
  • Presenting themselves as a thought leader.

How this encourages leads down the funnel:

By offering your target audience a surprisingly emotional and informative experience, you’re giving them value while asking for nothing in return. That doesn’t just position your business or brand as an expert on the topic in question (with solid values and beliefs to boot)—it also sets up the expectation that leads can return to you at any time for more valuable content.

On average, it takes 10 marketing-driven “touches” before a top of funnel lead will turn into a customer. High-value video content marketing keeps your potential customers returning time and time again. (highlight to tweet)

4. Entertaining or Emotional Short Videos

Short pieces of video content used to engage, amuse, and affect audiences have exploded in popularity over the last few years. They’re often used in places where quick content is preferred, like on social media (think Vines and short YouTube videos).

Here’s a hypnotically creative example from Samsung:

This snackable, short-form video content works because it creates a short burst of emotion in the target audience. Unlike educational videos, the goal isn’t necessarily to teach. It’s to make the audience feel something. Really, this emotion can be anything. Most often it’s one or more of the following:

How this encourages leads down the funnel:

I’m sure you know the old saying, “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

And it’s true. If there’s one way to effectively engage with your audience and make sure they remember you, it’s to make them feel something. Studies have shown that emotions strengthen our memories. So if you make your potential customers feel a certain way, they’re more likely to recall your brand and return to you in the future.

5. Explainer Videos or Animations

When it does come time to introduce your product or service, an explainer video is first choice for many businesses and brands. These quick, simple videos (or frequently, animations) are great at explaining topics plainly and succinctly.

Just take a look at this snazzy animation from budgeting tool Mint:

This explainer animation is effective because it:

  • Doesn’t delve too deep into the product at this point in the funnel.
  • Emphasizes the target audience’s pain point.
  • Gets across the brand’s look, tone, and values.
  • Shows screenshots of the product in action.

How this encourages leads down the funnel:

Eventually you need to stop charming these potential customers at the top of the funnel and start moving them onto the middle of the funnel.

How do you do this? Well, if your leads are ready to move on, they will have gathered enough information about their problem or need. They should be willing to start considering solutions.

That’s when your explainer video or animation can present your solution. And if that video is clear, simple, visually appealing and reflective of your brand, you’re already strides ahead of the competition in your target audience’s minds.

A little icon indicating the middle of the marketing funnel.
A little icon indicating the middle of the marketing funnel.

Middle of Funnel

Your potential customers have clearly defined their problem or need, and are now researching all the available options for solving it.

6. Videos in Email

At this stage of the funnel, it’s time to really nurture those leads. This is frequently done through email, but standard email is boring and expected nowadays. By injecting video into your email, you can excite your target audience and differentiate yourself.

Here’s an email newsletter from jewelry retailer Alex and Ani:

videoinemail

Here, video is the focal point of the email. A large thumbnail with a play button encourages leads to…

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