The digital age is in full swing and video has been crowned content king. Cisco published a report that has predicted that by 2022, 82% of all internet traffic will be bee-lining towards video content.
This trend is showing no signs of slowing down. Video is increasingly being used on social media, on landing pages, and as a part of almost every company’s marketing strategy.
The question is, what are the types of videos you need to create that’ll have a substantial impact on your business and get you a high ROI?
The answer: study the buyer’s journey. This will help you identify the direction your video content needs to take and how the content of each video will vary from one stage to the next because of different objectives.
So, what is the buyer’s journey?
Before someone makes a purchase, they go through several stages until they finally turn into a bona fide customer. These stages that a customer goes through are called the buyer’s journey, and there is a considerable level of active research involved.
The buyer’s journey consists of the following stages:
Awareness
The prospect has just become vaguely aware of a problem and wants to better understand what they are experiencing.
Consideration
The prospect has now clearly defined the problem and is researching various possible methods, solutions, and approaches to solve the problem at hand.
Decision
The prospect is now equipped with a list of businesses, vendors, etc. and has a set strategy on how they will solve their problem and make their final purchase decision.
Loyalty
The journey isn’t over once the sale is closed. Companies have to focus on nurturing their relationships with their customers. This is how brand advocates are made.
Every single one of your prospective customers will be at different points in their buyer’s journey.
If you can understand what each person requires at these different stages and focus on solving the problem, you’ll be able to gently nudge potential customers in the right direction.
In this post, we’ll describe how you can create video content that is designed particularly for your prospects at each stage of their buyer’s journey.
This approach has proven to be very successful because 51.9% of marketers, across the world, have stated that video content yields the best ROI.
You can incorporate video content throughout your marketing and PR efforts to support lead generation, customer support, offerings, and on-boarding.
Ready to use video content specifically designed for the buyer’s journey? Read on.
Stage 1: Awareness
The awareness stage also correlates with the Top of the Funnel (ToF). At this stage, buyers have discovered that they are facing a problem and have realized that something is missing. People at this stage are just vaguely aware of your brand.
Prospect characteristics:
- Most general in terms of what they are looking for
- Consists of the coldest audience
- May have some interest in what you do
- Not in a state to convert
- May not bring in the most value
Case study – Beauty Bakerie
Cashmere Nicole launched her cruelty-free and vegan cosmetics brand, Beauty Bakerie, in 2011, with just one item – Cake Pop Lippies.
Fast forward to today, she has built a loyal customer base of millions across the globe.
A year into her ambitions venture, she was diagnosed with cancer and gained a new perspective on life.
Her experience also changed her approach to business.
Nicole was aware of the fact that the industry she chose is focused on ‘self’.
She wanted to flip the narrative and, instead, went into business with an ethical and empathetic mindset.
Nicole wanted people to feel beautiful with ease and have the assurance that her company’s products would have no adverse affects on their health or conscience.
Why choose videos for buyer’s journey – awareness stage
The goal
At this stage of the buyer’s journey, the goal is to educate your prospects and make them aware of your brand or offer.
As a result of video content, marketing teams can expect, on average, a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines.
Once you understand the needs and goals of your prospects at this stage, you can create video content that will resonate with your target audience accordingly.
The goal of this buyer’s journey video is to educate and spark an interest in the viewer’s mind.
According to Hubspot and Wistia’s interactive guide, awareness videos can be expressed and measured with metrics like action rate and share rate.
“
Conversation with customers will increase sales, even if the product or service is never mentioned.
– George Farris
Tip
The videos you create for this stage should have a shareable quality. Awareness videos should increase brand awareness; spark interest in your company, and help drive new traffic to your site.
Metrics
- Action rate: This refers to the number of people that watch your video and then take some form of action, such as clicking on a link.
- Share rate: This refers to the number of shares you get on social media from people who enjoyed your content.
Types of videos
You can experiment with the following:
- Company culture videos
- Trending content
- Promo videos
- Thought leadership videos
- General how-to videos.
Videos in this category have a shareable quality to them and are highly engaging. Here is a video we produced for our own customers that fits into this category.
Stage 2: Consideration
The consideration stage, which also correlates to the Middle of Funnel (MoF), involves the buyer becoming more informed about the various options available that may help solve the problem they are facing.
Prospects at this stage are weighing their options. They are considering the pros and cons of the available solutions and want to decide on what fits their needs best.
Prospect characteristics:
- Consists of a comparatively warmer and more targeted audience
- Interested in the benefits your product or service has to offer
- Medium value
- Has a higher chance of being an MQL
Case study – Beauty Bakerie
Nicole’s digital strategy helped her brand gain traction. In 2014, Beyoncé showed her support and featured the founder, her journey, and the brand on her website as a part of Breast Cancer Awareness month.
Nicole was successfully gaining recognition through Instagram and other social media.
She continued her marketing efforts and began to consider leveraging video content for promotional purposes as well.
For this, she dove into research and looked into video production agencies in the USA that could help her achieve her objectives.
Why choose videos for the buyer’s journey – consideration stage
The goal
Help the prospect with research. Present different options and help the viewer find a solution.
The fact that 85%of the internet audience in the United States watches videos online says a lot about the popularity of video content.
Knowing the key characteristics of buyers at this stage will allow you to prepare videos that will help prospects with their quest for attaining a viable solution.
Focus on presenting the prospect with a range of options and give them reasons to help them deduce that your company has the best solution to offer.
Viewer engagement is the main metric used to analyze how successful your content has been in achieving its objective.
Tip
Videos at this stage should be engaging and useful.
Metrics
- Viewer engagement: The people who like, comment, share, and engage with your video content.
- CTR: The number of visitors who arrived at a website or landing page by following one of your links.
Types of videos
You can experiment with the following
- Webinars and thought leadership content
- explainer videos
- video case studies
- testimonials
Here’s an explainer we made. These types of videos have the ability to make complex ideas easier to understand. They are fun to watch and are normally short; therefore, easy to digest.
Stage 3: Decision
The decision stage lies at the Bottom of the Funnel (BoF), you’re in the endgame now.
If you’ve paid attention to your prospects since the start of their buyer’s journey and have built positive emotional connections along the way, then by this stage your brand positioning will be quite strong.
The customer is now geared towards making a final purchasing decision. As a business, you need to convince these prospects that your product or service is the best available solution that will solve their particular problem.
Prospect characteristics:
- Consists of a very narrow audience
- Has a particular company product in mind
- High value
- Has a willingness to buy
Case study – Beauty Bakerie
After thoroughly researching her options, Nicole decided to work with.
She explained to us what sort of message she wanted to convey to her target audience and how she hoped to move forward with her brand.
We analyzed the problem at hand; thoroughly researched her brand; its values, and the brand image she wanted to project to her audience.
Finally, after plenty of collaboration, we presented her with a high-quality video that would check off all her boxes.
Why choose videos for the buyer’s journey – decision stage
The goal
The main goal is to help educate the prospect and get them to see that you offer the best possible solution for their problem.
According to this source, viewers have been discovered to be 85% more likely to buy a product after watching a video.
Videos at this stage of the buyer’s journey can help give the prospect that extra nudge they need to be swayed into buying that product or service from you.
Your video content should be geared towards informing the target audience about what makes your product exceptional and ideal to solve the problem at hand.
Differentiate your product from competitors and show them the value you have to offer.
As a company, you should also adopt the mindset of wanting to help solve your prospect’s problem. Videos for this stage of the buyer’s journey allow the prospect to commit to a solution.
The main metrics for measuring the success rate of videos at this stage of the buyer’s journey are conversion rate and conversions.
Tip
Provide assurance to your prospect that your company has the best solution for their particular problem.
Metrics
- Conversion rate: This refers to the percentage of viewers or website visitors that complete the goal you had set.
- Conversions: The number of people who complete your set goal.
Types of videos
Here’s what you can experiment with:
- About us videos
- Testimonials
- Explainers
About us videos in particular allow your company to build trust with your audience. This helps roll back the corporate curtains to reveal the people behind the brand.
Here’s a video we produced for Beauty Bakerie. In it, Cashmere Nicole talks about the motivations behind her business and brand.
The video allows consumers to understand the brand’s values and increases awareness regarding the products they offer.
These types of videos could be put up on your website and even on YouTube, Facebook, etc.
Testimonials are a great opportunity for your company to share the impact you’ve had on your past customers. Social proof or ‘wisdom of the crowds’ can be a deciding factor for someone who is looking to commit to making a purchase decision.
Has any particular video intrigued you? If you’d like one made for your your business, hit us up. We’d love to help!
Want a video for your business?
Many marketers discuss the awareness, consideration, and decision stages of the buyer’s journey. But not everyone pays much attention to the last and, perhaps, most important stage: loyalty.
Stage 4: Loyalty
All the effort you’ve been putting in from the top has paid off and you have reaped the benefits of your labor in the form of a sale. So, what’s next?
The sale isn’t the end of the journey; taking care of the customer after the fact is highly important, too.
Paying attention to your customers in this way decreases the chances of buyer’s remorse. Delighted customers may become repeat customers and turn into brand advocates.
This ultimately increases your customers’ lifetime value. Hubspot mentions that existing customers are responsible for 20% of the business’s new sales.
Additionally, it also costs 5 times less to attract and sell to previous customers than it does to acquire a brand new customer.
Buyer characteristics:
- Past customer
- Very high value
- Wants to form a relationship with your company
Case study – Beauty Bakerie
Nicole was delighted with the services we provided. We formed a positive relationship with each other.
We ended up producing another short promotional video for Beauty Bakerie’s Cake Mix foundation launch.
With “Be Better, Not Bitter” as the company motto, we wanted to create something fun and upbeat that captured the brand’s personality in less than a minute.
Why choose videos for the buyer’s journey – loyalty stage
The goal
Build relationships, ensure customer delight and transform them into brand advocates. Videos are a great way for companies to express their creativity and personality.
This helps build trust and credibility in the minds of the viewers. People, with their busy lives and an infinite sea of content on the web to sort through, are increasingly turning to videos a source of information and entertainment.
The facts are in favor of videos. This means that companies would benefit from leveraging this type of content in the loyalty stage, too.
Tip
Show your customers that you value them.
Metric
- Viewer engagement
Types of videos
Video email, thank you videos, exclusive video content that allows your customers to make the best out of their purchase, etc. are great examples that serve a great purpose at this stage.
- Video emails stand out more and are memorable. If you send your customers a sales follow-up email, incorporate video into it.
- Thank you videos are a great way for companies to show their customers that they care. These types of videos leave a positive impact.
- Product-focused how-to videos that allow users to have the best experience with their product or service.
So you made it this far, congratulations! Now that you’re at the end of your journey, you can look back and put things into perspective.
Looking back will allow you to see the areas that could use some improvement. A great way to optimize your videos for the buyer’s journey is through testing.
With testing, you’ll be able to understand what appeals to your target audience and how you could use that information to create videos that motivate, inspire, and encourage positive connections.
You could test the following elements when it comes to making videos for the buyer’s journey:
- CTAs
- Colors
- Headlines, titles, messages
- Layout and design
Bonus tip
For a more methodical approach, you could use the MECLABS‘ conversion index sequence. This will allow you to create videos for your buyer’s journey that convert and perform well.
C = 4m + 3v + 2(i-f) – 2a
For more details about this method and a more thorough explanation regarding the variables and constants involved, click here.
If you decide to plan your video marketing strategy around the buyer’s journey, we’d love to know how it performs. Feel free to share your experience in the comments.
