You finally see the leads coming. There is a strategy in place and it’s showing promise. Unfortunately, qualified leads don’t always equal conversions, do they? That’s just a part of the journey, but maintaining a relationship and keeping the communication going will help you get to the finish line.
Nurturing your leads is one of the essential parts of the sales funnel and it plays a role in getting the buyer from awareness to decision, making that path as smooth as possible. You need to listen to the prospects and return with information that will address all of their concerns, while also providing additional value in the process.
That’s where the video comes in. Unlike other complicated formats, such as whitepapers and long e-books, videos can provide you with an attractive way to get your message across, boosting engagement in the process. Using visual content is an all-around good idea, as the viewers are more receptive to it, especially when you take the time to understand your buyer personas and show them something that can really make a difference. Let’s take a look at 4 areas you can improve on that will turn your lead into a sale. Intro
Photo by Maxim Ilyahov on Unsplash
Match stages of buyer’s journey with the appropriate content
If you put in the effort to create memorable content, we’re sure you can’t wait to show it to everybody. But, even though it can be quite a challenge, you need to pace yourself and provide the prospects with the right videos at the right time to make them as effective as possible.
Nurturing leads is mostly perceived as the middle part of the marketing funnel, where it’s all about forming trust and engagement incentives. However, each buyer is at a different stage of that funnel and your aim should be to conclude which piece of content is going to resonate the most at a particular step along the way to the purchase.
Think about a lead that just started researching a free beginners’ guide. They most likely aren’t ready to see your shining product demo just yet. On the other hand, someone who’s already seen your brochure could use some more in-depth knowledge. When you start thinking about the phases your leads are going through, you’ll quickly pick up on the cues to proceed with sharing various types of videos.
- Beginning of the funnel (newsletter subscription or a message response) – As this step doesn’t show any purchase intent, you need to reach out to them with something simple. You don’t want to drive them away by dropping a five-minute case study this early in the communication. A short educational video or a FAQ-themed one about your business can make the leads realize that you could help them with their problems.
- Middle of the funnel (researching the available options) – After they move on from the starting points, buyers are going to look into product overviews, comparisons and seek out anything that can help them make an informed decision. This is the right time to drop a video that will steer them towards a positive outcome. Even though it’s still too soon to go full-on into selling in this phase, you should introduce them to some company-related content. Also, an in-depth service or product explainer can now come into play and help them see the problem-solving potential.
- End of the funnel (ready to commit) – As the remaining leads get closer to their decision, that’s the best moment to get specific. Most of the buyers don’t decide based only on your words, no matter how persuasive you get. This is fine because now you can stop holding back and introduce the detailed content that you love. Share video testimonials, with another brand or other customers sharing their experience with your brand. That way they need to just take your word. Another video type that fits into this phase is case studies. Use them to show the direct results of your work and close the deal by showing the success you can help them achieve.
Personalize the content as often as possible
Personalization is not just a buzzword or a made-up trend. It’s a tool that will help you get the most value out of the qualified leads. Even though it’s often viewed superficially, personalized communication isn’t just based on inserting the prospect’s name into a template.
Your goal is to provide the prospects with something specific. Make the effort to hear them out and follow up with individually created videos that are targeted to an individual lead. This part doesn’t have to rely on production values. If this sounds too demanding don’t worry. You don’t need a big budget or a professional crew to create engaging content. Just the effort of establishing a personal connection will make the prospect feel more engaged and more likely to continue the communication on a regular basis.
If time and/or production resources are an issue, you can also use a platform that specializes in creating personalized videos so you can stand out and drive more engagement, resulting in an eventual sale. Even if you do have production capabilities, when the leads start rolling in larger bases can become quite challenging to handle. At this point, a platform like this would come in handy to help you with creating a campaign based on specific parts of your marketing funnel that we talked about earlier.
Photo by Maxim Ilyahov on Unsplash
Integrate videos with newsletters and marketing automation
When we’re talking about leads and emails, we just can’t sidestep the newsletters. They are a great way to provide useful and engaging content and keep the communication going.
Video content should become one of the staples of your continuous communication, taking into consideration all of the checkpoints of the journey we talked about so far.
Marketing automation video email marketing are a perfect fit, as this match provides you with the possibility to align and provide the right content at the right time. Segment your bases and keep in mind both the buyer personas and their current spot in the cycle.
Another important note is not to make access to the content difficult. Prospects shouldn’t jump through hoops just to see your videos, so don’t add too many additional steps in between clicking through the email and engaging with the content.
Leverage data
Whether it’s the emails or your website, it should go without saying that you need to pay close attention to how your videos perform. Use your marketing automation platform and CRM to keep track of your prospects’ viewing habits and go on from there. There are some essential metrics to track here:
- Take note of the traffic – notice which of your videos receive the most views and where the viewers come from. Even if you don’t have a video analytics setup, this is also applicable to the click-through rate for your emails that contain videos. Compare them and filter out the best.
- Track visits-to-play ratio – if the videos are hosted on your website, you should always take note of how many visitors actually watched them. A low ratio can indicate that they are “hidden” on the page or not easily playable, so this can prompt you to examine the user experience.
- Notice the average watch time – this metric can be really helpful when creating future content, especially if you host the videos on YouTube. It can show you the exact points you lose your potential buyers.
A/B testing is important when it comes to the video content approach, so don’t hesitate to experiment in order to find the best way that works for you and nurturing your leads. A good way to get the most out of your videos is splitting them up so the format doesn’t stay the same way between channels. A shorter snippet of a video from your website can go a long way when it’s placed in an email to a prospect that’s in the middle of their journey.
You should also consider various ways of distribution – paid social media ads and promoting on YouTube can bring you further success in keeping the communication alive. Just remember to segment your audience and cater to various types of your prospects.
Putting it all together
The road gets only more challenging as you are closing in on the end of the sales funnel. However, when you put in the effort to communicate effectively with your users and provide them with genuine content that can be both useful and engaging, it improves your chances dramatically.
A video is a tool that can become irreplaceable in your strategy and something that’s a guaranteed way to nurture leads and see them coming out on the other side as closed deals.
You don’t need to overextend and create something unique every single time. But you do need to take a good look at your prospects, channels and materials, and find those that match.
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