How to Close More Sales and Boost Your Bottom Line Using Video Content
Closing a sale these days is no longer as simple as it used to be. Traditional ads and hard selling don’t work on the average consumer today, which is why salespersons constantly need to up the ante to start selling big. In this ever-changing business landscape, video content has emerged as one of the best methods for driving sales. Any brand that’s yet to use video is missing out on the potential to tap into a huge market and build a loyal audience that ensures the continued success of their business.
Here are a few quick facts about the importance of video marketing in 2018:
- 62% of consumers pay more attention to videos than written and audio content
- 65% of consumers aged 18 to 24 strongly prefer videos
- 53% of consumers want to see more video content in the future
- 43% of consumers find videos more memorable than text and photo content
Video isn’t a trendy blip. The data gathered shows that it is in demand, and most likely, is here to stay. To become digitally competitive, brands ought to embrace this powerful online marketing strategy.
However, video marketing isn’t as easy as it seems. There’s more to it than hiring an explainer video for business to produce content and publish it on your website. You need to make the content that prospects want to consume.
What is the Customer Journey?
It is the roadmap that documents the full experience of being a customer. It details how consumers become aware of the brand, how they interact with it, and how they come to decide to purchase a product or service from it. The buyer’s journey is divided into three phases.
- Awareness. This stage starts the moment consumers realize a need that must be fulfilled. When prospects become aware of the brand and it becomes established that they have a need for your business, the lead enters the awareness stage.
- Consideration. At this point, prospective customers begin to scout for a variety of solutions to fulfill that need. They start to look at all of the available solutions, and they begin to eliminate the products or services that they believe can’t deliver what they want.
- Decision. After weighing all their options, consumers decide to pursue the solution that they deem is fit to satisfy that need. They have identified the best solution and are now trying to see who’s ready to help.
Consumers absorb content differently. But their mindset greatly depends on the stage they are at in the buyer’s journey. Take for example: a prospect who has never heard of the brand might not want to watch the same videos as someone who’s trying to decide if they want to make a purchase or not.
For each stage, you need to provide consumers with specific information to help them move forward to the next phase. Let’s say you made an animated
explainer video company that introduces prospects to your product. Since this format can make complex ideas seem fun and understandable, it should be a fantastic option for the consideration stage. However, if you use it for the decision stage, it won’t be as relevant. Instead, you can use customer testimonial videos to influence their decision.
Remember that once a buyer enters the decision stage, it means that they’ve explored all possible options and are ready to make a purchase. Using an explainer video to target this audience can be futile. Testimonials from actual paying customers, on the other hand, might be the reassurance that prospects need.
Understanding the twists and turns that consumers usually take is crucial to any marketing endeavor. By stepping into their shoes, you can better understand what your customers want and provide it at an opportune time.
Whenever you’re making video content, ask yourself the following questions:
- Where does my lead fit in the buyer’s journey?
- How can I nudge prospects into taking action and completing the buyer’s journey?
Take note of these two questions as you learn about various video content techniques for increasing sales and boosting your bottom line.
How Video Marketing Can Boost Sales
- Find out what consumers in the Decision stage want
What do potential buyers want to know about when they are in the final phase of the buyer’s journey?
To be able to provide your target audience with the right kind of information, you need to do proper research. Remember that consumers who are at the final stage have already done their own research. They most likely have even created a shortlist of potential solutions. But consumers, at this point, are still keen on narrowing down their options.
Buyers who are at the final stage of the journey need a little nudge. The best way to close a sale is to reassure prospects that they are getting the best value for their money. To guarantee potential customers that purchasing your product is the right choice, produce content that will make them want to trust your brand.
Lead them to reviews and testimonials from actual paying clients. You can seek help from authoritative figures or professionals in your niche. These days, influencers or the celebrities of social media can also persuade your ideal market to make a purchase.
- Pick the right video format
Apart from the information itself, the way in which it is presented also makes an impact on the consumers’ decision-making process. Now that you know you need to establish trust, use the following formats to close a deal:
- Testimonial videos. There’s no better way to show potential customers that your products or services are worth their money. This type of video can be placed on the website’s Homepage, About Us page, and more.
- Team videos. This is a great way to prove to audiences that you have a team of professionals who give their absolute best to bring customers the right solutions to their problems. It can be published on your website’s About Us page.
Consumers are often doubtful of the written reviews they find online. Whether it’s from Amazon or the company website, they know that third-party agencies could have easily created those reviews. But by adding a face to those reviews, testimonials could be far more powerful. Videos add a feeling of authenticity and should encourage prospects to believe in the brand.
- Choose the right channels for distribution
Think about where you’re going to publish your videos. To effectively reach your target audience, you need to pick out the right channels. Though social media should be a crucial part of your marketing campaign, you don’t need to be on every single platform.
If your brand leans towards young audiences such as the millennial generation, then maybe you can join more trendy apps such as Snapchat. For companies that are geared towards professionals and other businesses, then LinkedIn is a must. When in doubt, stick with popular social media hubs like Facebook and YouTube.
- Publish high-quality videos
Show consumers your commitment to quality. No one likes to see promotional material that’s subpar. If you want prospects to watch your video from beginning to end, make sure that it is not pixelated.
Apart from the video, the audio is also important. There shouldn’t be any noise or echoes in the background while the necessary information is being presented. To make sure the audio quality is superb, use microphones and proper audio recording equipment. Don’t rely on your camera’s built-in mic. If your video turns out great but your audio is unsatisfactory, it might leave a negative impression on your audience.
- Adapt videos to different media channels
Various media channels don’t have the same video requirements. To make your content more effective, it’s best if you produce videos that adhere to the conditions of each platform. Browse through the guidelines of each social media or video hosting platform. And once you’ve taken note of the important factors, create content that meets those requirements.
Instagram, for instance, only has room for 3- to 60-second videos. If you’ve made a three-minute video for Facebook, all you have to do is trim that content down. Once it is able to fit Instagram’s video limit, you can distribute it there.
If you don’t want to worry about time limits, publish content on YouTube. It should also be easier for you to embed videos on platforms where your target audience seems to hang out.
- Monitor the success of the campaign
Keep track of the results of the campaign across all channels. This way, you can better understand how prospects are engaging with your content. Using analytics, you can identify which users are ignoring the video. You can also determine whether viewers are buying your products or services.
Taking note of that data helps you figure out the factors that you need to improve on. You can improve the makeup of future videos, and hopefully, you can boost sales.
Nowadays, consumers have more choices than they used to. Selecting one out of several options can be overwhelming, but having a familiar face to represent a brand can make all the difference to the decision-making process. Through videos, you can bridge the gap between consumer and advertiser, and stand out in a crowd of competitors.
