Top Video Marketing Tips For Retailers To Boost Sales
Video marketing has been a key strategy for retailers and small businesses in the past few years, but the ongoing pandemic and changing consumer preferences have really pushed the impact of video content to the forefront.
According to a recent survey by Wyzowl, video content consumption has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and marketers are reaping great results by applying this strategy to every stage of the sales funnel. According to the survey, 84% of video marketers find videos effective for generating leads, and 9 out of 10 marketers believe videos have a direct, positive impact on sales. The majority of marketers also agree that videos have helped users understand their product or query better, leading to a better user experience and a reduced number of support calls.
The success of videos in educating and engaging consumers isn’t surprising. Most people prefer to watch something than read about it, and videos make it possible to share much more information engagingly as compared to images or even GIFs. Another survey reveals that 72% of customers would prefer to learn about a product or service through video, and Cisco expects online videos to make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2022.
Indeed, creating videos is a great marketing strategy – that’s a given. But where do you start, and how do you ensure that your content stands out, makes an impression on your audience, and nudges them to engage further with your brand and take the desired actions?
Let’s find out.
Create Meaningful Content For Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey
Simply creating content for your audience isn’t enough. You need to create content that is helpful and adds some real value to their lives. One of the first things you can do to get this right and increase the efficacy of your video content is by aligning it to your buyer’s journey.
Typically, the buyer’s journey is divided into three stages:
- Awareness stage – This is the first stage when customers realize they have a problem or requirement. This is also the stage where you have the highest number of consumers engaging with your business.
- Consideration stage – At this stage, consumers know they have a problem, and they are already comparing various options to fix the issue.
- Decision stage – After comparing the alternatives in the previous stage, this is the final stage where customers decide to purchase your product (or not).
- Customer engagement – A buyer’s journey with your brand doesn’t end with a sale. Instead, it starts with it. Once a buyer purchases your product or service and becomes a customer, it falls upon you to ensure seamless onboarding to generate loyalty and maximize user satisfaction.
By creating the right type of video content for each of these stages, you can maximize the efficiency of your sales funnel, nudging your leads into becoming paying customers effortlessly.
The Awareness Stage
At this stage, your content should be aimed at educating the users about your solution. Here are some ways of achieving this:
1. Use Explainer Videos
An explainer video is a short, animated video that sums up the problem you’re going to solve, how you will solve it, and why a user should choose your solution over another. Depending on your product, you may stick to stats and facts or create an emotional video to garner the maximum interest. Whatever you choose, make sure that you understand your target audience and the problem you’re going to solve for them. It is also essential to use a concise yet meaningful script with matching illustrations to get the message across. According to Wyzowl, 96% of people watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.
See this example from Spotify:
We totally love the animation, the simplicity of the script, and how beautifully it sums up the concept behind Spotify.
2. Create Educational Content To Generate Brand Awareness
You can create educational videos (such as ‘how to’ videos) to show your customers that you’re aware of their needs. For instance, if you’re in the financial domain, informative yet straightforward videos explaining concepts like mutual funds can garner many views from the audience.
3. Create Product Demo Videos for Sign Ups
Having product videos on your landing pages and website gives your leads a peek into your product or service. Many users don’t want to sign up for a free trial or demo because they don’t want to spend unnecessary time on a product they don’t understand. A demo video explaining all your product features helps users know how you can help them meet their challenges from the start.
The Consideration Stage
At this stage, the users want to know more about your product or service and why they should choose it above another brand.
1. Create Product Videos and Advertisements That Spotlight Your Features
This is the stage to unleash the full power of your product or service by describing the benefits of every aspect in detail. However, refrain from creating lengthy commentaries. Rather, show your product in action with a compelling narrative to make an impact.
Here’s an interesting example from a content writing service, Purple Feather.
Generally, when budgets are tight, companies often choose to write their content in-house, but that’s a folly. Purple Feather clearly shows the power of using the right words through this emotional and straightforward video advertisement. You can also run and manage ads with WordPress Ads plugin to maximize the leads you generate.
You may also create “how-to” videos explaining to the audience how to use the various features in your product to solve their problems. The aim is to educate the viewers while subtly promoting your product or service and establishing yourself as a thought-leader or authority in the field.
2. Use Video Chat to Recreate the In-Store Experience Online
Social distancing and COVID-19 have fundamentally changed the retail customer experience. With Video Chat software, you can connect face-to-face with customers safely, from home, or on the go.
Besides, research has shown that visitors prefer to have their questions answered while they’re browsing your page. However, it is often challenging to explain the benefits of a product via messaging. Integrating video chat software helps you create an in-store experience online wherein your sales agents can guide a user around your product or service in real-time.
It is also easier to build a personal rapport while video chatting and understand the physical cues to have a more fruitful discussion with a prospect at this stage. Modern live chat software integrates video chatting and co-browsing facilities, making it possible to connect face-to-face, solve user queries remotely and give impactful product demonstrations from a distance.
The Decision Stage
Your customers have compared the various alternatives and are perhaps only a click away from completing their purchase with you. Taking the right actions at this stage will nudge them into hitting the right button, creating a growing user base for your brand.
1. Build Trust With Testimonial Videos
Even if your product is the best in the market, customers will never believe you completely unless they hear it from the horse’s mouth, that is, from other customers. Using testimonial videos on your site is a great idea to build social proof and humanize your brand.
The easiest way of doing this is by requesting your most loyal customers to talk about their experience with your brand. You may share a pre-formulated questionnaire to get all the essential information on the camera for better results.
You may also embed testimonial videos in your emails to increase click-through rates. According to Wyzowl, two out of three people are more likely to make a purchase after watching a testimonial video demonstrating how a business, product, or service has helped another person like them.
You may watch the following video for some interesting tips on creating a testimonial video for your brand:
Customer Engagement
This is the post-sales stage when visitors have turned into paying customers, and your aim is to help them unlock the full potential of your product or service.
1. Create A Seamless Onboarding Program
Customer onboarding is an essential aspect of marketing that can boost your user retention rates significantly. You can create simple onboarding videos to walk your customers through your product, explaining every feature, tool, update, etc., to help them realize the promised value without any hiccups.
Take the example of Xero, a company offering various accounting solutions. When you sign up on Xero, the first thing that you see when logging into your new account is a prompt to watch their “Getting Started Video”. This beautifully animated video walks you through the entire software, simplifying the onboarding process significantly.
You can watch the full video here:
The Takeaway
Video marketing is not a fad but a long-term marketing strategy that drives measurable results. Besides using videos for marketing, you can also implement videos as part of your customer service to humanize the various touchpoints in your buyer’s journey.
From offering users the option to video chat to creating videos for various FAQs in your knowledge base, videos help you create a dynamic environment for your customers, enabling in-person conversations, better engagement, and more sales in the long run.
