How to use video content throughout the ‘customer journey’
Attract, nurture, sell to and retain your perfect customer with strategic video content.
If you plan to add video content to your marketing mix, then it’s important to understand and plot out the customer journey. This is the “journey” that your prospective customer will go on as they first become aware of and then eventually buy from you.
This information will help you understand what motivates and resonates with your audience, as well as pinpoint gaps or problems in your sales funnel. You can then begin to create videos for your business that serve a specific purpose and produce tangible results such as more enquiries, more sales or longer client retention.
An Overview of the customer journey
Look at any business and you can broadly say that its customers will go through four key stages on the journey from first hearing about it to becoming a loyal brand ambassador who’s keen to tell other people about their purchase.
These phases are:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
- Advocacy
I’ll be talking about these stages in more detail below and I’ll reveal what type of video content works well for each phase.
Should you use video content during every stage of the customer journey?
Video marketing can be effective at any stage in the customer journey. However, it’s important that you create videos that serve a purpose within your business and resonate with your customers.
The truth is that videos are everywhere, thanks in no small part to the cameras on our smartphones. But so much of the video content out there is average, adding to the noise of social media instead of cutting through it.
A video that’s created for video’s sake, without having something genuine to say to a targeted audience, will do nothing for your business.
For this reason, your video content needs to be supported by a carefully planned video marketing strategy.
The answers to these questions will inform your content requirements:
- What do you need your video content to achieve?
- Where along your ideal customer’s journey could you use video content most effectively?
- What areas of your marketing and customer engagement funnel need improvement and where are the gaps that could potentially be filled by effective online video content?
For example, if you need more ‘cold’ audiences to be aware of your business and what you sell, then your video content would focus on building brand awareness.
But if people are dropping off after visiting your website or making an initial enquiry, you will want video content that reflects their brand awareness but breaks down the barriers to buying instead.
Assess Your Needs
Use our free Marketing Needs Analysis tool to get you thinking about where your business is at right now.
Rate your current marketing levels of engagement and effectiveness at different stages along the customer journey and receive a visual representation to quickly identify the key areas to focus on within an effective video marketing strategy.
To perform a Marketing Needs Analysis for your business, simply click here.
Awareness – Stage one of the customer journey (Brand positioning)
Every journey has to start somewhere. The Awareness stage of the customer journey is when someone hears about your business for the first time.
During this stage, they begin to build up a sense that you may offer a product or service that they need.
This Awareness phase usually starts with some kind of emotional trigger or realisation in the potential customer. It could be that they’re facing a problem or that there’s something that they aspire to in order to enrich their lives in some way.
How should you use video content during the Awareness stage?
Your biggest goal for any videos in this stage is getting eyeballs on them. This will usually mean posting content on the platforms that you know your customers use.
You’ll need to catch your audience’s attention, especially if they’re scrolling down a social media timeline the first time they see your video – think dynamic movement and creating interest rather than static shots and in-depth interviews.
People buy with emotion and then justify their purchase with logic, so Awareness videos are about encouraging people to connect emotionally with your company. You must do this before asking them to buy.
Overview and company culture videos work well here.
Tell the story of your business and why you do what you do. Show potential customers that you have the answers they need and that you understand them. Give an overview of your products and services. This is your chance to introduce your brand.
You should also include a call to action. This could be asking viewers to download a free guide, enter a competition or sign up to a webinar. Again, the action will depend on your overall marketing strategy.
Tracking Awareness-stage videos
Videos aimed at raising brand awareness aren’t always as easy to track as videos used in other stages of the sales pipeline in terms of who watched and later became a customer.
They’re still worth creating though because they initiate that all-important connection and begin positioning your brand in the viewer’s mind as trustworthy and authoritative.
Consideration – Stage two of the customer journey (Social engagement)
During stage two of the customer journey, the buyer knows that they have a need for what you offer.
They start to collect information, weighing up their options and comparing the different choices to decide which product, service or business would best meet their needs.
How could you use video content during the Consideration stage?
The main goals of marketing videos aimed at the Consideration stage are social engagement, education and relationship building.
You want people to come on a journey with your business and strengthen the emotional connection they felt during the Awareness stage. It’s also crucial to build trust and show that you’re a safe bet for anyone making a purchase.
Your videos during this stage should focus on giving people the information they need in order to make a buying decision.
This could mean answering FAQs, creating explainer videos, product demonstrations, service walkthroughs or how-to guides.
Create video content that offers genuine value to your audience, even if they decide it isn’t the right time to make a purchase.
Ideally, viewers should think, “If I get this much value now, imagine how much more I’ll get when I’m a customer”.
You’ll probably want to use your primary social media channels for this stage.
While paid advertising is an option, it’s worth bearing in mind that it can rush people through the customer journey, skipping over that all-important emotional connection. An organic strategy will give you the time to build up trust.
Conversion – Stage three of the customer journey (Purchase)
This is the stage of the journey that, when successful, converts a lead into a paying customer.
But in order to achieve this milestone, you might have to help your potential customers overcome some final barriers that are holding them back from buying.
Do you know what these barriers are for your business?
Are people worried about the price, convenience, time commitment, ease of use, accessibility or level of service, for example?
The biggest challenge for businesses during this stage is recognising the barriers to buying and coming up with rational ways to address these concerns.
Get that right and you should see your sales rocket.
How can you use video content during the Conversion stage?
Client onboarding videos work well during this stage of the customer journey.
These videos are aimed at people who have already made an enquiry. They give further insight into what it’s like to be a customer or what you can expect once you’ve made a purchase.
This might include answering FAQs or showing how you support customers in common scenarios.
Many businesses use video to cover the kind of information that might be included in a sales call or face-to-face consultation.
This can save the sales team significant amounts of time, leap-frogging potential customers from an initial enquiry to the point of purchase.
Client case studies are also effective at this stage because they can cover the tangible outcomes and benefits of using a product or service rather than focusing on the emotional experience offered at the top of the sales funnel.
Tracking Conversion-stage videos
Your audience at this stage will typically have made an enquiry or signed up to your mailing list, meaning your videos might go directly to them via email.
Be sure to track the number of views and watch time. Is there a particular point in a video where the viewers drop off? This could be a sign that you need to adjust the sales conversation.
Advocacy/loyalty – Stage four of the customer journey (Delight & retain)
The moment of purchase is far from the end of the customer journey.
The final stage of Advocacy and Loyalty can continue indefinitely, turning a first-time buyer into a long-term fan of your brand.
Stats show that repeat customers are more profitable for a business than trying to convert new customers all the time. It’s said that average conversion rates for first-time customers sit somewhere between one and three per cent, whereas a repeat customer has a 60-70% chance of converting.
Not only do repeat customers convert more often, but they also spend more per order than a first-time buyer.
For this reason, it’s critical that you don’t let a customer go after their purchase.
You want them to be so pleased with their purchase that they’re happy to buy from you again and they’re happy to tell other people about their experience.
How can you use video content during the Conversion stage?
Try to identify different post-purchase touchpoints – these will depend on your business and what it is that the customer has bought.
You might want to send a personalised video message welcoming the customer to your business and thanking them for their purchase.
This works particularly well for companies that offer online programmes, courses or services because it assures the buyer that they’re in the right place and that you’re interested in them after they’ve parted with their money and not just before.
You could offer a welcome tour, an orientation video, content about what to do next, or videos about related products or services that can ‘level up’ their purchase.
Whatever format you choose, Advocacy-stage videos are all about preventing buyer’s remorse. Think about how you can improve the customer experience, build long-lasting customer relationships and encourage referrals.
Also, if someone remains on your mailing list after buying, think about how you can stay in touch with them. You might want to create videos targeted at past customers too.
The right content at the right time
As we’ve seen above, mapping the customer journey is an essential step towards providing your audiences with the right video content at the right time.
People have different concerns at different stages. Video can be a powerful tool to let your customers know that you’re there by their side, seeing and understanding them at every touchpoint.
Developing a strategy for using video in your marketing mix can be confusing if you haven’t worked extensively with video before.
If you want to make video a profitable part of your business, it’s important that you have a video marketing strategy that extends beyond your normal digital marketing or content marketing strategy and maximises the impact of the videos you get produced.
Don’t know exactly what you need?
Get in touch for some free advice and discover:
- What videos will have the greatest impact on your bottom line
- The best way to have your videos produced, based on your needs and budget
- The video marketing channels that will deliver the greatest reach and engagement for your brand