The recent influx of video content on the internet has increased engagement, as source of entertainment and have also been used for awareness, but another interesting thing about video content is that, it can also be adopted by your brand, did you know that? You probably have done some video integration in your digital marketing plans, yet unable to explain if the views on your videos are generating leads or even increasing buyers’ decision to purchase.
Recently, responses received from over 70% of marketers in a research revealed that most marketers claim that videos produce more conversions than any other content format. Obviously, it is because videos are more engaging, memorable, can drive more traffic and has optimal advantage over text. Therefore, with video’s success at generating more leads and becoming more popular, video content is now replacing text as a marketing medium.
On a monthly basis, an average of 206 videos are being viewed by an average consumer, and a total of 59% of senior executives in a research result said that if both text and video are presented on the same topic, consumers are most likely to choose video over text. In essence, video marketing taking over is indisputable.
Meanwhile, a well-packaged video merged with accurate CTA and tracking tool guarantees a conversion of those who watch your video into clients. In this light, here are the available avenues to gather interesting leads through your video content, then motivate your viewers and prospects to make decisions:
- Effective placement of video on major arrival pages
This is a very useful way to have conversions using video. By placing video content strategically on major landing pages, you are sure to begin to generate leads. Possibly, you might have added videos on different pages on your website but check their positions, where did you place them? Are they likely to call for attention? Will your visitors view them easily?
To get the optimal result from the video you place on your website, you need to align your video well enough to be the first thing your audience click on your page, indirectly this would optimize their interest in the product or service you offer, and even respond to the CTA on your video. Knowing now that there are 60% of internet users who prefer watching videos over reading texts, you should adopt that to the advantage of your brand.
- Using call-to-action on your videos
The absence of call-to-action during your video or in the concluding part of your video, means that you are telling your visitors to go in search of more information about you, your product or the services you render; this is not a good idea.
With an understanding that the human brain is naturally lazy, it would be a fault on your side to still go ahead and allow your prospects to take extra steps before conversion; you are likely going to have a zero conversion rate with that.
Judging from a test carried out by Vidyard, where there was a division of viewers of their explainer video into two groups:
- Group 1 saw the video, but no call-to-action was included in the conclusion
- Group 2 saw the video and call-to-action was included in the conclusion
You have probably guessed right that Group 2 had it though that is not the impressive part. The intriguing part is how much that enhanced lead generation from the video 2. Vidyard, found that free trial sign-ups increased by 20% in group 2.
How then do you add these CTAs to your video?
By simply adopting YouTube annotations or cards, you can create highly specific CTAs during important moments in your video. Here is an example:
- 0:42 you are talking about description to the current video, you can insert a CTA to a relevant landing page at exactly this moment
- 1:53 you are describing a tool for growth hacking in politics, insert a CTA that will direct them to the website, probably on the top right corner.
To back this up, you may increase the odds your visitors convert on a video offer by including a URL or a phone number where your prospects can find out more.
- Adopting an email prompter
Another way to know who actually is interested in your content or the message you are passing across, is by placing an email prompter at the beginning of your video content. This does not only make you know who but also gathers adoptable data about them.
Just before the play button or at the hovering of the mouse on the video thumbnail, or after a short intro, let there be a pup-up of a request of your viewer’s email address, in order to gather the number of those watching your video and the frequency. You would be able to offer custom-made content that your audience likes or needs when you know who they are.
Note: Providing an engaging and quality video should be the ultimate so as to give access to the email prompter. And when you use a reputable tracking tool, you will be able to gather those who have responded to the gate!
- Use testimonial videos
Since influencing is the new oil in marketing, video content automatically has a higher advantage over text. Talking of buying, a video testimonial from a satisfied client is far better than a text review placed on random websites, why? Videos have more pictorial and visual appeals than text that comes static. Imagine you having lots of testimonial videos reviewing your product or service on your website, it appears convincing than bunch of reviews written in text.
In terms of Customer Relationship, adopting testimonial videos would also aid a better relationship pattern between you and your customers, and also bring out the humanity of your brand. It is easy to get this done, make a request to your consistent buyers, or create a compelling social media post that would have interested customers or buyers to have their own share of testimonial videos about your products or services for your site.
Xero’s website should give you a great insight into how to create your own testimonial page.
- Adopt webinars
In the present world of proliferation of many concepts, people now look for those who are authorities in any of their interest to listen to or learn from. And like provision of eBooks and white papers give you avenues to establish authority and help you position yourself as an expert in an area, videos can also be used as a credible source of your expert opinions, useful insights, and feasible facts.
With webinars, you will be able to cover wide range of topics that are relevant to your leads in a detailed form and occasionally, you can invite guest speakers to join in the webinar sessions. With this, you are not only building a credible reputation for your business, you are also in one way converting leads into paying customers.
Therefore, using webinars will open you to live video sessions to connect with your audience. And because webinars are episodic like podcasts, visitors get motivated and leads are generated because they would keep returning for more valuable insights. It is through the reoccurrence of this that you would build an archive of informative video content that could also degenerate into forms like: slideshows, infographics, and articles for distribution on multiple platforms.
