5 Easy Ways (You May Not Have Guessed) To Inject Videos In Marketing Funnels
Sure, maybe it’s preaching to the converted.
You probably know how important video is to your marketing strategy (it’s expected to account for 69% of online consumer traffic by 2017).
Video-on-demand traffic is poised to nearly triple during this time.
So naturally, businesses of all sizes are flocking to video marketing in record numbers.
And if your prospects are watching your competitors’ videos, they’ll come to expect video from you too. The longer you make them wait, the smaller your chance to capitalize on their interest.
If you’re not implementing video in your online marketing strategy, you’re very much the analog “sore thumb” in a digital world.
Yet it’s hard to blame the slow adaptors sometimes…
… many not only find it taxing to come up with ideas for their video’s content, but struggle to decide where in their marketing funnels video can be effectively used.
Honestly, you can use video anywhere in your marketing. That’s not a surprise. The challenge is finding the best places to put it for bottom-line results!
That’s because there isn’t a definitive right answer for every step in your customer’s journey.
(That’s why you’ve got to test before making assumptions with any marketing you do!)
So without further ado, here are some proven ideas you can swipe to start implementing video in your own marketing efforts.
All have their own merit and are worth trying out to see how your leads, sales, or any other metrics that matter to you, might improve. Starting with:
1. Video Emails
After a prospect becomes a lead and is added to your list, you should start communicating (often) with them via email.
Instead of always sending text-based emails, try throwing in a video component to them.
That doesn’t mean embedding a video to play in the email itself- that practice is debatable due to user experience and lifetime customer value issues– but just adding a screenshot of a video you made.
You can do this…
For a Promotion
Ensure the video builds off of what the email says, and when the reader clicks on the video image inside that email, you take them to a page where the full video exists.
Here’s a sample of this in play from a recent Russell Brunson promotional email:
Use this tactic to help promote a new product launch, a limited-time offer for one of your existing products or services, or even if you are promoting a free product which you might monetize on the back end.
For a Welcome Series
You could even shoot several videos in this way, to act as your welcome series to new list members that downloaded one of your lead magnets.
So instead of sending your list members full-text emails, you can use what little copy you do write to persuade them to click to watch the video.
This method helps the new list members get to know you (or the company) better through visual relationship building, which can help in getting them more comfortable with you.
(And buying from you.)
2. Video Blogs (Vlogs)
While this might be a “duh!” idea, it’s surprisingly overlooked by many businesses and clients we’ve spoken to.
It’s pretty standard to sit down and write a blog post at your computer. After all, that’s what a blog post requires, right?
It’s perfectly good content. It’s great SEO fodder as part of a full content marketing strategy for your business.
But you can effectively “double-dip” here by complementing your written blog post with a video version of the same.
SEO experts Moz use this tactic consistently well, as part of their Whiteboard Friday initiative.
They shoot a full video for their weekly blog:
The same content, just delivered differently, and two marketing assets for Moz to be found through online!
This is something you can do every time you blog. If you’re not consistently doing so, just do it!
Make your own weekly Whiteboard presentation like Moz. Not only will you be more visible for keywords you want to be found for, but you’ll help your prospects while creating more marketing assets for your brand.
Of course, you don’t need to have a video and text version of your blog. If you just go the video route, ensure you still publish it on your blog page on your website.
Make sure it’s also available on YouTube to be found and shared there— optimized correctly of course!
3. Thank You Pages
The typical thank you page is, well, pretty bland.
An obligatory “thanks for [joining our list, downloading a free report, etc.]” and perhaps a sentence or two afterwards including when the prospect might hear again from the marketer.
There’s nothing “wrong” with this— but there’s more you can (and should) do!
Your thank you page is another opportunity to resonate with your prospects. Another chance to improve your relationship.
So…
Spice it up a bit (and drive more business) by injecting a video there instead!
As a Sign of Goodwill
Include a video on your thank you page that replaces what the written text would otherwise say. Shoot yourself- or a brand spokesperson- thanking the prospect for doing whatever they did to get to that thank you page.
Make conversation. Invite the new lead to ask questions about whatever they downloaded or did on the previous page, and tell them how to get the most out of that action.
Did they download a free report? Tell them what section to pay extra special attention to. Or, direct them to an exclusive offer in the report made only for people who downloaded it!
Did they sign up for a webinar? Tell them next steps to take, including when reminder emails will come, how they can ask questions in the meantime, and direct them to other resources that might help them prepare for the webinar.
Whatever it is, just be genuinely helpful and keep the momentum going.
Your relationship is just beginning with the new lead, so further that relationship naturally like you would with a new partner or friend.
As a Revenue Opportunity
Want to monetize new leads right away? Use video on your thank you page to promote a helpful offer for the new prospect.
Since they just took a valuable action on the previous page, you can capitalize on their intent- and interest in your business- by introducing a natural “next step” in the process.
If the prospect just downloaded a helpful lead magnet, record a video offering them a free trial of your coaching program, which then rolls into a paid monthly program after the trial.
Or, offer a paid product that will help them get the most out of whatever they opted-in to receive on the last page.
Here’s an example of this last suggestion in action, from Digitalmarketer.com leader Ryan Deiss:
You’ll see the video right below the headline (which, incidentally, tells the viewer to watch the video before downloading their lead magnet).
After a few seconds pass in the video, an offer appears below the video player to purchase the product that’s ultimately pitched in the video.
This is a convenient, low-cost way to turn new leads into paying customers, while getting them to raise their hands as great future prospects for your next “step up” in paid products!
You’ll notice the video doesn’t need to be a “live” shoot of you or anyone else. It can be a simple video made of Powerpoint slides with visuals and text.
That brings us to our next example of where you can use video in your marketing funnel:
4. Sales Pages
These pages are vital to your bottom line.
There’s a saying that goes “nothing’s bought until it’s sold.”
True words, as you’ll be hard-pressed to make money from your website without having dedicated pages promoting your paid products!
And instead of using a traditional sales letter or landing page-style copywriting for your offer, try using a video sales letter (VSL).
Affectionately known by many marketers as an “ugly” sales letter, the VSL is still a copy-heavy sales letter, just recorded as a narrated Powerpoint presentation, with anywhere from a sentence- to a paragraph’s-length of copy on each slide.
Here’s an example of a VSL from a client of ours, the Direct Response Marketer’s Alliance.
These VSLs can take up the entire page as just a video player, or have light copy accompanying it on the page.
The point is to test your VSL against the traditional “all-copy” sales page to see which converts more sales.
The thought is that video is more engaging (affecting more senses and driving the point home more clearly). But like any marketing, test that theory first!
When your prospect can hear and read your text at the same time, the information is often retained at a much higher rate than either listening or reading alone.
So before slapping new text up on your sales page, test a VSL at the same time.
Producing a great VSL requires totally different skillsets on top of compelling copywriting. You’ll need a good video editor and recording software— and possibly a designer’s eye depending on your presentation.
As for how to write an engaging VSL that will have prospects following along to the end, you can’t go wrong with including these 5 ingredients to a converting video.
Bonus VSL Tip
Here’s a technique used by the top direct marketers in the game.
In the spirit of testing the traditional sales letter against a VSL, there’s a way to do this in the same visit by one prospect.
A prospect arrives on your landing page with a VSL:
If the prospect isn’t interested in sitting through each slide in the VSL message, and they go to close the window or hover around the back button in their browser, you can offer them the option of reading the full-text sales letter version instead, using an exit pop-up!
When the prospect chooses to stay on the page, they’re instantly transported to the full-length sales letter, so they can consume it at their own pace.
Not only is this great at testing which method converts better, it’s a smart way to salvage revenue you otherwise might have lost if the prospect didn’t want to consume the first version of your sales message.
(Of course, you can swap the order of delivery too, by presenting the sales letter first and then offering the VSL upon exit.)
Finally, if you don’t want to go the “official” VSL route, you could just record a video of yourself or a brand spokesperson talking to the viewer. You encourage them to buy whatever you’re promoting, with a purchase link added below the video.
See the example from Digitalmarketer.com in the Thank You Pages section above.
5. Customer Q&A
Often the subject of many written blog posts or FAQ pages, customer questions are perfect opportunities to create videos!
Sure, you could include a series of related questions and make a several-minute video providing the answers, but why not make every question you receive a video?
What’s more, you can add related answer videos to a keyword-optimized YouTube playlist, to increase your channel’s Watch Time and improve your channel sections.
This way you’ll start accumulating plenty of video assets to help in your organic online marketing strategy, and increase the views on your website (and YouTube channel) through social shares.
If you’re asking viewers to leave questions on your YouTube videos, you’re already ahead of the game here.
Have an email list? Don’t hesitate to send your subscribers an email asking them to share their questions with you so you can help them.
Tell them you’ll publish answers as videos, to be made available on your YouTube channel.
(Of course, the logistics of this depends on the size of your list. We’re not suggesting you create thousands of videos to answer each and every question— unless you’ve got the resources!)
The point is to be consistent and take any opportunity you can to shoot an answer video with helpful content.
Schedule a time every week or month to go through the questions you receive via social media, email or in-person and shoot some videos answering these questions.
You can get customers involved in your video efforts in another powerful way too:
Shooting customer testimonial videos.
Whether you produce them, or customers shoot their own and share with you, not only are they great credibility pieces for your brand, they’re a great way to add content to your YouTube channel and improve your online marketing.
Because it’s not what you say about yourself that matters, it’s what others say! Testimonial and review videos are living proof of this.
Where possible, try to make your customer testimonials longer than a simple sentence or two. Not only can this help in the long run with YouTube optimizing, but they’re a lot more meaningful to the people watching them.
A persuasive formula to follow for any customer testimonial is:
Introduction of Customer
Customer’s Problem
Discovering You
Solution You Made
How Customer Feels Now
Both testimonial/review videos and your Q&A efforts can be embedded in your squeeze pages, sales pages, thank you pages, order pages or anywhere that credibility can help your cause!
You never know… they could act as the final push some prospects need to share their information in an opt-in form or decide to do business with you.
5 Not-So-Obvious Places for Your Videos
While our clients are mostly gung-ho about injecting video into their online marketing mix, they’re often unsure of where exactly to place them.
If you have any sort of online presence- and especially if you offer free content or sell something- you already have plenty of real estate for adding videos to increase conversions.
And even if you’ve tried putting them in some of the 5 areas we’ve discussed in this post, try it again, and test to see which creative performs better (and, as you’ve seen, which type of video performs better!)
You don’t need to think “outside the box” when it comes to your video marketing.
Simply think of video as another part of the sales team available throughout the customer journey— to answer questions and help close sales!
And, realize video can often accomplish the same job regular text can. (But always test that!)
In the end, your marketing metrics- and bottom line- will be better for it.
To Better Video Conversions,
Drew Bay