The use of video within Sales and Marketing has shifted from “nice-to-have” to an essential feature. Video marketing helps your business stand out from the competition and leaves a lasting impression on prospects.
HubSpot research shows that 71% of consumers watch more video online than they did a year ago. Brands can no longer ignore videos growing importance. Videos can help educate, inspire and propel would-be buyers to purchase your product or services.
Video encourages more ‘click-throughs’ than a static image or plain text and helps you connect with your customers in a more engaging way. Accessing videos on a mobile phone has become the norm and allows viewers to instantly see what you have to say.
So how do you put this into practice and reap the rewards of using video across your sales and marketing strategies?
When to Use Video
Video is an effective tactic at every stage of the Buyer Journey.
Awareness - video email sequences, be it using a marketing automation platform such as HubSpot, or using Linked In, can be set up to educate the market about your company’s value proposition. A video can say so much more than a long email! At this stage, examples include snackable social videos that show off your brand's personality, thought leadership videos that establish you as a source of industry news and insight, explainer and ‘how-to’ videos that provide relevant tips for solving your audience's pain point.
Consideration - an automated workflow can be implemented within your marketing automation platform to send for example, a two-step video sequence email to prospects that have perhaps downloaded content, but may still be considering your product or service. Other videos that can be used at this stage to help move any prospects along the buyer journey include a video webinar of tactical advice, product/service demos, landing page promotional videos and customer case studies.
Decision - At this stage, as well as videos including customer testimonials, your Sales team could send personalised one-to-one videos to prospects. These videos can include information gathered during any digital and live interactions to encourage prospects at this stage of the Buyer Journey to make their decision.
We utilise video marketing at all 3 stages of the Buyer Journey. We have found personalised videos, particularly after our Inside Sales Team have contacted a prospect, to be highly effective in reinforcing the relationship with prospects and obtaining the desired result. Being able to put a face to a name makes for a much more personal ‘engagement’ experience for the individual watching the video, and so much nicer than reading a long email!
As well as video being utilised within email campaigns, (including LinkedIn Direct Messages or InMail's), they can also be incorporated into blog posts and shared across your social media channels.
Measuring Video Performance
HubSpot suggest the following metrics for measuring the performance of your video-
View count: This metric is useful to track if your goal is to increase brand awareness and have your content seen by as many people as possible, however, it's important to remember that every video hosting platform measures a view differently.
Play rate: Play rate is the percentage of people who played your video divided by the number of impressions it received. If thousands of people see your video, but only a handful of people play it, it's probably time to optimise your content.
Social sharing and comments: Social shares and comments are good indicators of how relevant your content is with your target audience. If a viewer watches your video and takes the time to share it with their network, you probably created a great piece of content. Social shares are also important because the more times your video is shared, the more it'll be viewed.
Video completions: A video completion is the number of times a video is played in its entirety. This metric can be more reliable than view count when trying to determine your video's success.
Completion rate: Completion rate is the number of people who completed your video divided by the number of people who played it. Completion rate, and other engagement metrics, are a great way to gauge a viewer's reaction to your video. Are people all dropping off at a certain point? This might be a sign that your video content is not resonating with your target audience.
Click-through rate: Click-through rate (CTR) is the number of times your call-to-action (CTA) is clicked divided by the number of times it's viewed. CTR is a great indicator of how effective your video is at encouraging people to take your desired action. If your CTR is low, consider revising the design or copy of your CTA.
Conversion rate: Conversion rate is the number of times visitors completed your desired action divided by the number of clicks on your CTA. If your goal is to have your viewers complete an action like signing up for a free trial, try adding a video to your landing page to see if your conversion rate increases.
Bounce rate and time-on-page: Are you thinking about adding a video to a web page? Take note of the page bounce rate and the amount of time people spent on the page before you add the video. Be sure to check the metrics after you place the video to see if changes the way people interact with your other content.
ProsperoHub's Tips for Video Marketing Success
It is worth mentioning that using video alone, like any marketing tool, won’t produce the results you’re looking for. Instead it adds an extra layer of personalisation and helps to build a relationship with both your prospects and customers.
Using video to showcase your product or services in a new, interesting way and encouraging your Sales and Marketing teams to get in front of the camera, (be it on a laptop, mobile or otherwise), is sure to interest and delight your audience. As you can see from the tips above, you don’t need to be an expert - Get involved!
Video is a key component of ProsperoHub's digital marketing toolkit. Encouraging more engagement with your prospects, video marketing can help achieve your growth goals.
For additional information, contact us and find out how to use video in order to maximise the results of your sales and marketing efforts.