In today’s hyper competitive digital market, people are paying top dollar for pro video – some see immense returns, and others see their money disappear in a shroud of smoke.
So, what is the true role of video marketing in Ecommerce?
In most cases, when you implement – and spend money on – video for your sales-oriented business, you are looking to see good ROI.
In order to achieve this reliably and repeatedly, you will need to integrate relevant video content tailored towards various stages of the customer journey…
…and it will all need to happen within the context of a well structured pipeline.
What we’ve described here is essentially the foundation of digital marketing.
Every interaction the customer has with your brand, no matter how small, describes a single, discrete step in their journey.
From the first time they saw your name in an ad, to their first website visit, their first purchase, and beyond, at each step they had the opportunity to make a conscious action: a click, or no click, at the very least.
The collection of these steps, and their use as a pool of information, is what is known as a digital pipeline.
Our pipeline allows us to track the customer through their journey. We use it to precisely segment, tailor, and time our messaging to optimally encourage conversion (movement through the steps).
By correctly utilizing the information gained through your pipeline, customers can be made to remain within this ecosystem in perpetuity; made loyal through the processes of campaigning, client retention and database reactivation.
But those topics, while vitally important, are for later.
Let’s take a look at the different stages of a customer's journey, and where video marketing fits into all of this.
Top of Funnel
This is the step that marks the beginning of your customer's journey. This is where we tackle the issues of awareness, and consideration. Some top of funnel activities include:
running paid google ads
producing social media/blog/online educational content
influencer marketing
and optimizing SEO
Studies show that consumers tend to prefer video over any other medium when they are conducting research before a purchase.
So it is clear that useful, relevant information about your products should also be easily accessible in video format. If you go without, you run the risk of being dominated by competitors, or worse, losing the interest of your ideal customers.
Some examples of these types of videos could be:
Product Demonstrations
Educational Tutorials
Customer Testimonials
Thought Leadership Videos
and Social Media Ads.
Although the top of the funnel is the customer's first step in their journey with you, their level of purchase intent can vary significantly.
This is why it is important to use the insights gained through your pipeline to segment content creation not only by audience, but also by their current level of intent.
So that hot leads are continuously converted, and that cold leads are continuously warmed up.
This could look like creating content based on informational topics for low intent leads, and creating content based on commercial topics for those with high intent (ie. “best uses for toasters” vs. “top selling toasters compared”).
Conversion
People are more likely to buy things after watching videos.
If they first learned about your industry/niche through your videos…
…and they first learned about their own personal need-state through your videos…
…and they first learned about all of the options they have available through your videos…
…and they first learned that you offer the single most perfect option for their specific need-state, through your videos…
Who do you think they are going to choose when it comes time to make a purchase?
It doesn’t end there – some other examples of videos that can be directly used to convert red hot leads are:
FAQ videos
Product Walkthroughs
Limited-Time Offer Ads
Case Studies
Explainer videos
Any of the above incorporated as a landing page video (a full post on this coming soon)
These videos serve to provide an instant, detailed examination as to whether or not your product is truly right for them.
Properly executed, any of these videos will have red hot leads flocking to your dedicated landing pages, ready to move through to purchase.
It should also be noted that strategically incorporating relevant video content on landing pages is wildly effective in increasing click through rates. (source)
Considering this it would be hard to argue that when competing within an oversaturated digital market (perhaps like yours, ours, and everybody else’s), good video content is a non-negotiable necessity, for those who wish to truly stay ahead.
Bottom of Funnel
Once the sale has been made (and if you haven’t already, collected the holy grail, your customer's email address), they have officially entered the final stage of their journey: loyalty.
Here you will continuously engage your database of existing customers and subscribers by providing them with valuable information, content, and offers.
This is a good moment to mention the distinction between a marketing funnel and a sales funnel. What we have described here so far is the marketing funnel – which describes the customer's journey over the course of a lifetime.
The sales funnel, while very similar, describes instead a customer's journey in relation to a single product.
It begins with awareness, ends in a sale, and provides a more granular view of this part of the process as compared to the marketing funnel.
Think of it this way: a customer reaches the bottom of your marketing funnel, and is kept loyal over the course of a lifetime by being continuously reintroduced back into the top of separate sales funnels for similar products.
But remember, this doesn’t mean that you simply bombard them with “buy this” messages.
First of all, you don’t bombard them with anything, and secondly, you will be continuously providing them with legitimate up-front value, consistently, at no charge, through information.
This, of course, invites many opportunities for a more eloquent approach towards encouraging repeat business.
I promise we’ll get to how this relates to video soon…
But first, a note on value-driven information:
Information Empowerment
We’ve established that your audience has a desire that needs to be fulfilled. However rarely is any topic exclusively black or white; rather a gradient, with many perspectives and stories to tell.
That in mind, let's assume you are something of an expert in your field – at the very least, compared to the average consumer (you are reading this article after all).
It is in our experience that many entrepreneurs are apprehensive about teaching their skills online.
Some doubt its effectiveness, some fear giving away their hard earned secrets.
The former is completely understandable. However the internet is a huge place, its user base is growing with the population of the earth, and there are countless individuals that would give anything to know what you know now.
Indeed, your unique perspective can also be applied to the most fundamental aspects of what you do – so while you should certainly strive to share novel ideas, it would also be wise to work towards providing a full knowledge base, from the most basic of concepts, to the highest levels of complexity.
Suffice to say you should always be able to backup your claims with actual proof.
This begins to describe the oft-misunderstood ideas of “building authority”, and “thought leadership”.
Powerful concepts, when viewed through the lens of your unique pipeline; which brings us to the latter of our doubts.
In the information age, the idea of a secret recipe essentially loses all meaning; you can be sure that there are a number of competent individuals ready to reverse engineer *almost* anything put to market at an alarming speed.
But of course, this is why we have patents and copyright laws (flawed as they may be).
Ultimately, your brand is what will set you apart from the competition.
So upon this assumption, one could conclude that building authority by thoughtfully uplifting customers and competitors alike would be the ideal strategy. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer, right?
Keeping Customers With Video
With all of that out of the way, we can finally talk in detail about how you can use video to keep your customers satisfied and coming back for more.
Directly after the sale, you could provide your customer with a series of videos consisting of tips, tricks, detailed explanations, and best practices all tailored towards that specific product.
Some time after, another option ripe with opportunity presents itself during database reactivation.
This is the process of segmenting clients in your email list that haven’t been contacted in a given amount of time, say 6 months, and reaching out to them with a special offer – gently nudging them back into your ecosystem.
If you catch their attention with the offer, you can drive necessity with an informational video, or vise-versa.
What's interesting to note here is that these videos can deliver the same information as your blog content – meaning, if you already have a solid digital strategy, getting started could be as simple as converting your blog posts into video scripts.
Another idea is to use educational content to illuminate engaged past purchasers about the deeper intricacies of your niche, strategically bringing them into the top of the funnel for some of your higher ticket products.
What's so wonderful about these types of videos is that they overlap in their usefulness:
An FAQ video could both convert a lead, as well as act as a device for customer retention after the sale, if the particular question never occurred to them before making the purchase.
In a similar fashion, a product walkthrough could serve as a continuous reference point for learning and understanding the use of intricate products and designs, both before and after purchase.
You might be thinking to yourself that there are conceivably countless opportunities for this sort of useful overlap, and that bring us full circle.
The Bottom Line
Based on these insights, it is safe to say that those who see the most benefit from creating video content are those who implement it holistically, within a greater framework that extends beyond the moving picture.
Better yet, within the context of a well-structured digital marketing pipeline.
Understanding this concept is key to using video as a tool for generating long term success.
Only then, can the elusive and ever-evolving art of movie magic make you rich.
We invite you to consider this as you continue to explore the video production market. Whether or not this describes your current situation, we’d be happy to schedule an introductory call to discuss your video needs, or uncover what solutions are best for you.
Our goal is to help – using our love of video as a tool for supercharging your business, and thus, changing your life.
The Current Visual Team
