There are numerous reasons to use video for online marketing, but it’s not often that you consider what objectives you’re trying to accomplish by creating content. Even though driving revenue is obviously the final goal, there are many stages along the way where you might consider targeting specific efforts. One of the first hurdle you need to overcome is lead capture: Without leads in the sales funnel, you’ll never progress from the top to the bottom – and eventually convert a sale. Let’s have a look at the role of video in lead generation and see how to use it effectively.
The role of video in managing the sales funnel: You know how your marketing goals change depending on where a prospect falls in the sales funnel, so you’re aware that lead capture is toward the top. Your objective for using video to its full potential at this stage is getting more information from your potential customers, which enables you to deliver more targeted content when they’re ready for it.
How to use video effectively for lead generation: There are a variety of ways you can optimize your video content to achieve your objective and learn more about your prospects.
- The Email Qualifier: Requesting a potential customer’s email address in order to view your video is an easy way to capture a lead – yet you don’t turn them off by asking too much. This method is best for video content you’re OK with having made public, since it’s possible to share the link to the content. This does make it more difficult to measure engagement, however. One option to get over this hurdle is to embed an email field within your video. These solutions create a record when the information is inserted and tracks viewership after the person watches your video.
- Calls to Action: You know the importance of a strong call to action, but placement is just a critical. Some platforms enable you to embed an annotation within the video content to encourage viewers to check out your other content assets. You can also implement pop out calls to action at any point during the video, which means a viewer doesn’t need to watch the entire thing to link to your landing page.
Other content formats pale in comparison to video for lead capture: The proof is in the numbers.
- Social media posts that include video draw three times more inbound links than text;
- 85% of internet users in the US watch video;
- Over 700 videos are shared on Twitter every minute; and,
- Viewers of video spend 100% more time on the pages they find them.
Video is definitely a versatile content marketing tool for any stage of the sales funnel, but one of the most effective ways to use it is for lead capture. Video is better at overcoming the critical first step to closing a sale, which is bringing in and qualifying potential customers. It’s true that the price tag on producing and publishing videos is higher as compared to some other forms of content, but you’ll find that the cost definitely pays off.