Imagine you’re at a cocktail party: You are immediately disgusted by the loud, obnoxious individual bragging about how great they are, yet you also quickly lose interest in the quiet wallflower who barely responds to your questions. Then you lock eyes with an attractive stranger who smiles warmly as they ask you about your interests. They listen and respond thoughtfully, answering your questions without seeming boastful or smug. You are impressed by their honest openness and delighted to engage in conversation with someone truly interested in you.
Like meeting a stranger at a party, a successful video marketing strategy will attract, engage, and delight your target audience. Marketing videos are effective in every stage of a buyer’s journey, increasing awareness of the brand while empathizing with pain points, building credibility and trust while they consider your product over others, and providing the information and emotional connection they need to make a final buying decision.
Why A Video Marketing Strategy Works
Video elicits the kind of emotional response that instantly captivates an audience. If your video marketing strategy puts out the right kinds of videos, you can build trust with potential customers, improve SEO, reduce bounce rate, and increase conversions. According to Wyzowl, 87% of marketers say use of a video marketing strategy has lead to increased traffic, and 81% credit the use of videos with increased sales. Video can also increase understanding of a product and reduce support calls and returns, help your brand maintain its margins and focus precious resources elsewhere.
Videos are powerful, but only when used correctly as part of a clear video marketing strategy. The same video that attracts a new customer won’t work on one who has been buying your products for years. Each video in your video marketing strategy must both capture interest and have a purpose. To help develop a video marketing strategy that works for your brand, let’s review some examples and see how each one fits within a larger Marketing plan.
Examples of Marketing Videos
As we discussed in 100+ Tips for Mastering Amazon Marketing, customers start their buyer’s journey by identifying their challenges, consider many possible solutions, and end by deciding to make a purchase. While every video you create should have the customer in mind, each phase of their journey requires a different approach. Here are the key moments to be aware of as you create your video marketing strategy:
Awareness
Customers start their buyer’s journey by identifying their challenges and looking for possible solutions. Any video you create to attract customers in this stage should empathize with their unique challenges and be meaningful and memorable. Focus less on products and more on brand identity, brand values, and how to solve the audience’s pain points.
Here are a few examples of what to focus on for videos that attract customers in the awareness phase:
- Brand personality
- Thought leadership
- Values and mission
- How to solve the audience’s pain points
These videos should be designed for social media posts and advertising as well as targeted and sponsored campaigns for attracting new customers. The goal here is to make a positive first impression, so avoid focusing too much on product details and features. Remember the obnoxious, boastful partygoer? Huge turn off. At the same time, you want customers to connect with your brand, so meek, half-hearted videos won’t do, either.
Be confident and interesting in videos designed to attract customers, discussing topics or aspects of your brand that you know your customer will identify with. Show your target audience you understand who they are so you can introduce your brand and products as the solution they are looking for.
Consideration
At this stage, buyers are considering various possibilities to solve their challenges. The goal now is to engage your audience and convert them into customers. Where awareness videos might be a brief introduction to your brand or a quick demonstration of how to use a product, consideration videos provide more information, helping the customer make a well-informed decision. Now is when you can get detailed about your products and be more targeted in your approach.
Here are a few video marketing strategies to use:
- Product demos
- Case studies
- Customer testimonials
- Educational deep dive
Failing to create marketing videos for this stage of the buyer’s journey is like getting an attractive stranger’s phone number and never giving them a call. Follow-up is critical: help your potential customers see how using your product can solve their problem. Get these videos in front of potential customers who have shown interest in your brand. Put them on a landing page customers arrive at to learn more or use them as part of a sponsored advertising campaign.
Decision
Video marketing does not end once a customer makes a purchase. If anything, the end of the buyer’s journey marks the start of a new relationship. Consistently delighting the new customer again and again will make them a loud promoter of your brand.
Here are just a few examples how to engage and delight a customer with a video after they’ve made purchase:
- Thank them for their purchase
- Welcome them to the community
- Offer assistance to ensure success
- Provide additional recommendations
Remember: it takes significantly more to gain a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. This customer already knows and trusts your brand, so this is the best time to show them other ways you can help them through additional product offerings and upgrades. Videos in this phase can be short and simple or part of a vast library to help customers learn as much as possible about your brand and products.
Video Marketing is Not About You: It’s About Your Customer
The biggest mistake brands make is creating a single, all-purpose video talking all about how great they and their products are. Your customer does not care about you; they care about themselves. Only after you show them you understand who they are and what they need to be happy and successful will they care about your products or your brand.
The second biggest mistake brands make is to avoid making any marketing videos at all.
Customers are shopping on Amazon because they are actively looking for solutions. If you want your brand and your products to be that solution, you can’t just hope they’ll notice you in a marketplace full of other brands boasting about their own products. A video marketing strategy helps you capture and hold customers’ attention.
Video is Easier and Less Expensive Than You Think
In the past, creating high-quality video marketing meant investing in expensive equipment and personnel or paying high fees to a production company. Technology has now evolved to a point where virtually anyone can create marketing videos to help build trust with and engage customers. Amazon agencies like Kaspien offer in-house creative services to help you create videos for every aspect of your buyer’s journey. You can learn more about what we do by visiting our main site, where we also have a library of additional resources to help you grow your brand.
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