One of the important aspects of making a sale is making sure your customer sees what they want to see when they want to see it.

And one thing about today’s populace- they would much rather see a cat video on YouTube than read your boring sales pitch. So how do you get noticed in this chaotic era of information overload? You become the cat video.

Videos are the answer. And we’re not talking about one simple product or brand video. What you need in this day and age is a Video Sales funnel. We are going to tell you how and why your business needs to embrace video marketing and build a video centered marketing funnel.

In the age of YouTube, people need to be wowed for them to notice you. Your sales pitch can’t just meekly list out your details anymore and hope that customers will be interested. Your pitches need to sing and dance if they must. And we are going to tell you how they can.

What is a Sales Funnel?

A marketing sales funnel is a marketing tool used to visualize the journey of your potential customers from awareness to conversion.

It helps you direct your consumers along the right path during their sales journey- from first becoming aware of your business, considering what you can offer them, to finally making a purchase and then staying a loyal customer.

A Sales Funnel is exactly what it sounds like. A funnel. Let’s look at it this way. You know those amusement park water slides that whoosh you down from point A high up to point B on the ground?

That journey is faster and way more fun when compared to taking the stairs right? Now how you build your slide will determine how fun it is and ultimately how many people get on it.

Similarly, by knowing your sales funnel and knowing your target audience, you can optimize your marketing funnel in the most effective way possible, thereby attracting more leads and easily converting them.

Stages of a Sales Funnel

So what does the cross-section of a typical sales funnel look like? The different stages of a sales funnel can be described as-

  • Awareness Stage

In this stage, your potential customer has just discovered who you are. They may have done so through any of the marketing channels you have set up. The awareness stage is most often the beginning of a courtship between you and your customer.

  • Consideration Stage

Here the customer is weighing alternatives, doing research exploring your product, and trying to see if this is the best choice for them. Your job is to make sure they understand that you are, indeed, the best choice.

  • Decision Stage

In this stage, the customer is ready to buy. You’ve got them hooked, now reel them in. Make them an offer they can’t refuse.

  • Action Stage

The lead has been converted. A purchase has been made. But your job is not done. Customer retention is important to ensure that the one-time purchase leads to a history of loyalty between your business and your customer.

Marketing strategies targeting these stages are called Top of the Funnel (TOFU) marketing for awareness, Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) marketing for consideration, and Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) marketing for decision and action.

Why is Video Important in Marketing?

Videos can connect with your consumers better than any other medium. They are more engaging and interesting. Video Marketing generates good ROI, and they help in lead generation, increases traffic, and ultimately increases sales.

It’s an understandable fact that videos can connect with people and keep them interested in a way text can’t. But no need to trust instinct, there is solid statistical data to support that view.

A study done by Wyzowl says that on average people watch 16 hours of online video a week. And according to Google, YouTube reaches more people in the range of 18 to 49 years of age in a week than all cable TV networks combined.

The Wyzowl study also reports that 84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.

According to a study done by the Content Marketing Institute, as of 2022, 71% of B2B and 66% of B2C marketers use video marketing. So that means if your business isn’t into video marketing yet, you're well behind the curve.

Wyzowl’s study says that 89% of video marketers report a good ROI on videos. And Animoto‘s Social Video Forecast says that 91% of marketers are satisfied with the ROI of video marketing on social media.

So these days video marketing needs to be an integral part of your digital marketing strategy. But it isn’t enough to just put out one generic sales video and be done with it.

The key is in integrating videos along every step of your sales funnel, giving it life. You make your sales funnel a living thing that is capable of sucking in leads and converting them. Yes, the imagery sounds a bit gross but you see the point.

Types of Videos to Use in Your Sales Funnel

Now you know the importance of developing a video sales funnel. Let’s move on to exactly what kind of videos you should put into your sales funnel, and where.

Matching the right type of video with the right stage of the buyer’s journey is crucial to ensuring that your videos have the maximum impact. We have compiled a list of videos you can use at each stage of the funnel along with some examples.

1. The Awareness Stage

In this stage, it is important to know what your customers are looking for and then fill that need. You need to focus on catching the eye of your potential customer. Don’t ever underestimate the power of Google and YouTube.

At this stage, it is crucial that your videos are SEO friendly, and obviously, helpful.

In this stage especially you need to pay attention to your video and audio quality. The aesthetic appeal, as well as the understandability and likeability of voiceovers for your videos, is important in determining how much of your videos your customers actually end up watching.

a) Educational Videos and How-to videos

These kinds of videos work because once you’ve helped people with something, they are more likely to listen to you. It’s about building trust in your brand.

Educational videos at this stage should not be focused on your business, but instead on how to provide solutions to questions that a potential customer might be asking.

In the end, you make sure the customer knows you helped them, but do not push products on them. “Educational” doesn’t exactly mean science classes though here. Puma released a collection of exercise videos to boost their brand.

Make and post how-to videos on common things that are related to your business. If you're a tire company, make a video on how to change tires on a car. It’s that simple. Levis posts How-to videos regularly about improvements and changes you can make to your denim wear.

b) Brand films

Brand films increase the visibility of your business at the top of the funnel. They tell your mission and vision to people at the awareness stage.

If you have enough elements to resonate with your prospects in your brand film, then they just might move down the funnel with just that. The Brand film from Lyft shown below clearly connects with customers and tells them what the brand stands for.

c) Company Stories

Videos that tell a story will always interest people. Be it some interesting instance during the founding of your enterprise, or a documentary about some relevant issue in a related field, they are good for capturing people’s attention.

2. The Consideration Stage

Your prospects are weighing your products against those of your competitors in this stage. Here you need to make a big push to show them that you are worth their investment. Beef up your products’ uses and advantages and serve it up to them.

a) Product or Service Videos

Your prospects know about your product, now sell them on it. Use product and service videos to highlight your awesomeness. A good product video can be the difference that decides whether your customer is going to move down the funnel or jump ship.

b) Explainer animations

Explainer animated videos are a simple and effective way to get your product details across. With animation, you can make your videos as fun and quirky as you want. The only limit is your imagination.

The video from Slack given below is a great example of how animated explainer videos can be simple and fun to watch.

c) About Us Videos

You might think that nobody checks your About us, and a lot of people don’t. But it is important that you need to have one in place to build credibility when customers do look for it.

3. The Decision Stage

You have a customer ready to make an investment. It’s the final push. Here you aim to clear up last-minute doubts regarding your product, as well as solidify your customer’s trust in you.

You don’t need to worry about being subtle anymore, shout “We are the best!” in your customer’s face if you must. Just kidding, don’t do that.

a) FAQ videos

Make a collection of customer queries and answer them, then put it all in videos. By providing easy clarification for customers’ doubts at this stage, you make sure you don’t lose them before conversion.

The below video is an example from the “Application FAQ” playlist from the YouTube channel of the Pensacola Habitat For Humanity.

b) Demo videos

Don’t make your customers sweat by having to figure out the assembly, installation, set-up, or maintenance of your product by themselves. Demo and walkthrough videos make life easier for your customers, which will always reflect well on you.

If you're a furniture manufacturer, make a playlist with the assembly instructions on all your pieces, so your buyers won’t have to suffer the hassle of struggling with reading and understanding booklets and instructions.

c) Case studies and Customer Testimonials

Case studies and customer testimonials are a great way to boost trust in your business for customers in the middle of the funnel. Instead of hearing you plug your own business, they are hearing it from a customer like them.

It proves prior customer satisfaction and makes your prospects more likely to lock in on you. Here the most important thing to keep in mind is to retain the authenticity of the videos.

Make sure that it is clearly understood that the people in the video are real customers. Perfectly delivered speeches are not what is needed. Instead, a very human description of customer experience will be more likely to resonate with your prospects.

4. The Action Stage

WhooHoo! You’ve made a sale! But now you need to make sure that your newfound customers stay satisfied and loyal to your brand. There's a bunch of different kinds of videos that you can use to ensure the best customer experience.

a) Personalized videos

If your prospect has just made a purchase, then a little push from your part may be able to turn that purchase into two, or more.

Send them a personalized video via email or other communication platforms, with the best offers you think they would enjoy. If you have a simple whiteboard animation template, it is easy enough to make changes to suit your customer. They’ll feel special, appreciate the extra attention, and would give some thought to your offer at the least.

Thank you videos, especially personalized ones, work the same way to make customers feel appreciated. A simple thank you for your business and hope to see you again would suffice, and using a video to convey that gives it an extra feeling of connection.

b) Customer retention

You need to keep reminding your customers often that you're still here and you're still great. Send them cordial videos that make them feel like they’re a part of your community. Send them wishes on holidays and announcements on sales. Do not let them forget you.

Another thing you need to think about is where you're going to be posting your videos. At the top of the funnel, video hosting platforms like YouTube are best for ensuring maximum reach. Almost all of your videos should be on YouTube on your brand channel anyway, and it would be a great idea if you can maintain a consistent vlog.

Towards the bottom of the funnel, you can consider including videos in your direct emails with proposals. Customer retention videos should also be shared this way.

Another platform to put video marketing to use is social media. Maintaining a social media presence is a crucial aspect of digital marketing these days. Link to your YouTube posts across all social media handles.

Use tools like Instagram Live Stream to interact with your audience. Even pure entertainment platforms like TikTok can be used to publicize your product these days.

If you want to put money into advertising, prepare short and to-the-point video ads for that purpose. Paid advertising has no time to be coy, so don’t worry too much about easing your customer into it.

Then there is your website. Instead of dry text, you can use lively videos across your About and FAQ pages. And there are of course always more innovative ideas you can try to implement video marketing across your marketing funnel.

VideoForm- A Video Personalization Tool To Bring Interactions Across the Funnel

These days when actual human interactions are short in supply, you may be struggling to connect with your customers. And your customers, when they pull up your website, may be disappointed to find that all they have to connect to are mechanical chatbots.

Video marketing can save the day here in the form of our new tool called VideoForm. By using a tool that personalizes videos, you can create more relevant and engaging content that resonates with their audience, resulting in a better overall customer experience.

VideoForm is a video personalization tool that enables businesses to create personalized video experiences for their customers across the entire customer journey.

It allows businesses to customize both the look and feel of their videos as well as the content, making each video unique to the viewer. This not only helps businesses to stand out from the competition but also allows them to better engage with their viewers and create a more customized and personal experience.

VideoForm is easy to use and integrates with all major marketing platforms, making it a valuable tool for any business that wants to improve its video marketing strategy.

Using VideoForm, you can connect with your customers using customizable videos and generate leads. This increases interaction and engagement and ultimately boosts your lead generation and conversion rates.

At the top of the funnel, it prevents prospects from feeling disengaged with your business and moving on. You can find out what people need and respond accordingly.

In the middle of the funnel, you can actively figure out your customers’ queries and misunderstandings and respond accordingly. At the bottom of the funnel, you can easily prompt your customers to make a purchase. You can also ensure customer retention by staying in touch with them using personalized videos.

30+ Video Personalization Templates
Send a personalized video by weaving in customer information into a video. Choose from 30+ video personalization templates !

VideoForm lets you stay with your customers throughout their journey through the funnel, providing them with human interactions and support.

A Marketing Funnel For A New Age

You need to embrace video marketing in this day and age if you want to keep up with the times. Each stage of your sales funnel should have videos suited to that stage, engaging with your customer and keeping them connected to you. Your sales funnel needs to be full of life, to draw leads in and convert them.

The best and most effective videos incite some sort of emotion in the viewers. It could be anything- inspiration, awe, camaraderie, satisfaction, laughter, or even a bit of sadness. Those emotions are the key to your customers’ minds and hearts, and ultimately their credit cards.

So go ahead, line the walls of your sales funnel with colorful and awesome videos, and prepare to be amazed by the results!

Book a demo with us to know more about personalized videos!