According to a recent survey, 87% of business leaders want to better understand the customer buying journey.

Though there are many steps along the path to purchase, there are five overarching ones that experts have dubbed the marketing funnel. From awareness to action, this funnel gets narrower in scope as a buying decision draws near.

Okay well. Video first, right? Here’s a video we produced on the 10 Steps to Master Video Marketing. You might like the bloopers at the end.

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Every step along the way provides marketers a unique opportunity for customer engagement. It isn’t enough to engage at the initial awareness stage, then step back and consider your job done until it’s time to close the deal.

With so many options for digital outreach available, how can you best focus your efforts? While there is always a place for social media, blogging, direct mail, and more, video is emerging as a key player in this space.

In this article I break down how to use video at every stage of your sales and marketing funnel, inching your prospects one step closer to customer status.

Ready to learn more? Let’s go!

Understanding the Marketing Funnel

What is the marketing funnel? Before I get into how video factors into it, let’s take a brief look at what it entails.

In short, this is a way to visualize the steps that someone takes from the first time they interact with your brand until they’re ready to check out, either online or in-person.

Though there are myriad versions of the funnel, the five basic steps include, in chronological order:

1. Interest
2. Learn
3. Evaluate
4. Justify
5. Purchase

The Shape Explained

Why is it referred to as a funnel? In the beginning, at the interest stage, there are a large number of people taking that first step. Then, as the steps continue, many will drop off and abandon the effort altogether.

When shown as an illustration, this gradual narrowing resembles a funnel.

When it’s time for the final sale, a fraction of those from the beginning remain. To increase this number and grow your profits, it’s important to keep customers interested and coming back for more, convincing them that it’s worth staying the course.

This is where marketing campaigns and a dedicated sales team can make a major difference. Combined effectively, they can usher prospective buyers along the funnel until it’s time to close the deal, then convince them to repeat the process over again.

Next, let’s take a look at how video can be used in every step of this five-stage journey, aiding your efforts and strengthening your connection.

1. Upper Funnel Marketing

Upper funnel marketing encompasses steps 1-2, or interest and learning.

When you’re first seeking to attract prospects, you don’t need to go into fine-print detail to persuade them. In fact, this could be off-putting to those outside your industry.

Instead, focus on high-level video topics that can appeal to a mass audience. Here are a few ways to ace the broadest piece of the puzzle.

Exciting Initial Interest with Relevant Data

Above all, establish a genuine connection with your viewers rather than being pushy about your promotion. Try to provide information that answers a question or solves a common pain point.

For instance, you can create how-to videos that showcase your expertise. Once you’ve created enough, you can upload them into a content library accessible via your website. This establishes you as a thought leader in your space, helps your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts, and intrigues web visitors all at the same time.

In-the-Know Interviews

Another idea is to record interviews with leaders in your sphere to provide unique insights on a topic that relates to your industry. Even a fun, short video that reveals your company culture can be enough to pique initial interest.

Click-Friendly CTAs

Want to encourage viewers to move further along the funnel? Include a Call-to-Action (CTA) as part of your video.

This can pop out from the video itself or you can embed it on your landing page. Use your CTA as a nudge to take the next step.

Ask them to download a whitepaper, click on another video, or sign up for e-newsletter alerts. Or, if you’re ready to move them even further along, request that they visit your website to learn more.

2. Mid-Funnel Marketing

Mid-funnel marketing focuses on the evaluation and justification stages. While videos are helpful in stages 1-2, they shine on steps 3-4.

This is the critical juncture along the customer journey.

During an evaluation, prospects will decide for themselves whether it’s worth it or not to pursue your product or service. You could wax poetic via text to convince them. Or, you can show them and make a greater impact.

This is where you can get more detailed. You’ll need to go in-depth when discussing the features and benefits of your offering so shoppers can determine if it’s right for them. Let’s take a look at a few video styles that can do the trick.

Product Demonstrations

Consumers can read a description of your product and try to visualize it, but at best, all they have is an imaginative guess. When you use video to show them a 360-degree view of the object itself, their comprehension skyrockets.

Case Studies and Client Testimonials

Case studies make it personal. Client testimonials make it convincing.

Both put a face and a personality to an inanimate object or idea. These videos reach your audience in poignant ways and help them understand what to expect if they decide to move down the funnel.

Practical Integrations

Are you selling a software solution? Shoot a video that details how your app integrates seamlessly with other tools your viewers may already have. For instance, a tool designed to improve productivity may link to users’ social media feeds to mute updates for periods of focused work.

In other words, showcase how your solution fits into their existing ecosystem and makes it better.

Personalized Outreach

Did you request that viewers join your e-mail list in your upper funnel marketing CTA? If so, and if you have the bandwidth, you can send a personalized video to stand out.

Include details such as the person’s name, title, company, and logo. To make this process easier, you can leverage automated video personalization tools that add those elements in for you.

3. Lower Funnel Marketing

You’ve made their ears perk up with high-level videos that got them talking. Then, you routed them to your website and delivered the thorough content they needed.

By now, your initial group of interested prospects has gotten smaller and that’s OK. What you’re left with is a group of people who genuinely care about your product and took the steps to research it more fully.

Step 5, or purchase, is technically the last stage in the marketing funnel. Yet, there’s an assumed step 6 that isn’t always written or included. This is a period of follow-up and it’s essential to convincing buyers to come back again.

First, let’s take a look at two ways you can use videos at the point of purchase.

Networking Videos

Is your current outreach campaign tied to an upcoming event, such as a charity ball or a fundraising dinner? If you know that one of your prospects will be in attendance, create a personalized video, and send it beforehand to request a meet-up.

Known as nurture videos, these can help your company seal the deal. Lead nurturing has long been a marketing campaign standby, and video can make the connection feel even more authentic.

FAQ Guides

Picture this: You wrapped a great conference call or demonstration with a potential buyer. You think it went well, but you aren’t sure. What can you say to keep your brand top of mind?

Creating an FAQ video guide is a great place to start. Use one to go into greater detail about your offering and break the ice, to boot.

When it’s appropriate, send an e-mail message along the lines of, “Thanks for taking the time to meet with our team today! If you have any questions, please let us know. In the meantime, here’s a quick FAQ guide I put together to help explain the solution in greater detail.”

Think you’re done? Once you’ve made the sale, your work continues. Now, you can use videos to follow-up and ensure customer satisfaction.

Here are two ways to do so:

Check-In Chats

You may leverage a two-way telecommunications application to connect with your buyer. Or, you may record a short video that says you’re checking in to make sure they’re happy. Then, e-mail it to them, using personal details in both the written message and the video itself.

Ask them to give you a little feedback so you can help improve the customer experience. How has the first week with your product been? Any complaints or issues?

This can be a great way to find out about any usability concerns, expand upon what you’re doing right, and find ways to perform better. It’s a lessons-learned meeting, straight from the source itself.

In your video, you can also request that customers leave feedback on your website, online business profile, and social media feeds. As 84% of people trust online reviews as much as recommendations from their friends and family, it pays to get people talking.

How-To Videos

Yes, I already covered these in the upper funnel marketing section. Yet, they also factor in here, and for good reason.

Your customers might not have any concerns or questions about your offering across the entire funnel. They may think they know how to work it or what it does.

Next, they bring the product home or they use the service. Then, they realize they have more questions than they thought.

Create a separate category of instructional how-to videos that cover questions your buyers might have after they purchase. In the same vein, you can also create troubleshooting guides that address technical challenges and uncertainties.

In most cases, these will be focused on operational technique. For example, you might take users through a step-by-step guide on how to get up and running with your software. You can also demonstrate how to wear accessories, apply skincare, fire up a power tool and more.

When these videos are detailed enough, they can even prevent your technical support teams from getting inundated with personal calls for help. You can also include a clickable CTA that leads to a product demo request page so buyers don’t have to schedule that with your sales crew.

Succeeding at Every Step of the Marketing Funnel

The marketing funnel is designed for a reason, though it isn’t meant to be a rigid, inflexible process. As you get deeper into incorporating video content in yours, you’ll realize that some tactics designed for step 1 work better for step 4 and vice versa.

The key to making this customer path work for your brand is to allow this pliancy. If you make a how-to video that you love, you don’t want to share it at the buying stage. Show that accomplishment off and use it to excite initial interest at the onset of your campaign.

Consider which elements make sense in your greater campaign and how your audience will react to each one. As you do so, don’t forget to cater to the customer at every checkpoint. The path to purchase may be a winding one, but you aren’t the one in the driver’s seat.

When you’re ready to take your video marketing efforts to the next level, we’d love to help. Our video communications platform helps users around the world create and share the content they love.

Request an invite today, and let’s take this next step forward together.