Aligning your Video Strategy to the Buyer Journey

Travelling as much as I do for work can be tough on my family. They usually don’t take too much interest in my trips.

But last month, as I was packing to leave for San Francisco they asked what the trip was about. I told them I was speaking at an event called Space Camp. My wife stopped and said, “what?” My daughter said “Cool! But Daddy, you are not an astronaut, you just sit at your desk all day.”.

I said to her, “I know Sweety, but when you think about it – astronauts and marketers have a lot in common.”. She was pretty excited and cried out “really, like what?!”. “Well, when we were young we both dreamed of going to outer space. They just stayed in school a lot longer.” So then I turned it into a lesson on the importance of school. Thanks Vidyard.

But really, there are similarities. Both marketers and astronauts are testers, explorers, and data scientists. We are both hoping for a response. For B2B marketers, especially, we’re both on a long complex journey, but we are not afraid to take bold steps.

Video is a perfect medium throughout a long, complex buying process

We know that today’s buyer journey is long, complex and involves a lot of consumption of marketing-created content through digital channels. Which makes video the perfect medium for engaging buyers. Why?

• We’ve been conditioned for visual communication ever since, well, Neil Armstrong landed on the moon
• Technology now enables strategic and inexpensive video projects
• Video allows us to connect with buyers on a rational and an emotional level
• Marketers have become better at tuning it to every buyer stage

It’s this last point that I focused most of my presentation on.

Which video for which stage?

While video shouldn’t be the only content type you create to engage buyers, the flexibility of the medium enables you to meet the different objectives and evaluation requirements of prospects as they progress through the buyer journey.

Above the Funnel

“Culture content” videos that are engaging and often humorous are a great way to engage prospects and create awareness of your brand. These should be short 1 to 1.5 minute videos and are often live action. A great example is Schneider-Electric’s video “Llama Superstar”:

Top of the Funnel

“Explainer videos” are a perfect way to reflect the business pains of your target audience, showing them that you have a keen understanding of their industry or role. Animated videos, whiteboard videos, and live action are typical formats. A good example is the video, Pressure, which Demand Spring created for Qlik.

Integrating viewership data captured in Vidyard into your lead scoring and lead nurturing programs in Marketing Automation will help you prioritize and progress your hot leads faster.

Middle of the Funnel 

Detailed product videos, like those created by Cisco, are great ways to showcase functionality in the evaluation stages of the buyer journey.

About Us videos are great for introducing your company to the extended buying team.

Also consider sales enablement videos in this stage – like Cisco’s fantastic video-based internal enablement program.

Bottom of the Funnel

Video is for closers. Vidyard’s own testimonial videos are great tools to drive credibility and late stage conversion.

After the Funnel

Don’t stop at the point of sale. Customer on-boarding videos and training videos ensure customer success, loyalty, and retention.

A new way to think about your video strategy

Many organizations are now investing in buyer journey analysis and are starting to align their messaging and broader marketing execution tactics to the buyer journey. Despite this new approach, even organizations that are using video in the most progressive and pervasive manner are new to considering their video marketing strategy in the context of the buyer journey. We think there is a tremendous opportunity for video marketing strategists to make phenomenal gains in turning viewers into leads with this approach. One small step for video marketers, one giant leap for revenue marketing.

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