How Video Helps You Nurture Leads into Customers

We’re breaking down each stage of the buyer’s journey in this four-part series.

You’ve done the work it takes to attract visitors to your website. You’ve engaged those visitors with interesting, informative content and they’ve willingly given you their contact information. Now, you’ve got to nurture these leads, communicating with them in just the right way until they’re convinced they should purchase from you.

Easy, right?

If only! Nurturing leads takes patience, skillful communication, dedication, and more. And, even after all that, you can never be 100 percent sure a lead will turn into a paying customer. So, what can you do to try and optimize your efforts and make all that marketing work worth it?

We’re here to share a few of the insights we’ve gathered over the years and show you how video can help you turn leads into paying customers.

Don’t forget to take a look at the other articles in our series:
How to Attract New Customers with Video
How to Engage New Visitors with Video
How to Delight Past Customers with Video

At this point in the sales funnel, your lead has submitted their personal information and is beginning to research the solution to the problem they face. They’re weighing their options carefully, so you want to be sure that, whatever you do, you clearly communicate why you’re better than the competition. Building this relationship is crucial – and you only do that through sincere and authentic contact.

There’s no real “how-to” when it comes to nurturing your leads. The process is different for every industry, every company, and every prospect. But here are a few of our best tips that will help you strengthen your nurturing efforts.

Once you’ve got your prospect’s information, ramp up your communication efforts. According to Hubspot, prospects receive an average of 10 touches from the time they enter the top of the funnel until they’re a closed-won customer, so you want to make sure you’re making contact across multiple channels and at varying times. Interestingly, about 50 percent of companies admit they have less than five touch points in their nurturing campaigns, so do better than they do and keep communication open!

Over 83% of consumers trust personal recommendations over any form of advertising.

There’s nothing worse than submitting your information to a website and then being put into a dry, unrelated email marketing sequence. Don’t do this! Instead, personalize your communication – use custom tokens, like name and industry, to bring a personal touch to your mass email campaigns. Send custom promotions to people on your lists based on interests, shopping or browsing behavior, location, and more. Use names whenever possible and, if you can, dedicate some of your marketing budget to creating customized content, like videos and social media campaigns, for those leads that are more likely to convert.

Do you trust a company when they tell you they’re the best? Without social proof, chances are slim. That’s because social proof, or the opinions of others, has a strong influence on our behavior. According to Nielsen, over 83 percent of consumers trust personal recommendations over any form of advertising. And, at the nurturing stage of the buyer’s journey, these opinions are worth so much more. Honest feedback from past customers can be just the thing that convinces a lead to become a customer.

The easier you make the acquisition of information, the better. Whether it’s about product features, benefits, specs, or use, you probably have a good idea of the types of questions you most frequently get asked. The answers to these questions not only provide value, but can help knock down these purchase barriers. Facilitate answers and you’ll likely facilitate a sale.

We already know video is the most engaging type of content and is highly preferred by consumers. They want to see more video from brands, and it’s your job to make that happen.

But, besides being engaging, video is a powerful tool when it comes to making purchases happen.

• According to Wyzowl, 97 percent of video marketers reported that video increased user understanding of a product or service, and 76 percent reported video helped them increase sales.
• Forty-six percent of users act after viewing a video ad.
• Of those surveyed, 84 percent of consumers were convinced to buy a product or service after watching a brand’s video.
• According to Forbes, emails with video content lead to an increase in click-through rate (CTR) of 200-300 percent.
• Almost 50 percent of web users look for a video before visiting a store, according to Google.

That means it’s not really a matter of whether or not you should use video, but how to use it best at this stage of the buyer’s journey.

Almost any branded video is likely to help your company nurture the relationship you’ve established with your contacts.

Case study videos typically highlight a specific customer’s experience from beginning to end, studying their successful results as a testament to your product or service’s positive benefits. Because these videos are results-oriented, they give leads the opportunity to see what you can do for them.

A customer testimonial is a video that shows past or current satisfied customers talking about their positive experience using your product or service. These videos are especially effective at this point in the sales funnel because they can be that final push a prospective buyer needs to convince them their purchase will totally meet their needs.

Product review videos give your prospects a third-party opinion on your product, usually from an influencer or current customer. Ninety percent of consumers say their buying decisions are influenced by online reviews, so think of this as the most visual and engaging type of review you can create.

FAQ videos put you two steps ahead of your leads by providing answers to your company’s most frequently asked questions, saving both your prospective clients and your internal team a lot of time. By answering their questions, you’ll eliminating another potential obstacle to purchase, addressing user concerns and more.

An event video is a video featuring an event your company organized or participated in. It should show your company or product in action and can feature other industry players or community members, as well. These videos should demonstrate your extensive knowledge of your industry and ease user concerns about your experience or what it’s like to work with you.

While it can be hard to measure success as you’re engaging your visitors, measuring the success of your nurture-stage content can be a lot more straightforward.

Use the following KPIs to track how your videos are doing and whether your nurturing efforts are actually working.

• Clicks: This measures how many times someone clicks to your website, lead capture form, store, or landing page from an element in your video. Clicking shows not only a high level of interest, but a higher likelihood of converting into a customer.
• Calls: As the name suggests, calls measure how many people call your company after watching your video. Measured through dynamic call tracking or mobile phone cookies, make sure to keep an eye on how many calls convert immediately into a sale and how many calls usher users further along the buyer’s journey.
• Signups: Signups usually signify a high level of interest and a need for more information before converting. Make sure your signup forms are gathering the right amount of information and that you follow up frequently to maintain that interest.
• Sales: The ultimate conversion! A sale is what your entire marketing efforts so far have been leading to. Though a sale may not happen right after a user watches your video, it can happen soon after, so be sure you’re tracking every your users’ behavior at every touch point and building a reliable attribution model.
• Purchase Intent Lift: Harder to measure, a lift in purchase intent shows increased willingness to buy your product or service after watching your video. This is usually gathered through consumer research, like surveys or online opinion polls. The tie between purchase intent and actual purchases is high, so be every video you create aims to increase this vital metric.

As you get lower down the sales funnel, doing your job well gets harder and harder. How do you ensure you’re communicating effectively with your users, giving them valuable information and insight, all while pushing a sale?

Luckily, hard as it is, video marketing makes it easier. Video as a tool helps your company gain credibility and authority, it makes information easier to understand, and showcases what you’re selling in a clear and direct way.

Of course, it isn’t a one-and-done deal. One video marketing campaign won’t accomplish all your goals. You still have to be open to creating awesome, engaging video content that’s unique to each of the platforms and marketing channels you’re using. Video content can overlap – we know it’s unrealistic to expect every piece of video content you use to be 100 percent unique! – but editing it in a unique way can totally be done and will actually bring you greater results.

Don’t worry if that all sounds overwhelming. We know it can be a lot for any company to take on alone. That’s why we work with our clients to create amazing videos that’ll drive greater results, whether that means closing more sales or encouraging viewers to ask more questions as they work their way down the funnel. In the end, utilizing video in the right way at the right time is crucial – the sooner you get started, the better off you’ll be.