We can divide the sales funnel into four stages. Each stage will have different content requirements to address what’s going on in the minds of the customers currently occupying those stages. Note that not every stage is created equal. Some should be “weighted” with more content than the others.
1. Interest
The first stage is to get customers interested in your company and what you offer. This isn’t the time to jump all over them with testimonials and detailed information. About 15% of your content should be geared toward this stage. This stage is a great place to take some risks, and grab eyeballs with animation or humorous content.
2. Learning
Once a potential customer is interested, they’re going to want to learn more about your products and services. Videos for this stage don’t necessarily need to get into hard data and technical specifications but should provide a little more to chew on than the Interest-stage videos. This stage should carry about 25% of your video content.
3. Evaluation
This is perhaps the biggest and most important stage in the sales funnel. Evaluation is where your leads can drill down into the factual and technical information needed to make an informed purchasing decision. At this point, the CTAs in your content should be directing leads to provide email addresses and other forms of contact. If they’ve gotten this far, they know what you’re about, they’re interested, and it’s entirely appropriate to start aiming for direct, personalized communications.
Product demos, case studies, and more detailed instructional videos can all find a place here. You can devote as much as 40% of your funnel to this kind of content.
4. Justification
When a customer has all the information they need to make a purchase, sometimes it just takes a little push to get them to make a final decision. After researching and evaluating your product, the decision-maker must have a reason to choose your company over any others they might have investigated. The last stage of the sales funnel should be dedicated to providing those reasons.
Video Production Tips
Shooting a high-quality video can involve a lot of work. You might need to write a script, buy or rent a professional camera, find or create a studio, hire talent, and source music. Once the shooting wraps, you still have to edit, record a voiceover, and choose a hosting platform.
1. Define Your Target Audience
You have to have a good sense of who is watching your videos. If your B2B clients are young, hip web developers, you can get away with weird, edgy content. If they’re an old consortium of land developers, you might want to go in a very traditional and conservative direction.
2. Define Their Pain Points
Now that you know who is watching, the next question is why—what issues or obstacles they’re facing that your company can provide solutions for.
3. Define Your Buyer Journey
Similar in concept to the sales funnel, this describes the process through which a lead becomes a buyer.
4. Create Relevant Video Content
Your videos should address your audience’s pain points at every stage of the sales funnel.
5. Go Viral
Video is a large investment. You’ll need to get it in front of a lot of eyeballs to meet your engagement goals. True, “going viral” isn’t something you can directly control, if it’s clever or funny enough it might get shared around the right industry circles.
Conclusion
Just remember, the care and thought you put into planning and producing your video content will have a direct impact on the results you see on your balance sheet.