Overview Videos
In many ways, your video marketing collateral is all about telling a story. The format you choose will be dictated by what portion of the story you’re telling and, most importantly, who you’ll be telling it to at the time. For example, overview videos are a terrific way to give your buyer a starting point in their journey; they’re a macro approach to a particular topic — be it by providing more information about your product or service, or diving deeper into your staff, your company, and your brand. Overview videos are a perfect opportunity to “show, not tell.” You can outline what your product does, but in a visual way that goes far deeper than just a technical specification sheet. You can show real people using real products, drawing a connection between both what it is you’re promising and how your brand is going to positively impact the lives of your end users.
Demonstration Videos
Demonstration videos, on the other hand, offer the opportunity to go into a little more detail in a way that the overview video format does not afford. In an overview video for your product, you might take the approach of “here is what our product does and here is why that matters to your life.” In a demo video, you can take things one step farther and say “here is how you can use our product to get closer to the benefits you’ve already shown interest in.” It’s a way to continue to aid the buyer on their journey across the sales funnel. If the overview video is designed to be their entry point, the demo video makes sure they’re continuing on down the chosen path at the right pace.
The “Getting Started” Video
“Getting Started” videos are a terrific resource to use after a purchase has been made to continue to allow your users to get more out of their relationship with your brand. But again, because video is a visual medium, a “Getting Started” video cannot just be the equivalent of someone reading an instruction manual on camera. Always focus on the idea of “never tell when you can show.” Showing someone how to get started and what steps to take immediately after making a purchase is a great way to extend the reach of your customer service capabilities — something that is incredibly important in the modern era. Customer service is one of the best ways to generate loyalty, and according to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, a loyal customer is worth as much as ten times more in the long-run than the value of their first purchase.
Return on Investment (ROI) Videos
ROI videos are another invaluable resource in terms of helping to take a one-time customer and turn them into a repeat buyer. Again, think about where along the sales funnel this type of content would fall — after a purchase has been made, but still in the early stages of use. You can create an ROI video for customers regardless of the product or service you’re selling, you just have to be able to visualize the very real, very positive ways that your brand impacted the customer’s life, and show them how to see those benefits through their own eyes. In essence, this is a terrific way to not just make sure a customer leaves the sales funnel on a high note, but also to entice them to at least think about entering it again.
In the End
When used properly, these and other types of essential video formats don’t necessarily shorten the sales process as much as they streamline it. They help make sure that you’re getting the right type of messaging in front of the eyes of the right person at exactly the right time, helping to make the process of moving from one end of the sales funnel to the other as effortless as possible. These days, video marketing isn’t just how you get someone to make a single purchase — it’s also how you keep them coming back for more, along with how you begin to forge the type of mutually beneficial relationship that will last a lifetime.
