5 Ways to Use Video Content to Crush Your Pipeline Goals

If your marketing team is anything like ours here at Vidyard, they’re constantly thinking about new ways to generate more qualified leads, more pipeline and more revenue for your business. Shares and Visitors and Likes won’t cut it. It’s time to get serious about finding the right buyers at the right time and hooking them into your story. And if your marketing team really (truly) cares about producing better outcomes, they’re even thinking about new ways to help your sales team be more efficient and effective (do I smell Sales and Marketing Alignment?!?).

While I don’t have all the answers for you, I do have some very practical ideas that you can implement to generate better results, cook up some more pipeline and maybe even close a few more deals. Warning: it will require some creative thinking and a commitment to getting serious about data-driven marketing, but I have faith that you can pull this off. So here it goes: my list of five great ways to use video content and viewer analytics to generate more leads and qualify more pipeline. Let’s Play!

Video as the Star of Content Campaigns
Beginning at the top of the marketing funnel, start thinking about how videos can help boost engagement in your content marketing and email campaigns. After all, the heart of content marketing is creative storytelling, and what better way to do that than with video? Top-of-funnel campaigns are perfect for lighthearted stories of people like your target customers who are suffering and need a remedy fast. Use fun and engaging content to get people to lean in and establish an emotional connection to your story.

Releasing a new eBook or infographic? Great! Think about using a short video as a way to draw people in. Then make the hard sell (“please give us your name and download this!”) at the end of the video once they’re engaged and invested. Here are two examples of some of our own top-performing campaigns. See for yourself how the videos become the star:

Vidyard’s Metrics Matter Campaign

 

Vidyard’s Video Marketing Handbook Campaign

Time and time again we find that promoting the video boosts the initial click-through rates compared to promoting just the guide. And the net conversion rates are way higher.

Personalized Video Campaigns
Personalized videos? Like, recording a selfie video for each prospect? NOOOOOOOOO!! Personalized Video is an exciting new technology that enables you to create unique 1:1 video viewing experiences for each individual prospect at scale, in an automated fashion. Imagine sending a video out to 30,000 prospects where each individual sees their own name woven into the story. So the video I watch says “Tyler” in it, and the video you watch says, well, [insert your name here]. Kind of like this, if your name is Jenelle:

But what’s really great is that you can also generate unique thumbnail images for each individual, so when you do a big email blast to promote the video or the campaign, everyone sees a big video thumbnail (like the one above) with their own name. How could you NOT click on that image?! And yes, you guessed it. This is an incredible way to boost CTRs and engagement in your campaigns. It is so impactful, in fact, that we’ve seen anywhere from a 5%-20% CTR on email campaigns that include a personalized video as the CTA. Compared to the average of 1.5%, that’s, well, pretty great. So, if you have a major content campaign coming up, think about how a personalized video could help to draw a LOT more eyeballs (and a lot a more leads). Pop over here to try it out for yourself and to see some examples of Personalized Video in action.

Take Your Webinars from Online to On-Demand
Why are services like Netflix crushing traditional broadcast video? Because people can watch what they want, when they want, where they want (with whom they want!). Could your webinar strategy learn a thing or two from this? If your marketing team is using live webinars as lead generation and nurturing programs, be sure they’re thinking about what they could do with those same webinars after-the-fact as on-demand assets.

Posting a recorded webinar to your site is easy, but think about ways to gate that content to ensure it can continue to be a lead generating machine all year round. You can create dedicated pages for each webinar and gate them with an Eloqua form, or you can use in-video email gates and data collection forms to get someone watching (and hooked!) before you ask for their precious personal information. Check out how we do this for all the webinars we host. The following page is a lead gen machine for us all year long!

Vidyard’s On-Demand Webinars Page

Customer Stories Create Social Proof
If you’re reading this, you likely understand the value of social proof and the power of customer testimonials. But when was the last time that you got really emotional after reading a 10-page customer case study filled with numbers, industry jargon, and call-out quotes? Don’t get me wrong, there’s a place for these assets in the marketing tool belt, but video-based testimonials present a unique opportunity to bring customer stories to life and to create personal connections with your buyers.

Customer Success Video Example

If you’re not already doing so, think about where there are opportunities to take existing customer success stories and turn them into compelling videos that bring faces to names and success stories to life. These videos can be golden as part of nurture campaigns, social media programs and direct prospecting by your sales team. A two-minute video testimonial can say WAY more than a 10-page written piece (that is not very likely to get read in the first place).

Culture Videos Can Do More than Make People Laugh
This may seem like an odd question, but do you create culture videos that showcase who you are, how you operate or why you’re so passionate about what you do? Have you ever created a video simply to make your customers laugh or to share with them who your employees are?

These types of videos can be surprisingly effective for nurturing prospects and building brand affinity. They don’t always generate new leads off the bat, but they can be effective as “no ask” touch points that keep your brand top of mind and make audiences more inclined to engage in your next message.

Here are some fun examples of culture videos we’ve created at Vidyard to share with our prospects and customers. Note that the holidays throughout the year can offer a great opportunity to have some fun and show your true colors!

The Vidyard Family Hallowe’en Video

 

Vidyard’s Happy Holidays 2015

BONUS TIME!
There are some great ideas for how to use video, but it’s all for not if you can’t turn these video viewers into new leads or understand who’s actually watching. That’s where your friends at Vidyard come in! Our video marketing platform enables marketers to track who’s watching which videos, when and for how long, and to get that data into Eloqua and Salesforce contact records to enhance lead scoring, segmentation and nurturing programs. By knowing who’s watching what, you can identify your most engaged leads quicker, and turn views into leads, and leads into pipeline.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! Hopefully you found this useful, and if so, please share it with a friend. For more ideas on how to use video content and video analytics to absolutely crush it in 2016, check out our jointly published guide with our friends at Oracle: The Modern Marketer’s Guide to Getting the Most Out of Video.