Do you feel like you’ve exhausted all methods of improving your site’s conversion rate? You’re not alone.
Hitting a plateau after doing everything right – UX is on point, copy matches your audience and is optimised, CTAs are clear – can be frustrating, but fear not, there may be an avenue you’ve not yet explored.
Why video marketing is important
Video, despite its current status as one of the most important marketing assets, is still remarkably under-utilised and under-valued, in particular, as a tool for conversion.
The stats really do speak for themselves:
- Visitors spend around 2.6x more time on a website with video, on average (Wistia, 2018)
- 68% of visitors would rather learn about a product by watching a video than reading text (Wyzowl, 2019)
- Video brings in 66% more qualified leads (Optinmonster, 2019)
How do you tap into this potential and use video marketing to increase landing page conversion rates?
How videos can improve conversion rates on landing pages
Product videos
We’ve all seen them and have undoubtedly had a buying decision made by a product video at one time or another in our lives, whether we remember it or not.
Product videos are the perfect tool to add to any ecommerce marketing mix. They have the ability to demonstrate the worth of a product better than any standalone image or body of text would be able to. In fact, this type of video has become so synonymous with the purchase process that nearly 50% of web users look for videos related to a product or service before they decide to visit a shop to look at it in person. That’s a huge chunk of your potential audience actively seeking video content.
How can product videos help improve your conversion rates? When a potential customer lands on a product page the key things they want to know are:
- What does it look like?
- What does it do?
- How does it work?
- What’s included?
- Why do they need it?
All of these things are likely to be addressed in your on-page copy already, so why not turn that into a script or shot list for your product video? Videos don’t need to be overly complex or fancy, they just need to provide the visitor with the information they need, both visually and factually, so they are able to easily make a decision.
Go Outdoors is a great example of product videos in action. Each tent has its own gallery and video, which explains all the features of the tent, what’s included and available extras.
The video is put together simply and cheaply, but effectively. Emphasis on effectively. You now know what the tent comes with and can make an informed decision about buying one.
The company has chosen to host its product videos on YouTube, which isn’t ideal as the next suggested video might not be one of its own – potentially pushing views to other YouTube creators. An alternative option is to self-host your video using a platform like Wistia, which shows no ads or content other than your own before, during or after any of your videos.
Wistia also passes on all the SEO benefit to your website as it won’t show your video anywhere else, not even on its own site.
Obviously, if YouTube is part of your strategy and product videos suit your audience, you may choose to go down that route instead. It all comes back to the purpose of the video you’re creating and what you want it to achieve.
With a few tweaks, your on-site product video may also be suitable for sharing on social media, making it a really useful asset at both ends of the conversion funnel, which is one reason why video marketing is so important.
In fact, around 62% of people asked said that they were more interested in a product after seeing it in a Facebook Story.
Company videos
This is possibly one of the easiest video types to get wrong but company videos are crucial to the conversion funnel, particularly for brochure sites.
With brochure sites, there’s no product to purchase and often services are very consultative rather than transactional. This is your chance to prove the capabilities, professionalism, approach and ethos of your company to anyone who lands on your site.
Your company video really needs to address and highlight three things – your culture, your product and/or service as well as your target audience.
Dollar Shave Club’s now famous company video is a great example of hitting all those marks.
More often than not, company videos are an after-thought, meaning they are produced with no real purpose (other than “we need a video”) and are then plonked on-site or posted to a dead YouTube channel waiting for someone to notice them.
What should happen, as with any type of video you produce, is they should have a clear purpose and plan drawn up, which details:
- Why the video is being produced
- Where it will go and why
- Considerations into edit and length, depending on the platform
- What the video will show and what the tone and feel will be (hint – this needs to match your brand guidelines, or it will be jarring)
- What you hope to achieve with the videos – KPIs
Once all the above are considered and agreed should you then attempt to work on the logistics – this is why it’s called video marketing.
Case studies and testimonials
Never underestimate the power of a word of mouth recommendation.
Whether it comes from a friend, family member, colleague or stranger, hearing about a product or service from someone who’s experienced it first-hand still holds the power to influence a sale, and it can be a brilliant way of improving conversion rates on landing pages.
Online reviews are also a great way of collating this social proof and persuading potential customers to do business with you, in fact, 91% of 18-34-year-olds surveyed said that they trusted online reviews as much as word of mouth recommendations. This is huge.
Video case studies take word of mouth and present it to the audience in a way that is professional, engaging and ultimately persuasive. Despite the fact that you can control the narrative more with video case studies, potential customers will still appreciate that a real customer has given their time to promote your business, as it shows they trust you and were pleased with what was provided to them by your company.
These are most effective when they are placed on a landing page for a service. However you can also create a separate case studies section to hold all your video and non-video entries, if this suits your website better. They are especially effective at the lower end of the sales funnel when visitors know what they want but are still undecided about who they want it from, so it is important to utilise them if you can.
Hearing from a real customer about how you’ve helped them and how happy they are is often enough to encourage more visitors to fill out a form, make a purchase or pick up the phone.
A useful side effect of videos on service pages is that they also improve page quality metrics like session duration, bounce rate and time on page – which is helpful when your are trying to get your page to rank better. One of my top video marketing tips, is to add video schema, as it can also aid visibility in the SERPs.
If video isn’t part of your marketing strategy this year, then what are you waiting for?
Videos don’t need to be overly expensive or time exhaustive but careful planning and the right know-how are key.
Video is used by almost 90% of all digital marketers according to Wyzowl, so jump on board and don’t be left behind.
