You’ve successfully implemented a conversion rate optimization strategy. And although it’s been giving you some results, you want to further improve sales and boost your ROI.
You may have improved your landing page design and revamped your product pages. But have you considered improving your video content as part of your CRO efforts?
By changing how you create videos, and making them more compelling, you can significantly boost your conversions.
“By changing how you create videos, and making them more compelling, you can significantly boost your conversions.” — Shane BarkerHere are a few tips to help you out:
1. Establish Trust With Video Testimonials
Trust is an important factor to be considered when making a purchase. You wouldn’t invest your money on a product or brand that you don’t trust.
Many times, people look at reviews to see how those products have helped other customers. And based on those reviews, prospective customers will make a decision on whether or not to go through with the purchase.
You can implement this into your video marketing strategy by creating video testimonials of some of your best clients. Invite some of your existing customers or clients for a testimonial video shoot.
You can provide them with basic guidelines on what they should wear or how they should look, but make sure you avoid giving them a specific script, as that can seem too unnatural. You want customers/clients to express their genuine thoughts about your brand, and having a script can ruin that.
All you need to do is give them a brief idea of what you need. Basically, you need them to talk about how you have helped them or how your product has benefited them. You can edit later and cut out any unnecessary parts.
Groove has a page where people can access customer testimonials. This page also has a few video testimonials from loyal customers. For example, the following screenshot shows a video in which one of their customers talks about how his team has implemented Groove.
Infosys has an entire list of videos in which their clients talk about their experiences working with them. As you can see in the screenshot below, the company has collected video testimonials from reputable clients. This can be an effective way to establish trust with potential clients. It can help their prospects better understand the effectiveness of their service.
#2: Inform Using Product Demos
Another reason why some people hesitate to buy something is because they’re not too sure how the product works. This is often the case with tech products and new gadgets. People are afraid to take the risk in case they can’t figure out how to use the product properly.
This is why you need to explain to them how your product works, so you can convince them to go through with the purchase. And videos are an effective channel for doing that. They can demonstrate various steps and features in ways images never can and explain details and steps much clearer than text instructions.
So if you haven’t done it yet, create a demo or explainer video for your product/products. You can then include this video on your landing page or product page as needed.
In a case study conducted by Adélie Studios, an explainer video was able to boost signups for a vacation rental service. MyVR wanted to tell a simple, yet entertaining story through an explainer video. The video showcased how their service helps owners and managers of vacation home rentals. After they included the video to their home page, MyVR experienced a 34% increase in trial signups.
#3: Use Humor to Entertain
No one likes promotional videos that are too promotional. So when you’re creating a video to promote your product or service, you need something to entertain your audience. More often than not, humor does the trick. And everyone loves a brand with a good sense of humor.
The goal of a humorous promotional video isn’t just to sell your product, but to influence people’s perception of your brand. You want people to associate your brand with something positive and light-hearted. When people have an affinity to your brand, it’s highly likely they’ll be more open to doing business with you.
So for your next video advertising campaign, try coming up with a funny storyline that entertains your audience. You can find some ideas from successful videos like those from the Dollar Shave Club. Their famous “Our Blades are F***ing Great” video has received more than 24 million YouTube views to date.
The video features a character named Mike, who works for Dollar Shave Club. He walks around, and talks about their service and all the benefits they offer. This would probably seem promotional if it had been executed in a different way. But Dollar Shave Club frames the messaging in a hilarious and light-hearted manner. And that helped make the video a huge hit with consumers and marketers alike. They have also featured the video on their home page.
#4: Tell a Story to Engage
If humor isn’t the right fit for your messaging, you can try to touch people’s emotions instead. This technique involves using emotional storytelling to appeal to your audience. This is another way to influence people’s perception of your brand. And videos are highly effective channels to tell your story; whether you’re planning to induce feel-good emotions, or tell heartbreaking stories.
Emotional storytelling enables you to appeal to emotions as opposed to reason. And when you do this, you can establish a deeper value for the product or service you’re selling. You make the most of your audience’s psychological triggers, which are crucial for closing a sale. And you also minimize the chances of customers regretting their purchase decisions.
There are several brands that have successfully used emotional storytelling to create positive brand perception. Budweiser, for example, earned positive brand perception for their “Puppy Love” Superbowl 2014 campaign. The ad told the story of friendship between a puppy and a horse. This feel-good story was enough to melt even the coldest of hearts, and Budweiser successfully touched the hearts of millions of people.
What worked so well about this campaign was how the brand positioned themselves as the lovable, warm and fuzzy friend. Budweiser continued to tell a different story of the same puppy and horse even in their 2015 Superbowl commercial titled, “Lost Dog.” They managed to appeal to their audience’s emotions with yet another touching story.
#5: Work with Influencers
Maybe you’re already explaining your products, telling your brand story, or telling your customers’ stories through videos. Maybe you’re doing a pretty good job of it, and you’re experiencing a few positive results. But what if you could further leverage your video content to drive even more conversions? This is where influencers enter the picture.
Influencers are people who have an impact on people’s opinions and purchase decisions. They can be individuals, groups or people, or publishers who have made a name for themselves in a certain niche. They are often subject matter experts, so people look up to them for advice or guidance on those subjects in which they specialize.
As a result of their influence, they can be an excellent resource for you to use in your video marketing campaigns. Here are some of the ways you can work with influencers to leverage your video content:
Interview Influential Experts for Your Testimonial Videos
Has an industry expert been using your product or service? Or maybe an organizational leader has been implementing your service for a while. Would they be interested in helping you create a testimonial video? If they genuinely love your product or service, they likely wouldn’t hesitate to participate. Otherwise, you might have to do a bit of outreach to get them to take part in your video testimonials.
You already know that testimonial videos are considered as social proof to determine whether a product or service is really worth it. And that people look up to influencers for advice and recommendations. So video testimonials from influential experts take testimonials to another level.
They’re especially important when you’re a B2B company because you’re trying to sell to people who are much more difficult to sway. Your target customers have organizations and teams depending on them. So they are much more careful about the products or services they sign up for. But when they see an influential expert vouching for you, it can help them to trust you.
Conversion Rate Experts does an excellent job of creating video testimonials with influential experts. Their clients include reputable digital marketing and SaaS companies such as Moz, Photo Shelter, Crazy Egg, and Piktochart. They have a whole section of video testimonials from these clients and more. The testimonial by Neil Patel, for instance, is an interview where he talks about how the CRE team helped Crazy Egg grow by 363%.
Have Influencers Explain Your Product
As mentioned earlier, influencers are subject matter experts. They tend to be very knowledgeable about the subjects in which they specialize. And the reason people look to them for advice isn’t just because they know a lot about the subject. It’s also because they know how to properly explain the subject in a way their audiences will understand.
They have their own unique voices, and they know how to guide their audiences in a way that will intrigue them. In other words, they know how to make even the most boring subject sound interesting and informative.
You can accomplish two tasks at once if you have an influencer explain your product in a video. First of all, you will help your target audience understand your product better. Second, by having an influencer explain it, you will establish trust with the audience. An influencer using your product is a form of social proof, which can go a long way to win over potential customers.
The Best Fiends game had YouTuber NikkieTutorials explain how their game works to her audience. Although Nikkie specializes in makeup, the video still had a great impact on her viewers because they trust her. This is because she mostly promotes products that she genuinely loves. She talked about how the game is addictive and carefully explained how her fans can play the game.
Have Influencers Review Your Product/Service
Influencers reviewing your product is another form of social proof. People trust influencers’ opinions about products and services. So what they say about your brand or product could have a huge impact on your conversions. The difference from video testimonials is that with video reviews, you can also work with influencers who aren’t already using your product or service.
Try reaching out to influencers and sending them some samples of your product, or providing them with free access to your service. Then you can encourage them to share their honest opinions about it in a review video. If they have any complaints about it, make sure they don’t hesitate to talk about it to their viewers. This is necessary because you want to showcase transparency and honesty to win the audience’s trust.
Huawei wanted to promote their P10 and P10 Plus phones, so they sent an exclusive preview to influencer Lewis Hilsenteger. Lewis runs the Unbox Therapy YouTube channel, which has more than 7.4 million subscribers. He regularly unboxes and reviews new tech products on camera, with many of his videos getting millions of likes. For the Huawei P10 unboxing, the video generated almost 2 million views in just two days.
Lewis took his viewers through the various features of the product. He pointed out some of the features that stood out and appealed to him. For instance, he tested out the various features of the camera, and explained a bit about the focus feature.
Conclusion
Based on the tips provided here, you now understand that videos can effectively help you explain your product while entertaining your audience. You can also establish trust and boost positive brand perception to increase the chances of people buying your product. And all of these can result in better conversions.
Which of these tips are you planning to apply first? Let us know in the comment below. And if you need any help in driving more conversions, feel free to reach out to me.