How to Use Video at Every Stage of the Sales Funnel
In the complex world of B2B marketing and sales, the funnel stands as a crucial roadmap for navigating prospect engagement and conversion. Creating a video marketing sales funnel marries this framework with consumers’ most-preferred type of content—video—and ensures that buyers are getting the right content at the right time to move them forward in their purchase journey.
In this guide, we’ll dive deeper into why funnel marketing is so essential and walk stage-by-stage through the video marketing sales funnel to explore how you can create video content that drives action at every touchpoint.
Quick Takeaways:
- The B2B customer journey is defined by stages, collectively referred to as the sales funnel.
- Aligning content and messaging with a buyer’s current funnel stage is essential for engagement.
- Video content is preferred over text content by more than 80% of consumers.
- At every stage of the funnel, video content should be personalized and tailored to individual prospect needs whenever possible.
- The video marketing sales funnel doesn’t end when a prospect converts. Post-purchase video content is critical to drive satisfaction, loyalty, and referrals.
Why Funnel-Based Marketing Matters in B2B
The B2B customer journey is long and complex, often lasting weeks or even months before a buyer is ready to make a purchase. This journey is defined by stages, collectively referred to as the sales funnel, during which buyers slowly move from initial awareness of a brand or solution, to consideration and decision, to final purchase and post-purchase loyalty.
Below you can see the stages of the sales funnel as they’re commonly defined:
For B2B marketers and sales teams, the funnel is a critical tool that can be used to align messaging and content with the needs of the buyer at any given stage. By resonating with their current place in their purchase journey, you make the buyer feel understood and naturally guide them toward the next stage without making them feel pressured or overwhelmed.
For example: Buyers at the awareness stage of their journey need educational content to help them learn more about their problems and potential solutions. Sending them a pricing comparison or free trial offer at that time would not be helpful.
On the flip side, a buyer that’s comparing potential vendors and trying to make a decision needs exactly that kind of information to help them make the right choice.
In short: The sales funnel is an essential part of targeted marketing, the same as the organizational and individual traits used to define your ICPs and buyer personas. When your content and outreach is in line with the sales funnel, you’ll engage and convert prospects at a higher rate.
Creating a Video Marketing Sales Funnel
When it comes to funnel-aligned content, video should be one of the most-used types of content that you leverage in your strategy. It’s the most in-demand content format for B2B—more than 80% of buyers say they prefer it over text content.
Further, they’re watching videos at every stage of their purchase journey for a wide range of purposes, from product reviews and demos to live webinars to customer testimonials to tutorials and more.
To help you successfully build a video marketing sales funnel for your B2B business, let’s look closely at each stage and how video can play a role.
1. Awareness
During the awareness stage, buyers are trying to learn more about the pain points and challenges they are experiencing and what potential solutions exist to help them. It’s important to create videos that will stand out in crowded digital spaces, like search engines and social media.
The best way to do this is to deeply understand your target audience and emphasize that you have the best understanding of their needs. Some of the best kinds of videos to do this include:
- Topical webinars and thought leadership interviews that showcase expertise
- How-to and explainer videos that demonstrate your ability to deliver value
- Case studies that show how your existing customers have solved similar problems
- Product videos that emphasize customer benefits and value
2. Interest
Once you’ve made a buyer aware of your brand and its offerings, you’ll need to convince them that you are the best option to deliver the solutions they need. Video prospecting is a great way to do this. It’s not only a highly engaging outreach format, but it can be easily personalized to each buyer using templates.
Further, it humanizes the buyer’s interaction with your brand. In a sales landscape driven so largely by digital content and communication, putting a face and voice behind your marketing and sales messages can be what sways a buyer toward choosing you.
It creates a human connection that leads to successful sales conversations and ultimately nurtures leads more successfully to move them toward the next stage of the sales pipeline.
3. Decision
During the decision stage, videos should be designed with the intention of driving a prospect toward their final purchase decision. Whenever possible, videos should be personalized to individual prospect needs and emphasize the next action they should take in the sales process.
Product demos, free trials, and customized sales presentations are all effective types of videos to share at this stage. Sales reps should have enough information about prospects by this stage to create videos that resonate with each one effectively.
4. Conversion
Your video marketing sales funnel doesn’t end when a buyer makes a purchase. To maximize customer satisfaction and foster customer loyalty, you should deliver post-purchase video content that shows your customers you care about their experience.
At this stage, customers expect the communications they receive from you to be hyper-relevant and in tune with their unique needs and preferences. Be sure to deliver on this expectation with frequent and personalized video content.
Types of video to deliver at this stage include onboarding guides, tips and strategies that help customers get the most possible value from your solutions, and product updates. Keep your customers engaged by inviting them to webinar events or even asking them to be part of a customer testimonial video.
At this stage, you also want to make your videos shareable when you can. B2B customers often share content when they find it valuable, especially when it’s from a company they trust. By making your video content shareable, you increase the likelihood of word-of-mouth marketing and referrals.
Over to You
When we think about everything we’ve covered about creating a video marketing sales funnel, there are a few key takeaways to keep in mind:
- Video content is essential to your B2B marketing and sales strategy. Customers prefer it over text content, and it’s proven effective at engaging buyers at every stage of the funnel.
- When video is targeted to specific stages of the funnel, it engages prospects more successfully and drives them toward the next action in the sales process.
- Video content shouldn’t end when a buyer makes a purchase. Post-purchase video content is one of the most effective ways to drive customer satisfaction, loyalty, and referrals.
RevBoss helps startups, SaaS companies, agencies, and other high-growth B2B companies execute outbound sales prospecting strategies that leverage video to attract and convert new leads. Schedule a quick call with our team to learn how we can help you win more clients.