While anyone can post tonnes of videos on their page and hope for more engagement, video advertising per say works very differently. Only a few businesses and professionals understand the strategy behind video advertising and can successfully take their audience on a journey and bring them into the sales funnel.
It’s not what you upload but the strategy with which you upload it. What is the purpose of your video, what action is it asking the viewer to take, and wherein the sales funnel is your user? As a marketer, understanding these crucial data points will help you win with video advertising.
By creating videos that reach out to your customers right where they are in your sales funnel, you’ll be able to much more effectively convert an interested viewer into a buying customer.
Easier said than done? Most businesses think so too. Firstly because video creation is difficult and time-consuming and secondly, it is expensive.
But what if I told you there’s a way out? What if I told you, you could create gold-standard videos in mins even if you’ve never edited a video before and show you the exact framework you can follow for each stage of your sales funnel with InVideo for just $5/month? Let’s dig right into it.
Here’s what we’re going to look at today:
- Finding the right type of video for every stage of the funnel
- How to generate leads and revenue for your clients using the highest ROI campaigns for video
- The 3 biggest bottlenecks for video advertising and how to overcome them
Choosing the Right Video for Every Stage of the Funnel
A typical sales funnel breaks into 3 layers – the top of the funnel or TOFU, the middle of the funnel or MOFU, and the bottom of the funnel or BOFU. Each layer represents at what stage a customer is in his buying journey. An average customer’s journey starts from being a complete stranger (cold audience) to then becoming a prospective buyer or lead (warm audience) and finally converting to a paying user (hot audience). At every stage, you need different and specific content that appeals to the customer in that stage.
These three stages of your funnel also help in targeting the right audience with specific content using Facebook’s ad objectives:
Let’s see how segregating your videos into specific buckets can help you target the right audience and move them down the funnel to convert them to a buyer.
Here’s a must-do for all the videos:
- Make sure you place your brand’s logo or the key message within the first 3 seconds of the video
- Ensure that your video is interactive and engaging, one that emotionally connects with your audience
- Make videos in the format that is suited for each platform for clear visibility:
– Instagram feed: 1:1 square (or 16×9 landscape)
– Facebook feed: test 16×9 landscape, 1:1 square, or 4:5 or 2:3 vertical
– Stories on Instagram/Facebook: 9×16 vertical (although most video formats can be adjusted and placed in Stories)
Video Advertising for the Top of Your Funnel: TOFU
These video ads are created to hook your audience and make them aware of your business and how it can add value to their life. These videos must be short, crisp, and easy to consume. These are created keeping in mind that the audience consuming your video is not yet aware of your products or services and how better to start the conversation than meet them at a place where they consume content. People on social media are always hungry to see and consume new content, especially about things that interest them, and with the right video, you will have their attention.
Show me TOFU video templates and ideas
Video Advertising for the Middle of Your Funnel: MOFU
The audience that engaged with your TOFU videos essentially trickled down the funnel to this part of your funnel. They are now aware of your brand (warm audience) and will possibly like to know more about the products and services you offer. These ideal prospects have engaged with your content like opted for your email list, watched your videos, or subscribed to your page.
These videos are shorter than the ones targeted to the TOFU audience because your audience is already aware of your initial message or campaign. Videos specific to this stage in the funnel essentially help your audience connect the problem they are facing with your product or service you offer and how it can serve their purpose.
It is important that your audience recognizes and links your current video to the previous one, and so the key visuals and treatment in your MOFU videos must come from your TOFU videos. This not only helps your audience immediately associate with your brand but increases their recall value. Introducing new ideas or concepts that are not related to the core message that was the center of your TOFU video can confuse your audience and result in you losing them.
Create stunning MOFU ads today with InVideo
Video Advertising for the Bottom of Your Funnel: BOFU
The bottom of the funnel is reserved for viewers who are one step away from making a purchase. BOFU video ads are created for an audience that is already familiar with your business and have engaged with you across social media platforms, on your email list, or website. These are even shorter in length and are created to remind your viewer to make the buying decision. Remember to not repeat what you did before but be sure to use the same visuals to grab the attention of your key audience.
BOFU videos are made to do bulk retargeting and remarketing. You will be reaching out to audiences who have engaged with your previous (TOFU) video.
On Facebook, you have tools that allow you to segregate these audiences by the amount of time they spent watching your video ads. Engagement Custom Audiences can be used to recognize people who have engaged with your content across the Facebook family of apps, which include Instagram and Messenger. You can target your BOFU videos with a CTA to audiences who are most likely to make a purchase. You can also use this audience bank as a source to create a Lookalike Audience. Like the name suggests, this tool will allow you to find people who are similar to those who engaged with your content.
Facebook Pixel is another tool that will help you record and segregate the audience on your website. It collects insightful data that helps you track conversion from Facebook ads. With this information, you can optimize video advertising and retarget those audiences who have already taken an action on your website.
For example, if a user has browsed items on your website, added them to their cart, and then logged off, you can retarget them on Facebook, reminding them to complete their purchase.
You can also find interested buying prospects on your email list. Those who have interacted with your email or clicked on a link but have not made their purchase must be retargeted. Most email service providers will give you this data and then you can also segregate your audience based on their interaction.
Create BOFU ads for just $5/month
If you think about it, this is not at all a new framework in any way since this is how TV advertising has worked for years. You would use a longer advertisement to build brand awareness, followed by shorter ones that build on the anchor message of the campaign, which is then supported by even crisper videos that help remind your prospective buyer to make the purchase decision.
Let’s take the example of Under Armour, makers of the intelligent running shoes, HOVR™ MACHINA.
Their TOFU video is a 30-second introduction of the HOVR™ MACHINA and spotlights its main feature – which is that it syncs with UA MapMyRun to give you real-time Form Coaching based on the analysis of your running.
The MOFU videos for Under Armour’s HOVR™ MACHINA are shorter and have multiple versions that draw from the anchor message of the TOFU video. This reiterates the key message and makes your business relatable to your audience.
Finally, their BOFU videos are 6 seconds and remind their audience to make a purchase decision.
How to Overcome the Three Biggest Bottlenecks in video Advertising?
Now that we know the video content funnel and how it goes hand-in-hand with your sales funnel, we have a super tactical way to plan our videos strategically. However, the question still remains- how do you create gold-standard video ads consistently without spending all day long and without burning a hole in your pocket.
Many businesses still believe in the traditional approach of creating video content where you have to go out and do a custom shoot. You have to invest in a crew, take care of production costs, and hire professionals to shoot and edit. There is a lot of time, money, and effort invested in the process, making it difficult to have video ads a regular part of your digital marketing campaigns.
What if I told you there was another way? InVideo is an online video creation tool that is a one-stop solution to your video funnel problem. This powerful tool lets you create engaging videos, for every step in under 1o minutes and it has royalty-free stock footage and music to use at your disposal.
Features that make InVideo a must-have tool for marketers and businesses:
- 4,000+ fully customizable templates for every possible use case
- 1 million+ premium photos and videos (from Shutterstock) to use in your videos
- Animated texts, effects, and stickers
- World’s first intelligent video assistant (IVA) that helps you make your video seamless and perfect
- Auto text to speech is available in every major language, with multiple accent options that allow you to record a professional voice-over for your video.
- 24*7 live support on chat and call
- Renders videos in 5 minutes
- And, a Facebook community of 10000+ fellow marketers who share their inspirations and ideas to keep you motivated throughout your video advertising journey
If you want a detailed tour of InVideo and how you can create stunning videos in minutes, check out this walkthrough video.
I have spilled all of my secrets – from my lead-gen strategy to how I create engaging video ads with InVideo. You have everything you need to start right now. It’s time to make that jump and start creating videos that can help you generate ROI with my framework, and if you haven’t gotten yourself an InVideo subscription, you can get started today for just $5/month. Use code: SAVE50.
You can also reach out to the InVideo team for any help you may need at support@invideo.io, and if you’re looking to connect and learn from 10,000+ other marketers, business owners, and creators like yourself, you should join the InVideo’s super helpful community here.
