Many marketers see a huge opportunity in using video for brand awareness—Especially for those who have massive marketing budgets and a team to create ‘viral sensations.’ When we say video marketing, we so frequently think of this:
And while most of us don’t have the budgets to create something that magnificent, the assumption often exists that this is video’s sweet spot: pure brand awareness. So what’s left for the rest of us?!
In reality, video actually excels as a demand gen tool, too. Want proof? Here are just a few:
- Using video in email drives 2-3 times higher click-through rates (Forrester)
- Adding a video to a landing page can increase conversions by 80% (Eyeview Digital)
- Video marketers see 20% lower cost-per-lead (Aberdeen)
There are four common ways to generate leads with video.
Email Gates
A gate that sits before your video content is known as an email gate. These are generally reserved for high-value content pieces because you’re asking prospects for their information up front. As a result, it’s important to communicate the value of the video through the copy on-page or in the video’s description. This will help encourage form completions.
Pop-out, Mid-video Forms
This type of form pops out from the side of your video while the video continues playing. These are generally used when you’re explaining something of value in the middle of your video and want the prospect to have the opportunity to act without interrupting their experience.
In-video, Final Forms
Putting a form at the end of your video allows your audience to consume an entire video-worth of content before being asked to provide anything in return. However, the risk of this is if people are making it to the end of your video, they won’t see the form! So use this one wisely.
CTAs for Continuing Journeys
An alternative to in-video forms is to use your videos as more of a promotional tool that directs a prospect to an on-page form. For example, you might use this in a campaign offering a downloadable guide. The final CTA could send the prospect to a landing page with more details on the guide and a form for download.
So now you know! When you publish your next video, switch your watchful eye from the view counter to the lead number!
And in addition (yes, there’s more!), after watching these leads climb, you can then qualify them in more detail with the information you can collect from video consumption. Since video is linear in nature, it’s easy to measure not only which videos a prospect has viewed, but also how much of it they watched, and even if they re-watched or skipped portions.
This is, without a doubt, more detailed consumption behavior than you can gather from any of your text assets.
All of this means that you can better understand your prospects’ interests, nurture them more effectively, and have stronger insight for when they need to be passed over to sales!
Capture those leads, video!
