Using Video to Optimize Engagement in the Search-Based Buyer Journey – Watch Engine Watch

The customer acquisition process begins with your first contact. A consumer goes through several stages before becoming a customer and then a loyal customer. The buyer’s journey begins with the identification or expression of a need. This need must then be fulfilled in one way or another.

with more than eight billion searches per year, real buyer journeys are complex and can take weeks or months. To keep things simple, here’s a summary of the key stages a person goes through to become your customer. From almost 68 percent web experience starts with a search engine, all of these stages can happen within Google itself:

• Awareness: when a consumer learns that you have a solution to a problem, they want a solution. In many (but not all) cases, this search journey begins with a “how” query.
• Consideration: when a consumer adds you to the list of potential solution providers
• The decision: when the consumer believes you have the best solution and becomes a paying customer.

Companies need to help consumers make the right decision by providing information, assistance and instilling trust in your brand throughout the process.

Since video content appears in all search results, it makes sense to use videos for all three stages of the consumer journey. The best thing about videos is that they rank incredibly wellespecially if you host them on YouTube and practice video optimization.

Two different areas where video can help your prospects at every stage of the buying journey are:

• Featured clips: When Google includes a video in a featured snippet, it’s a strong sign that people are looking for a video tutorial to solve their problem. If this is your target search query, creating a video is a must, especially when optimizing for an in-stream “awareness” level.
• Video carousels: Google turns on video carousels when the purpose of the video is hinted at. It’s not hard at all to get your video listed there, especially for specific (low search volume) queries like brand-based queries.

Here’s an example of both sections being placed at the very top of the search results page, pushing the organic results way below the top of the screen. Notice Lowes’ very well-branded video, which is featured for a very relevant – albeit long-tail – query. I bet that gets them quite a few leads. There is another brand – The Home Depot – that ranks their video on the carousel below. Both brands seem to be doing their homework well:

There are many different types of video content that can be used at each stage. These videos help encourage the consumer to continue their journey with you and not your competition.

Awareness

As the name suggests, this video optimization strategy ensures that your target customers recognize your brand.

The types of video marketing content that work best at this stage of the funnel include:

Make sure your videos are well branded to create visibility: use your logo and color palette on the video thumbnail as it will appear in search results.

Once awareness is created, it’s time to bring all that effort together and move your consumer to the next level of consideration.

Consideration

At this stage, you can enhance your user experience with videos that position your product the way you want it to be. A good reason to use videos at this stage is to put your product in a real-life context, meaning they show exactly how other people are using your product.

The most effective videos for this level are:

• Explainer videos that introduce your consumer to the product and detail what you offer. There are explanatory videos problem, discuss how your company can demonstrate a solution and highlight the features of the product and its benefits to the consumer. Think of these videos as lead magnets: You want them to provide value, not just talk about your product.
• Product demo videos that explain in detail how the product or service works. They emphasize all the benefits of using the product in an easy-to-understand format. They often use step-by-step instructions to show how to use the product and may include some innovative ideas on where to use it. A good script and a great presentation make them stand out intro videos of all time. It’s good to create video gallery on site on your website to share these presentations with your website visitors. Videos slow down your pages, so take care of yours page load time when using embedded content.
• Storytelling videos that show the brighter side of your business humanize it to connect with the consumer. These videos tell the story of your company, its hopes, aspirations and values. Usually, the company’s employees and managers talk about the company, their experiences with it and their work. They are designed to create an emotional response that will strengthen the consumer’s relationship with your business.

Since all of these videos are meant to rank in Google, make sure they match actual search queries that have a higher commercial intent.

The decision

The third stage of the consumer journey is to convince the interested consumer that your product or service offers the best solution to their problem.

This is the stage where the consumer is already committed to a purchase and needs a gentle nudge in the right direction. This is the time when you should emphasize building trust so that the consumer trusts your brand and buys your product. The most effective videos at this stage are peer testimonials and reviews.

• Video testimonials: These are the best types of videos to build trust with your leads and a must for the final stage of customer acquisition which is lead conversion.
• Customer-driven storytelling videos it shows how your customers use the product in a more creative context.

Your target search queries for these types of videos include:

• Your product and your brand: If you have an established brand (or are working towards one), your brand name is searched on Google, and these videos will ensure that you have another asset to control in the brand-driven SERPs. If you do a well done tracking your brand in organic searchyou already know your important brand-based search queries.
• Search queries driven by competitors: These are search queries that explore alternatives to your competitors and compare two competitors.

These videos should also be reused in two important ways:

• Embed them on your key landing pages: Video content is a well-known way to increase conversions, but in this case, it’s a good way to help your customers feel at home, because after clicking the YouTube link, they’ll see the same video on the page. It’s also a good idea to prepare these videos on your own dedicated customer reviews page.
• Use these videos for your remarketing campaigns. You can use retargeting on YouTube to serve them to people who have already passed through stage 2 of the buying journey but have not yet converted.

Conclusion

Using videos in your organic search strategy to engage customers at every major stage of their buying journey is one of the best examples how SEO and sales can help each other. Integrate videos into your SEO and CRO strategies and you’re likely to see much better results on both ends.

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Ann Smarty is the founder of Viral Content Bee, Brand and Community Manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas. You can find her on Twitter @seosmarty.

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