There’s no denying it: time and again video has proven itself one of the most engaging and effective forms of marketing content.

Marketers choose video over other types of content for its visual power and social shareability, for its ability to distill complex ideas in just a few minutes time, and its proven effectiveness as conversion rate booster. When most small business owners hear about these advantages, they’re on the wagon – but they often make the same mistake: creating a single video and using it in all of their campaigns.

Some of your potential customers know how to solve their problem, but they’re carefully weighing two or three different brands. Others are considering which would be the best product or service to suit their needs. Others still aren’t even aware of what they need.

You know that your customers pass through several stages of the buyer’s journey before they’re ready to make a purchase. So why target leads at different stages with the same video content?

Let’s talk about how to tailor video content to each step in the buyer’s journey – Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.

Awareness

People in the first stage of the buyer’s journey aren’t just unsure about their purchase decision – they don’t even know how to solve their problem. That makes it pretty useless to blatantly sell these people a product or service.

What you need to do is educate them about what they need.

Educational videos are great to achieve that objective because they don’t talk much about brands or products. They just talk about the potential customer’s problem instead and give them useful information on how to solve it.

Educational content is all about nurturing the audience and giving them useful data – enabling them to connect the dots for themselves.

Here’s a cool example:

Only once consumers pass the “awareness” stage, are they ready to learn why they should choose your product instead of the competition’s. By the time they’re ready for that, you’ll need a different type of video content to reach them.

Consideration

Now that we’re in the second stage of the buyer’s journey, you have an audience that’s already aware of what they need, but they don’t know which product or service is going to solve that problem or how they will do it. For example, I know that I want to track my exercise routine in order to lose weight, but I’m not sure the best way to do it – a fitness mobile app for my smartphone, a FitBit on my wrist, etc.

Explainer Videos

Explainer videos are the best type of video for segment of your audience. These videos help you to fully explain your product or service in a few minutes due to their visual power and engaging storytelling technique.

The best place to use them is on your website’s homepage or a similar ‘how it works’ section of the site. Videos are extra compelling when you end with a clear call-to-action. For example, ask viewers to download an eBook or app, subscribe to a newsletter or ‘like’ a Facebook page. Because of their brevity, explainer videos are easily shareable on social media.

Here’s a good example of an explainer video:

How-To Videos

How-to videos are also a neat type of video for those potential customers that are considering a certain product or service to solve their problem. These videos show how your product or service works in detail.

Instead of explaining the ‘why’ behind your product, you’re addressing the ‘how’ – giving customers a clearer understanding of all your product provides and how they can expect to interact with it.

Here’s a good how-to video example:

Decision

For those potential customers who know what they want and what kind of product will help them get it, you’ll need video content that can truly reach out and touch consumers.

Why? Because this portion of the audience is in the final stage, the “decision” stage. They’re deciding whether they’ll buy from you or the competition. Now’s the time for your brand to stand out.

Customer Testimonials

Customer testimonials are a great way to connect with your audience. They tell your brand’s story from the perspective of actual customers. That’s a powerful way to prove your brand is trustworthy and capable of getting the job done.

Trust in your brand grows when real people talk about your product, and that’s one of the main ingredients to help people at the “decision” stage make up their minds.

Here’s a great customer testimonial:

Our Story

Company story videos are the other side of the coin and they can complement customer testimonials very well.

Instead of getting into customers’ minds, these videos get to your company’s core: your co-workers, your engineers, your sales people, your managers. Consumers love to see real people working to offer them a solution – that’s exactly why this type of video works great at the end of the buyer’s journey.

Let’s watch a neat company story example from Hubspot:

Use Video Intelligently

As a marketer, you must know how to segment your audience: some of them will be needing help with their problem, some will be ready to learn about your product or service, and some will be willing to take money out of their pockets.

Like any form marketing can take, video content will only perform to your expectations when it’s tailored to the unique and varying needs of consumers throughout each stage of the buyer’s journey.