It’s been established that video is one of the most effective ways to promoting your brand in an ever-evolving digital age. YouTube consumption rises 100% every year, and marketers are taking full advantage of using this tool to get in front of their audience, bring awareness to their brand, and leads viewers to take action.The key to an effective video strategy is ensuring that your content aligns with each stage of the buyer’s journey.You see, your marketing will attract different prospects who are at different phases in your sales funnel. You may have a visitor who is ready to invest in your service yet another who merely wants information. It’s essential to create content that suits these needs at each stage that moves them to the next step in your funnel.The ultimate goal is to convert prospects into buying customers. Video marketing is a top tool in inbound marketing to help you achieve this objective.In this guide, we’ll outline the three stages to the buyer’s journey and how to effectively use different types of video marketing in each phase for maximum success in your strategy.

Awareness Stage

In the awareness stage, the prospect is in the discovery process of your brand. They understand they have a problem and begin researching ways to resolve the issue. As a result, they land on your content as the solution. Your prospect is merely looking for educational material that will help them quickly overcome their pains and challenges.Your goal in creating video content for the Awareness Stage is to do just that build awareness of your brand. Here, you’re positioning your company as a resource, expert, and solution in the industry. It’s where you let your audience know what you offer so buyers recognize what you do and how you can help them.Therefore, you want to engage your visitor in a way that encourages them to indulge more in your content by focusing on their pain points, not your products or brand.

How to Use Video Marketing for Awareness Stage

Here are the typical content types that work best in the Awareness Stage using video:

#1 Social Videos

Social promotion is an excellent medium for building a following and community around your brand. It’s also a tremendous asset to getting your video content in front of an engaging audience.

There are three types of videos to consider when posting on social media:

1. Sharing videos from your YouTube channel – an excellent way to feed your followers with valuable content while increasing views
2. Uploading organic videos directly to social media – you’ll obtain greater reach with your audience using natural videos (Source: Social Media Today)
3. Live-streaming video – apps like Facebook Live, Periscope and Instagram Stories are generating massive engagement on social media. It is an excellent tactic to build exposure to your brand fast

#2 Add Video in Blog Content

Search is still the #1 source for content generation and the perfect platform to create quality rich-content that educates your audience while increasing visibility of your brand. Add videos to enrich website-experience and keep people on your page longer (improving SEO)

#3 YouTube

As the second largest search engine, building your channel is smart towards growing brand awareness. Be sure to optimize your videos for better ranking.

Consideration Stage

Good news! Your prospect has warmed up to your brand, and you’re now viewed as a credible source. They’re also clear on their goals, are committed to addressing it, and now looking at options on how they can handle their issues. At this stage, they’re actively looking for content related to solutions.Content in this phase needs to be incredibly informative and help the prospect gain clarity on how to solve the problem they are experiencing. In the Consideration Stage, you’re also focusing on capturing qualified leads by leveraging compelling lead magnets to get them in your sales funnel.******Stay tuned for part 2!