Where does video content sit within the marketing funnel?

Video based communication can be used in multiple different scenarios, forms, channels and platforms; in this article we are going to explore when to use video content and in what form, as opposed to when we may write a blog post or perhaps even using an infographic to communicate a message.

The key to any communication is to think about who we are communicating with; to which persona type or ICP (Ideal customer profile) are we trying to communicate with.

If you have a marketing strategy, you will already have segmented your market, targeted and planned your communications at various steps of the marketing funnel. If you haven’t yet done this, creating a marketing strategy document is a great place to start, before engaging in video content production.

If we divide the objective of any communication into two categories, branding (Awareness & Re-affirmation) and sales activation (That final drop of content that pushes the customer/client to buy/make contact), of which sit at different levels within the marketing funnel.

From a branding perspective, and I caveat this by relating back to my previous mention of personas, short form content often sits well at the top of the funnel to encourage users to resonate with your brand. (Different persona’s have different attention spans, it is not always the case that the target audience has a short attention span, however with the crowded content space we find ourselves in today, attention spans online are diminishing).

Short punchy and eye-catching video that’s enough to get a new customer / client’s attention, often working in conjunction with paid media, is appropriate when the customers/client doesn’t know you, doesn’t have much time on their hands and is more than likely ready to pay very little attention at this stage.

The key in this scenario is to impress the customer / client so they are left with a feeling of admiration for the brand. Consistent high quality short form ‘top-of-funnel’ content is important for first impressions. Consistency in both messaging and cadence at this point is important to encourage the customer / client to engage with the brand.

More often than not, a customer will not engage straight away, it may be quite some time before they decide to act on what they are seeing, for example visit your website, follow your organisation on a social media channel or sign up to a mailing list.

Once the user has taken that ‘action’ they are now a prospect and we know that we have a higher level of interest and degree of engagement with regards to the brand, we can afford to push their attention span that little bit further without turning them off.

The challenge is to educate the prospect whilst keeping them engaged and not becoming bored, which is quite the challenge when you consider how many pieces of content the user will come across that day.

Interesting and engaging longer explanatory form content sits well at this point in the funnel, this could be an interview with a member of staff, series of interviews, product demonstrations, service demonstrations, storytelling or any content that starts to explain in a little more detail how the brand/product/service can help the prospect to fulfil their need. Essentially, what makes your product/service relevant and different from the competition?

Longer form content is as described, a slower longer deep dive into the realm of educating the prospect. This is not to say that the prospect will convert immediately after watching this longer form content, and indeed many will drop off, but it’s at this stage of the funnel where we have the prospects highest level of attention so far and therefore, we want to put our best foot forwards for that mid-point funnel step of ‘conversion’.

Consistency is key and we must remember the 95:5 rule, which essentially means that only 5% of the market is in a position to convert at any one time. The other 95% maybe interested and the product/service maybe relevant, however they do not require it at this time or are not in a position to purchase.

This is where communications sit in the ‘engagement’ step of the funnel, which is designed to keep existing customers engaged with the brand, alongside the 95% of users who are not currently in market for your product or service; however, we still want the brand to sit ‘front of mind’ so when they are 'in market', they come to you, as opposed to purchasing from a competitor.

The quality vs consistency content debate

The balance of consistency vs quality is an important topic. In the perfect world we would be communicating with customers on a frequent basis, putting our best foot forwards with high quality targeted and planned content, which is great if your organisation has the resource and budget to execute this in line with your marketing strategy.

Really the answer to this question is nuanced and depends somewhat on your personas. For low value purchases such as the example of a sweet shop, picking and packing orders daily is a good candidate for high consistency however somewhat low value content, as this will keep the brand front of mind, as the product is not a hugely informed purchase.

On the flip side, luxury brands such as high end car manufacturers, yacht builders and high end clothing brands will benefit from adopting a lower volume of high quality content strategy. There is also an element of increased planning that needs to go into stretching video content as far as possible, without sacrificing quality.

For example creating shorts (YouTube) or Reels (Instagram) from longer form content that can be repurposed to create engaging short short form content that can be used more frequently. It’s also possible to repurpose historic video content with careful planning and consideration.

Best Practice: Find a balance

The ideal approach to video content creation is to balance quality and consistency.

• Set a realistic schedule: Commit to releasing high quality content at a frequency you can maintain, whether that be weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.

  
  

• Repurpose Content: Create fewer but higher quality pieces, then repurpose this content into smaller short form pieces – Shorts/Reels etc. (A blog post can be turned into social media snippets, infographics or video content for example).

  
  

• Batch create content: Dedicate time to creating several high quality pieces in advance to maintain consistency, without sacrificing quality.

Make no mistake, quality content creation is not easy, it takes valuable human resources, often has a knock-on effect to internal operations and requires an array of expensive hardware and software; not to mention a well thought through, clear and concise content plan that aligns with your marketing strategy.

In summary, while frequent video communications may provide short-term visibility, high-quality content drives meaningful engagement, builds trust and supports long-term growth. Aiming for consistent, valuable content at a frequency you can sustain, is almost always the best approach.

Thank you for reading – if you got this far – and if you have any questions please feel free to contact us.

Happy content creating!