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How to optimize your B2B customer journey with video: Awareness phase

The “customer journey” has become a buzzword in sales and marketing over the past few years – and for good reason. Evaluating the entire experience you provide to users and customers allows you to identify the areas where you are doing a great job, the areas that can use some work, and even help you fill gaps in the experience that can immediately contribute to your bottom line.

sales funnel awareness phase

Video is a great way to boost engagement at every phase of the customer journey. This post is the first in a series that will help you optimize your customer journey with video by developing phase-appropriate content. We’ll start with how to use video at the Awareness phase of the customer journey.

When it comes to Awareness phase marketing, your goal is to entice prospects to learn more. You can do this by connecting with prospects in a way that makes them feel validated, expertly relating to their problem, and instilling hope for a solution. And if they’ve decided they want to learn more, you’re well on your way to making it to the top of their list. 

How to use video in the Awareness phase

Toolbox Marketing defines the Awareness phase as:

“Awareness is the first stage of the buyer’s journey… This is the stage where the customer acknowledges that they have a problem or a need to fill. The customer will start by conducting a very broad search. The customer at this stage is not ready to make a purchase but rather is simply looking into what options are available.”

To summarize, Awareness phase prospects…

      • Have identified they have a problem that needs solving.
      • Are conducting a very broad search.
      • Are looking into their options.

Here are three tips to create effective Awareness phase video marketing that helps turn prospects into leads.

If you’re still unconvinced that your next piece of sales collateral should be a video, here’s a blog that might change your mind.

1. Speak to your prospect’s problem.

As the old saying goes, “The first step to solving any problem is to identify that one exists.” 

While you can create materials that help a prospect recognize they have a problem, you have a much higher chance of bringing them deeper into the sales funnel if they’re already looking for a solution.

To convert prospects who know they have a problem but haven’t found the right solve, focus on two key messaging areas:

  1. Demonstrating your expertise by accurately depicting the prospect’s problem
    This says, “Your problem is real and you aren’t the only one.”

  2. Positioning the problem as one that can be effectively solved
    This says, “This problem can be solved and there are people who can help.”

Video allows you to quickly communicate complex challenges and solutions in a way that allows a prospect to see themselves in both the struggle and the triumph. 

A lot of marketers try to do too much too early in the customer journey. They waste valuable seconds of an awareness phase video outlining heavy RTBs (reasons to believe) like all of the features of a software solution or 8 ways they are a better choice than their competitors. Instead they should use that time to create a “you’re in good company”-esque message.

Remember, your audience knows their problem but they may not yet know the solution(s). If you focus your Awareness phase marketing on solution-heavy content and keywords, prospects may never find you — especially if you use proprietary solution names that are not heavily searched. 

Focusing on the solution at the top of the funnel leaves you hiding in a place that prospects don’t know to look. (If you’ve ever played hide and seek, this doesn’t end well if you didn’t bring snacks.)

Center your awareness marketing efforts instead on relating to the prospect’s problem (and aligning your SEO strategy to this approach). Then you’ll be easy for them to find. Meet them where they’re at.

Your job with an awareness video is to validate your audience by relating to their problem and inspiring them on their journey to find the right solution.

2. Keep it simple!

Effective marketing in the Awareness phase should take a simple approach. Save strong proof points for later in the customer journey, like in the Consideration and Decision phases.

Prospects haven’t yet established a relationship with you – they are not willing to give you oodles of time. Since they know very little to nothing about you, they’re probably not too keen on watching a three minute video explaining all of the ways your AI finds potential risks in their vendor management program. They just want to know that you understand their challenges and can help with solutions.

Use your Awareness phase messaging to show prospects that you see them, you hear them, and you can help them. Inspire them to spend time learning more or reach out to you to discuss 1-on-1.

Shoving more sales sheet details at prospects before they’re ready to absorb the information can overwhelm them. And overwhelmed prospects often bounce away from your video, away from your page, and out of your sales funnel. 

3. Stand out from the get-go.

Prospects at the beginning of the B2B customer journey are combing through a lot of information to create a list of potential options. 

They’re generally not going to make a purchasing decision from one customer journey phase alone. In other words, they won’t jump from Awareness to Decision with unknown firms. However, they can decide if you’re worth short-listing with one video (moving from Awareness to Consideration).

Here are three tactical approaches to help you stand out from the competition:

    • Position their problem and/or solution in a way that is authentic to someone who is “in the thick of it.”
      Takeaway: Analogies are a great tool to communicate an understanding of complex challenges and industries. They can help you simplify and demonstrate expertise.
    • Use clear insider language to communicate the problem and solution.
      Takeaway: Research your audience and how they talk about themselves and their challenges. Use that intel to craft a message that feels like you’re speaking right to them.
    • Demonstrate empathy towards your prospect’s business challenges.
      Takeaway: Don’t shy away from the “elephant in the room,” like struggles with stakeholder alignment or profit goals. Use the taboo or traditionally unspoken to create marketing that connects with prospects in a way the competition isn’t willing to.

If you develop your next awareness phase marketing video based on these three tips, you should see improved video performance and increased conversions over previous efforts.

Our next blog in this series will cover how to use video in the Consideration phase of the customer journey and position yourself as the solution front-runner.

5 video marketing tips to get more customers

Let’s skip the preamble and get right to the list of 5 video marketing tips to boost your brand.

Side note: How come recipe articles don’t do this? They make you scroll through a long-winded article before they post the actual recipe at the bottom of the page.

This isn’t one of those articles.

But if it was, it would probably start out with a long-winded metaphorical backstory. Something like…

I’m reminded of a time when I was a young boy in New Jersey… wait… I’m writing one of those articles!

OK, I’ll stop.

AND NOW…

5 VIDEO MARKETING TIPS TO GET MORE CUSTOMERS

While there’s nothing we abhor more than overdone, “default” creative, there are a few tried and true video ideas that seem to work more times than not. This list is not meant to be grab and go for you, but rather use these concepts as a kicking off point. And before you think of any video concept, you’ll want to make sure you have a well-thought-out strategy that the concept aligns to.

Idea #1: The Hero’s Journey

Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero’s Journey outlines a step-by-step template for how a hero goes through his/her journey from status quo to resolution. For your purposes the customer is the hero, the status is your product/service, and the resolution is them purchasing your product/service.

Image source: Go Into The Story

This pattern is seen all over the place from Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings to sales videos like Chatbooks. It works because it takes your viewer on a journey – and not just any journey, their journey. The Hero’s Journey is a great way to demonstrate a ton of empathy for your prospect’s struggles.

Try inserting your customer into the template. Odds are, an entertaining video will write itself before your eyes.

Idea #2: Personify your technology

Since we’re in the age of AI, algorithms, RPA, and a bunch of other tech that works silently in the cloud, it’s hard to see our products/services sometimes, especially in B2B video marketing.

A great way to overcome this challenge is to personify your technology. So in the same way Inside Out personified emotions as creatures, you can personify your machine learning solution as a group of people working on a task together, for example.

Maytag has done this for years, personifying their appliances as the Maytag Man. This warms people up to an otherwise impersonal cold machine.

Idea #3: Use an analogy

If you’re selling a complicated product or service, I bet you already have a great analogy in your back pocket, e.g. “our financial service is like having a caddie that recommends stocks just like they would golf clubs.”

You usually use this analogy to explain what you do. And odds are, it works.

There’s your video.

Simply bring your analogy to life through a video and now you can kick off meetings, post the video to your homepage, link to it in your email signatures. Now in 60-90 seconds, your audience knows exactly what you do. And if the video is entertaining enough, they perhaps laughed or even cried along the way.

Idea #4: Align with your customer’s mission

Sometimes the easiest way to gain a customer is to give them a huge dose of empathy. Simply aligning your company’s mission with theirs is a great way to do this.

For example, say you sell pet medication to veterinarians. A great way to become top-of-mind for this audience is to tell a story, real or not, about a veterinarian who stays up all night to care for a sick dog. Or tell a story about a vet who was inspired to care for animals because when they were a kid they had a pet who was cured by a vet.

The idea is to let your audience see themselves in your story. You’re elevating your brand above, “we want to sell you something,” and making it more, “we get you.” This may seem super simple and easy and yes, it’s that straightforward. However, it just takes guts and a lot of internal alignment on your team because there’s not such an overt sales message. It’s a softer sell, but you have a better chance of your audience connecting with and remembering your video.

Idea #5: Inspire questions

Great marketing doesn’t answer questions, it inspires them. One of my favorite videos is this spot for Palms Casino.

The entire time you’re watching this you are scratching your head thinking, “What the heck is this video about!? Are they endorsing vandalizing their hotel!?” Finally, at the end a simple line of text wraps the whole thing up.

What questions can you make your viewers ask? How can you agitate their brains into a more active, question-asking mode instead of a passive, information receiving mode? Because when your customers are in this mode, guess what? They’re engaged with your brand!!

There are limitless video ideas to get more customers. The right way to go about this is to develop your video’s goals and then work from there to develop a strategic and creative approach. Whatever you end up doing, make sure it’s authentic, entertaining and above all else, serves your prospective customer.

How to simplify your complex sales message with a video

If you’re reading this article you probably have some kind of very complicated product or service you’re trying to market and sell. Most likely it’s a hard-to-understand financial product or AI-based service. When people ask you what you do at parties, you are used to seeing eyes glaze over accompanied by polite nods. When you’re in front of clients you spend a ton of time just trying to explain what your product does. And by the time you’re done with that, the meeting is over, and your prospect needs to “do some more research.”

This is all because your message isn’t simple enough. So here are 5 ways to simplify your sales messages into a relatable, effective, and engaging pitch that will have prospects drooling to do business with you.

#1 – Use an analogy

One of the best ways to simplify your message is to develop a really memorable metaphor that illustrates either your client’s problem, your solution, or both!

Take, for example, this commercial for eToro, an online broker that doesn’t charge commission.

They take the somewhat complicated, bland sales message, “Are you still paying commissions for your trades? Invest in stocks at eToro – without paying commission,” and turn it into a clever metaphor, “Paying commissions on trades is the same as someone taking a bite out of a donut you paid for.” The analogy distills the sales message into a very easy to understand message for almost anyone to understand.

Here’s another example of how an analogy can simplify a complicated sales message. Which explanation of anti-virus software is easier to understand?

Version A: Our anti-virus software scans your computer for viruses, malware, worms, and trojans. If the software detects malicious code in your device, it will pull malware definitions from the cloud to neutralize the threat.

Version B: Our anti-virus software is like a checkup for your computer. If your computer is sick, our software will automatically treat and remove the virus.

You may already have a analogy you use to explain your complicated product or service. But you’re using it after you spend a lot of time describing what your product’s features and benefits are. Start leading with the analogy, then following it up with more detailed features and benefits sans analogy. You’ll notice higher engagement.

#2 – Effective sales messages tell a small story

Whenever Don Hewitt, the legendary creator of 60 Minutes, was asked about the secret to the program’s success, he answered with four words: Tell me a story. Hewitt said 60 Minutes doesn’t do stories about issues; it does stories about the people who are swept up in them.

He said, “Even the people who wrote the Bible were smart enough to know: ‘Tell them a story.’ The issue was evil in the world. The story was Noah.”

So, what do you do? Pull a page from 60 Minutes’ playbook. Tell a small story about a big issue.

Instead of making a 3-5 minute video about all of your product’s features and benefits, tell a 1-2 minute story where your product or service is being used. In most cases, showing your audience a use-case is way more effective than listing out facts and figures. Your story will cut through their analytical brain and appeal more towards their emotional brain. They’ll actually want to see how the story ends (read: watch to the end of the video where your call-to-action is conveniently located)!

#3 – Speak to your customer’s internal problem

Let’s continue with the anti-virus example.

Yes, your anti-virus software removes viruses from your customers’ computers. That’s the benefit. But we can go one level deeper. Why don’t your hypothetical customers want viruses? Let’s list a few of them out:

  • They have sensitive data that, if leaked, would be disastrous for them.
  • They need their computer in tip-top shape because they use it for work. And if it’s not working properly, they could lose their job.
  • They hate the feeling of being a victim. They want to be protected to feel safe.

As you can see, these customers have many different internal reasons why they don’t want computer viruses. Here’s where knowing your audience is critical. Because with the right data about your audience persona, you can make a highly targeted video aimed at your target customers’ internal problems. The empathy you demonstrate will earn your prospects’ trust, way beyond your competitors that are all talking about their features.

#4 – Sell the outcome, not the process

Guess what? Your clients are not buying your product or service. They are buying what it can do for them.

Ok, while this is cliché and well known, it bears repeating—sell the sizzle, not the steak. So many times you are caught in your day-to-day and forget that clients really don’t care about any of the cool stuff you do. They only care about it working and making them look good.

For example, if we use the anti-virus software example again: your clients don’t care about how your software detects the malicious code, they just care about making their computer better. You may have the best detection algorithm on the planet but no one cares about the algorithm itself, they just care that the software now finds viruses 2 times quicker.

When you find yourself talking about your features, try to remember clients don’t really care. They only care about what the features do for them.

#5 – Stop trying to be cute

Sometimes you just need to take a very straight-forward approach. What does your product or service do in the plainest of language? Forget the flowery descriptions and attempts to be overly clever.

Sometimes “I make smiles” is harder to understand than, “I’m a dentist.”

We don’t recommend building an entire video campaign with plain language. But this is a good reminder to not over-think things. Don’t get in your own way trying to do what all of the business books tell you to do. Sometimes it’s the folks that can say what they do in the fewest of words that win big.

Bonus – Test with strangers

Not sure if you’ve successfully simplified your sales message? Test it with strangers – NOT family members. Strangers are best for testing because a) they don’t care about hurting your feelings and b) they have no base of knowledge so they’re coming in cold just like your prospects are.

After showing your script, storyboard or first cut of video, ask questions like:

  • Tell me about the problem we solve?
  • What do we do for our customers?
  • What is this piece trying to tell you?
  • What was the most confusing part?
  • What was the least confusing part?

We’re not asking, “would you buy from us?” because the odds that these random strangers need your product are very low. We simply want to test if the message is being transmitted.

keep it simple

K.I.S.S.

When crafting a sales video that works, it’s important to focus on the significant few, not the important many. Keep it simple, silly! Stay strong and resist the urge to throw everything in. Think about those billboards on the interstate that try to say so much, you don’t even know where to start. You don’t want your sales video to overload or worst of all, confuse your audience. You want to simply move them to the next step in your sales process.

Your sales videos can make your audience imagine you're bigger than your competition

Does it feel like every time you’re in a sales presentation your competitor’s name comes up? And you’re left having to answer questions about your capabilities vs. theirs? Instead of trying to play the game of one-ups, adding more and more points to your claims, start omitting them. In this article I’ll give you some tips and tricks to help win the sales enablement and marketing content battle, especially if you’re outgunned.

How to spark imagination with your sales enablement content

Have you ever realized your imagination is always bigger than reality? You think a million people will be at an event you want to go to, and when you show up, there’s a couple hundred. We need to let our audience use their imaginations when watching our sales videos and not create a box of reality around them. We need to omit hard facts and figures because they hold our prospects’ imaginations back.

The best example of this principle is from Silicon Valley. Richard, the lead character, is talking about their startup, Pied Piper, finally making revenue. All of a sudden, their investor, Russ Hanneman, pops up and urges them not to make revenue. He says, “If you show revenue, people will ask, ‘How much?’ and it will never be enough. It’s not about how much you earn; it’s about how much you’re worth.”

Stop talking about square feet or how many satisfied clients you have. It will never be enough for your customers. If you want to inspire your prospects into working with you, you need to let their imaginations run wild with how great your product or service is.

Let your audience extrapolate

We were supposed to be living on Mars by now. We were supposed to have moon colonies decades ago. What happened? How could experts who painted this picture of the future get it so wrong? It’s because the human brain loves extrapolating and making straight-line projections.

If I told you Q1 revenue was $100k, Q2 revenue was $125k, and Q3 revenue was $150k, what do you think Q4 revenue will be? You’re probably thinking $175k. That’s perfectly logical and a complete straight-line projection. You’re extrapolating. The answer may or may not be $175k. This is the phenomenon that led to the predictions of our Total Recall-esque future on Mars by now. Let me show you how.

1957: First satellite, Sputnik 1

1961: First man in space, Yuri Gagarin

1969: First man on the moon, Neil Armstrong

By golly, at that rate, we’ll be colonizing the moon in the 1980s! Mars in the early 2000s, for sure.


Courtesy of xkcd

While extrapolation is bad for predicting when we colonize Mars, it’s good for us sales folks. We simply have to implant an idea and let the prospect take it to the Nth degree in their head. Why put a bounding box on it? Keep boring reality away from your sales enablement content early in the sales cycle. Now, eventually you will have to reveal hard facts and figures so don’t ever lie – simply omit.

Use facts and statistics only when they’re truly industry leading

Apple is the master of this. On the rare occasion when Apple talks about how many iPhones it has sold or how many subscribers it has to a particular service, the numbers are truly staggering or industry leading. It omits all of the other non-significant numbers and focus your attention on just the numbers that few other companies can match.

You can do the same thing. And it can be anything, as long as it’s truly unrivaled. Perhaps your employee satisfaction score on Glassdoor is higher than all of your competitors. Maybe you have installed the most number of rotary girders in your industry.

Don’t have any particularly fascinating numbers? Try using percentages. For example, you may not have the most number of [insert your thing here], but you can show growth, e.g. “We have grown our [insert your thing here] by 80%.”

It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality of the numbers/facts. Your customer will not know about all of the other possible less-than-stunning numbers you could have presented. They only know about the ones you did. So if you’re presenting a fact or figure — make sure it’s really special.

How a sales video focused narrowly on details to show wide scale potential

The owner of an aluminum machining firm in Illinois set out to create some very convincing sales enablement video content. They needed to prove that they were a firm that could handle production of great scale. The traditional approach to this is to show off the size of their manufacturing floor and the kinds of machines they have, right?

But remember, what we think is huge might look like small potatoes to our prospect. Or — it could be too big!

The firm decided to omit the size of the plant and instead let the audience extrapolate how big they want it to be. They focused on the details and avoided wide shots of machines.

Turns out the video worked! Prospects were impressed with the size of the machining firm’s operation, and they never saw more than a couple inches of it at a time.

Get prospects’ attention when they watch your sales video

One of the cardinal sins in sales is to try to sell, or convince people of stuff. Yuck. Instead, it’s about being the prospect’s guide through his or her buying process.

Now all of us sales folks know this — so why do we violate this principle with our sales enablement and marketing videos?

We shouldn’t ever get into bragging mode with our video content. Why? Because when we’re bragging about ourselves, our prospects think either we are desperate or are trying to compensate for something.

Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Your particular stick (produce/services/company) may or may not be big but by speaking softly, you have a great chance of people insinuating that you’ve got a big stick. People will start to use their imaginations of how great of a company you have because you’re not bragging about it.