Getting people aware of your product, brand or service is crucial to your success in our digital age. But what is the secret to driving awareness and getting leads into your content funnel?

How would you feel if a random stranger came to you and asked you for your hand in marriage? You would be shocked and most likely reject his/her proposal, regardless of their looks, right? Why would you do that? It is because you hardly know that guy/girl. The same thing applies to business and the awareness stage of the buyer's journey.

You need to introduce your product, brand, or service in an organic and human way. How do you do this? First you need your prospects to become aware of who you. This is what the awareness stage of the sales funnel is, educating them on who you are, what you do, and how you can help them.

Now what is a sales funnel?

We can define a sales funnel, or content funnel, as the steps that a person should go through to become your client/customer. For example, to be your best friend, someone must first introduce themselves, have some discussions together to find out what similar interests you have, and then get closer to you to develop the friendship.

In this article, we will explain how you can use a variety of videos to get people into your sales funnel, a.k.a. The Awareness stage. The sales funnel has six stages. They are:

1. Awareness
2. Discovery
3. Evaluation
4. Intent
5. Purchase
6. Loyalty

The most important stage is the first, Awareness. Without the ability to get your visitors into the first stage you will never be able to convert them to customers.

While all six stages are important and cannot be ignored, the Awareness stage of the buyer’s journey is most important to making the best first impression, building trust, and starting the client relationship.

Here is a visual description of a sales funnel:

Understanding The Awareness Stage Of The Buyer’s Journey

You have the Awareness stage on the top of the funnel. It is a stage where your buyers have no idea about your brand whatsoever. They are in an early stage of being aware of their problems.

Your job at this stage is to introduce yourself and make a strong first impression. This step of the marketing process is meant to lure the customer into the content funnel in hopes that they make it all the way through to purchase with a feeling of loyalty to you and your brand.

Keep in mind that your goal is not to ask them to open their wallet, your job is to explain problems in your industry, provide some free information, and provide them with reasons that your brand is a thought leader.

How do you create a solid first impression? You can do this by publishing long-form content or use various types of videos to share some interesting information about your product or service.

Why use videos in the Awareness stage?

Here are a few reasons why you would want to use video to attract visitors into your content funnel:

• An estimated 6 out of 10 internet users prefer online videos over television (Source).
• Viewers retain 95% of the information they watch in a video in comparison to the mere 10% information reading about it (Source).
• Over 72% of internet users would prefer watching a video to learn about a product (Source).
• Adding a video to your landing page can increase your conversion rate by up to 80% (Source).

I hope by now you see the power of using videos to achieve your goals during the Awareness stage of the buyer’s journey.

What kinds of videos are most effective?

There are many types of videos that you can use for marketing, but not every kind of video is equally effective in the Awareness stage of the buyer’s journey. Here are some examples of the types of videos that you can use to skyrocket your conversion rate.

Tutorial videos

There are many different problems that your potential customers might face in their life. Your job is to provide an easy-to-follow tutorial video that will show them how they can quickly solve their problems.

Some of the most popular videos that are effective in delivering how-to information are screencast videos, explainer videos, and whiteboard videos.

At the end of the tutorial video, you should provide a link to your lead magnet. Your viewers will hopefully be enticed by the product and you will begin building some rapport by the end of the video.

You’ll be surprised at how people are happy to give away their contact info if you can help them solve a problem. Moreover, you are exposing your visitors to your expertise when you are directing them to your landing page.

Educational video

You would not want to give tons and tons of information in the video. Here are some interesting statistics that came out of research to find out about optimal video length:

Before creating a video, you need to recall your goals. In the Awareness stage of the buyer’s journey, your goal is to create a sharp brand image, not to sell the product.

You want your viewers to retain the maximum amount of information so they know a lot about your product and can feel confident in their buying decision when the time comes.

The purpose of an educational video is to give them just enough information that would entice them to inquire about your solution.

An educational video must educate your audience on a specific topic. The best way to teach your audience is via an explainer video.

Create a 1-2 minute explainer video that explains the concept in an exciting way and then end the video with a call-to-action button.

FAQ Videos

FAQ videos can get you a lot of attention if you can address the burning questions among your audience.

Contact some of the experts in your field and put some of their knowledge and experience to good use so that you can address the hottest issues in the industry and put the most important information in front of your viewers.

You can expect tons of visitors if you manage to promote it the right way in your content funnel.

Inspirational Videos

Ask your top fans to create a unique piece of content that will inspire your prospects.

Ask satisfied customers to create a video regarding their experience with your brand.

It will motivate others to join your service or purchase your product when they see and hear actual customers brag about your product.

Interesting fact: Approximately 70% of online users trust random recommendations from people they do not know.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it wise to promote my product at the end of the video?

It depends on the price of your product/service. You may not want to promote a high-ticket product without warming up your audience with a variety of information that will eventually lead them to purchase.

Is it hard to create a video for your business?

You need an assortment of skills such as scriptwriting, video editing, storytelling, etc. in order to create a top-notch video that produces results.

Can I outsource the video production tasks?

Thankfully, you have a lot of options when it comes to outsourcing video production tasks.

Our recommendation is to go with a proven company that produces results, not just a product. For instance, we have plenty of loyal, satisfied clients that have seen tremendous results.

Conclusion

There was a time, not too long ago, when you could get away with using low-quality, crappy content in your sales funnel.

This is not the case these days. With the increase in customer demand for quality products and experiences, and a commitment by search engines to bring that to the customer, you need to use different types of strategies, like videos, to warm up your audience.

For optimal results, try to use a variety of videos as you move your customer through the various stages of their buying journey.

The Awareness stage is the beginning of that journey and successfully moving them through your sales funnel will result in happy customers and big sales numbers for you.

How do you plan on improving the awareness stage of your funnel?