As a marketer, you will be aware of just how powerful educational videos can be as part of your inbound marketing strategy. According to Statista, educational videos are among the top 10 most-consumed video content formats across the world.
Educational video marketing offers a way to build trust and credibility with customers. It can pull in potential customers looking for solutions to problems. Offering them valuable resources helps with video lead generation and can nurture them throughout the customer journey. This helps to create stronger relationships with them and encourage repeat business. With value-driven content, you can also build authority in your industry.
Top types of educational videos and their roles in the funnel
It’s important for you to identify which type of educational video is suitable for each stage of the video content funnel. Remember that the customer journey isn’t always linear. Having the right videos waiting for them at each stage can encourage them to move down the funnel.
1. Awareness stage
At this stage prospective customers aren’t even aware that your business exists. All they know is that they have a need and want a solution. They are searching for answers to their questions. You need to let them know what your brand has to offer.
Short brand videos like Instagram Reels or TikTok videos can help build brand awareness. Glossier did this well by combining physical advertising for a new perfume in a New York subway with an Instagram Reel of the subway. The Reel received more than 100k views.
When it comes to introducing your products or services to prospective customers, an explainer video can do it with creative flair. Intercom’s explainer video shows what their AI chatbot can do for marketing teams by delivering superior customer service.
A webinar is an ideal type of video for the awareness stage. It can help you to reach out to a large audience and position yourself as an expert. You can have a Q&A session and collect attendee information.
The Cincopa video hosting platform facilitates live streaming so technical issues don’t put off prospective customers.
2. Consideration stage
At this stage prospects know about your business and want more information. It helps to present them with facts and useful information from various sources. They can compare all the pros and cons and make their own decisions.
Product demo videos can showcase your products as no blog or article can. A great product demo video by IKEA shows how its augmented reality app can solve furniture headaches.
Case study videos give your leads the confidence to make the next move. It’s easier for them to relate when they see how your products or services solve a problem like theirs for someone else. Cincopa features real stories like how it provides a web developer with comprehensive digital asset management.
3. Conversion stage
You’ve done foundational work with demos and how-to videos. Now it’s time to make an emotional connection with viewers. Studies show that emotion can convince customers to buy and then they justify the decision with logic.
- How-to videos can be useful during the conversion stage. Slack has an easy-to-follow screencast format how-to video that teaches customers how to use its software and gives lots of useful tips.
- Showcasing a product in action can be highly persuasive. Marketers know from experience that using these videos on landing pages can improve conversion rates by up to 80%.
- You want potential customers to make a purchase, subscribe to your service, or take another action. You must use the right call to action (CTA) for a specific action.
4. Retention and loyalty stage
The LifeTime Value (LTV) of a customer means a lot to a business and its monthly sales targets.
You can continue to offer educational content that adds value to the relationship. Keep reiterating how your products or services are the right fit for them and give them special offers to reward their loyalty. Video messaging helps you to maintain contact with them and get feedback from them.
5. Advocacy stage
This is the stage when your customers start doing some of the work for you. They are happy to spread the word about your products and services. You can get them to create user-generated content (USG) and post it on social media with appropriate hashtags.
It’s important to use a good video hosting platform to make sure you can store, organize, and deliver all your educational videos. Cincopa has a content delivery network (CDN) that ensures viewers receive quality videos at speed from a server closest to them. It also ensures that video content adjusts seamlessly to the size of their screens.
How to create video content that solves, teaches, and converts
Understand your audience
You must understand your audience, their pain points, and the value you offer. Engaging them and addressing their needs motivates them to take action. You must understand where they are in the decision-making process to meet them where they are.
Use storytelling
A story provides one of the best ways to present a problem and address it. It gives those watching a video context and a structure familiar to the brain. When you have a relatable story, viewers are more likely to pay attention.
Don’t overcomplicate information
An educational video should always be clear and easy to understand. Video marketing for B2B may include content that’s more difficult, but using animated video can make it clear and accessible.
Length matters
Not all videos perform equally and in many cases it comes down to how long they are. Short videos often work best – especially for top-of-funnel content and social media.
SEO and distribution: maximizing reach of educational videos
Most marketers use video content to increase traffic to a website. Whether you’re embedding video tutorials on your website or posting videos on social media, SEO helps it to get discovered.
SEO for video doesn’t have to be complicated. According to Google, the title, thumbnail, and description are the most important pieces of metadata for discovery. When you include transcripts and captions for videos, you give the search engines content to index and improve accessibility.
- Embed educational videos on your website where it makes sense – a sales page or a relevant blog post.
- Use videos in emails to engage prospective and current customers. Open rates are higher when you use videos.
- Posting videos on social media can help them to gain traction. Don’t just post once – share a video in different formats over time. Use reels to showcase educational content in bite-sized format.
The Cincopa platform helps you to host and optimize educational videos. You can use lead capture forms and CTAs to turn views into conversion opportunities.
Tracking performance: conversions, views, engagement metrics
Analytics will tell you what’s resonating with viewers and what’s not. You can observe their behavior on video heatmaps to see where they are most engaged and where they drop off. Look at engagement, views, and conversions to see how individual videos perform. This means you can repeat what works well and improve what doesn’t. Cincopa provides advanced analytics with heatmaps and dashboards to help you improve your educational content.
Conclusion: Use education as a growth engine
Educational video marketing works best when you do it with intention. You need to understand your audience, have clear intentions, and stay consistent in how you create content. Sign up on the Cincopa homepage for a free trial and see how it can help you to drive inbound marketing success with educational videos.
