How to use the Right Videos for each Stage of your Marketing Funnel and Why?
If you’re here, it’s likely that you’re running a SaaS company and looking to up your marketing and sales game. You probably understand how videos can dramatically increase your conversion rates, brand awareness, and product engagement and provide better ROI than any other medium.
However, there are many important issues you need to know before adopting the medium.
But don’t worry, we are here to offer you guidance on your video production strategy like we have done for many top SaaS companies.
There are a number of options available to you to produce video content. But to get the most out of the medium, you must choose the right method to create your video content.
“Make no mistake: A wrong decision at this stage could prove costly for you – both in terms of money and effort.”
| Benefits | Hybrid like Content Beta | Traditional Video Production Agency | In-House Production | Freelancer Services |
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| Skill set | From Idea to Final Video | Only works on production | Separate specialist for Scripts, Creatives, Editing | Coordination with multiple freelancers |
| Unlimited Revisions |
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| UI/UX Updates |
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| Account Manager |
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Reliance on Zoom calls | ||
| Dedicated Client Portal |
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| Timeline | 10-20 days | 1-2 months | 3-4 weeks | 3-4 weeks |
| 24/7 Email Support |
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| Cost | Starts $500 - $3500 for a 2-minute video | Starts $2k/video | Starts $18k/month | Starts $2K/video |
| The Pros - Why you might want to do it yourself: |
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| 1. You hate interacting with external agencies because you have had less-than-pleasant experience working with them. |
| 2. You have plans to build an in-house team for your own needs or maybe your products and services are closely aligned with other fields of expertise like eLearning or instructional design. |
| 3. You managed video production work in your last job and you know what it takes to produce good video content. |
| 4. You are an independent-minded person and want to take charge of how you want to project your brand. |
| 5. You are a video aficionado and you feel confident you can replicate some of the iconic videos that have gone viral. |
| 6. You own new equipment that you bought in a moment of weakness, which has since been lying idle, and you feel you should ‘recover’ some of your investment by producing video content. |
| 7. You feel that your brand and your products do not need expensive production values, and you want to get that ‘raw’ or unpolished. |
| The Pros - Why you might want to do it yourself: |
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| 1. You have limited knowledge about video production, e.g., how to shoot a video but not when to use what type of video or at what point in the customer journey. |
| 2. You are a small business or start up and don’t have the resources. You cannot afford to get your team to spend time on a project whose outcome you are uncertain about. |
| 3. You are a technical person but clueless about sales and marketing. |
| 4. You have not run a marketing campaign before or know about services like storage and distribution offered by production agencies. |
Key takeaways:
Use this checklist when you approach external agencies for your video content needs. Be clear about:
If you decide to outsource, there are 2 options available to you:
As they all fall under ‘outsourcing’, we’ll first talk about the pros and cons common to both options before discussing them individually.
Perhaps, the greatest advantage outsourcing offers you is professionalism and accountability. As you are fairly well protected by contracts, getting a bad bargain is rare but not unknown.
| The Pros - Why you might want to do it yourself: |
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| 1. Video outsourcing service provides solutions to all these requirements through flexible pricing models that are customized to meet your budget needs. |
| 2. No need to invest in expensive equipment, or extra hands. And like good equipment, good talent comes at a price (and rightly so) especially when it involves special effects and animation. |
| 3. A video outsourcing service can easily take on your project with professional-level equipment, talent, and production value at a fraction of the cost you would incur by hiring full time video professionals. |
| 4. You can get your regular workforce to do what they do best - handle work related to your products or services. In some cases, redeploying people - especially those who do not have the skills to help you with it - could lead to resentment and even high employee turnover. |
| 5. The external agency has no particular emotional attachment to your brand and thus might be in a position to think impassionately and create content that reflects and represents your product in a way you as the owner would not be able to do. |
| The Cons - Why you might NOT want to do it yourself: |
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| 1. The internet is replete with horror stories about the perils of outsourcing. Let’s take a cautious look at what lurks beneath the calm surface. |
| 2. Limited control over the creative aspect. You are sometimes bullied into accepting what they can offer using already existing content after customizing it to meet your needs. |
| 3. Services tend to be more expensive compared to what you can do on the basis of individual videos. |
Key takeaways:
Let’s look at some of the best practices for outsourcing your work – which includes both Freelancers and external Video Production Agencies:
Key takeaways:
Next, we will see the end-to-end process followed by a hybrid video production company to create video content.
This step is often overlooked but it will help you understand what type of content we need to produce that meets your objectives at each stage. The key is to engage with the prospects, depending on their readiness.
Our job is to produce the content that gives you the best results. And to do that, we must trace the customer journey through the Marketing Funnel and identify what content to produce, which is as important as creating the content itself.
Let’s use some examples to illustrate the point:
A marketing funnel has 4 stages which ensures that you realise the full LTV from customers. The key, however, is to earn their brand loyalty and maybe, even act as our brand advocates.
Here are some example videos:
1. Awareness stage: No sales talk; just make the world aware of your brand.
Product marketing video from ThoroughPut Demand Sensing
2. Consideration stage: The goal is to become a reliable source of quality information. Still no sales talk.
How-to videos are extremely useful to convince the leads that you know what you are talking about. Here’s a good example from Chirotouch
3. Conversion stage: The goal of this stage is to emotionally connect with customers using product-related videos and customer testimonials.
4. Retention stage: Loyalty | Advocacy stage: The idea being nurturing long-term relationships, Onboarding, how-to videos, and Academy Video courses work well here.
Key takeaway:
A professional outfit should have experts at every stage. With Content Beta you get:
Key takeaway:
Many video production companies tend to have a team that juggles between various roles mentioned above. The result is an inferior product that does not quite meet customers’ expectations. So pick your video production agency with care.
Content Beta is a prominent player in video content production. Read how we have worked with top brands to help them create their success stories.
Simply put, we help you put your video production on autopilot.
| Sr. No. | Pain Points | Our approach |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Frequent meetings | No endless calls - Just tell us about your needs. We get back to you with a plan |
| 2. | Multiple briefings | You can give us even a document and demo account and we’ll do the rest |
| 3. | Budget | Cost could be as low as $500 per video |
| 4. | Revisions | Unlimited, grumble-free storyboard revisions |
| 5. | Waiting period | We deliver first draft in less than a week |
| 6. | Specialization | We understand SaaS and software products |
| 7. | Custom edits | Get brand-based custom animation |
| 8. | Hosting | Shareable video library or easy access by your sales and marketing teams |
Let’s recap what we discussed in this guide:
Remember, you can, depending on your needs, use the various production options discussed above either individually or in combinations.
It’s great to have expertise but what really matters is building good relations with the client by giving them what best meets their needs.
There are competent agencies out there doing epic work, but you should be prepared for frequent meetings, endless video calls, multiple briefings, haggling over the budget, multiple script and storyboard revisions, and lack of experience on your or agency’s part.
The advantage of In-House video production is that you control the whole process and you may even have a team of hired specialists like graphic designers and scriptwriters for the job. The main disadvantage is the price: It can cost as much as $18K per month to hire a team of specialists.
As you are investing time and money to create your video content, you must carefully choose your agency. Check their portfolio, watch their customer testimonials, list of clients, how easy it is to work with them, and their customer service.
The advantage is that you get to choose the best people out there on freelancing sites like Upwork and Fiverr, which might work out cheaper than hiring your team. The disadvantage is that you need someone to liaise with them, review the work, and suggest changes.
