5stagesofcustomerengagement

Most times I look at a corporate video, I’m not exactly sure where to put it in terms of customer journey. Why?

Well, as always the answer is multi-faceted. For one, video is a storytelling tool and has an emotional impact, and both storytelling and emotions are not exact sciences. Also, most videos lack a clear call to action. Sometimes that’s ok and other times it’s a missed opportunity.I did some video shopping on YouTube and tried matching a few different styles of videos to the outlined customer journey above. It was way harder than I thought. Here my bounty with these 10 videos:

AWARENESS: Whiteboard Animation with music and sound effects. There’s no call to action, probably because it’s a student film.

AWARENESS: Animated text and shapes with music and sound effects. No CTA (call to action) and a missed opportunity:

AWARENESS: Video slide-show with music and text. No CTA! How easy would it have been to do so.

PEAK INTEREST: Documentary style: talking-head directly into camera with b-roll footage of the business. Music and “organic” voice-over. Soft-sell CTA with website info.

AWARENESS and PEAK INTEREST: Classic customer testimonial; a so-called “talking head” video. There’s no CTA needed, as the video is embedded in our website and so-with contextualized.

ACTIVATE and CONVERT: Documentary interview style with b-roll footage of business. Music and voice-over from interview. No CTA needed – the VIDEO sells! Very well done, it gets an A+! Great example where an emotional business (photographing babies) uses an emotional tool – video – without being too sappy – to sell itself.

CONVERSION: How-to-video with screen-recording, animation, voice-over, and music. Soft-sell CTA.

CONSIDERATION and ACTIVATION: Stock images with (an ironic) voice-over, and music. Another A+ from me. The piece sells itself. Style, content, voice-over (quality of voice is hysterically over-the top, deep male voice), and CTA all work flawlessly. I’m going to buy stock from these guys!

CONSIDERATION: Several animated figures templates with voice-over and music. I HAD to share this, because they obviously hired a professional English native speaking voice-over talent and then gave him grammatically awkward or plain wrong copy to record. The animation is ok, but showcases why I am not a fan of these videos. It doesn’t move me, it doesn’t stimulate me visually, and if I compare it to the woman who photographs newborns it falls flat on its face.

FAN: Animation with music. Very, very cute animation and music. If you already have a fan-base you can activate them without showing food. However, if this video was meant to raise awareness for the business, or convert, it’s a miss-step.

FAN: Narrative fiction to boot. There’s a reason I didn’t find any viable small business (let alone DIY) options. This is a full-on Hollywood budget, branded entertainment and entertaining it is, and fun. (There’s an entire series if you like it).

What combination will your video be? Touch-point to style? Which style do you think works best for which audience touch-point?

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