3 Keys to Using Marketing Video for Customer Retention
Marketing
Pipeline. Growing sales opportunities is part of a marketer’s job. So much so that often one of your biggest sources of revenue goes ignored - your customers. Many organizations have no marketing team member dedicated to their customer’s interests. But this is a huge mistake because a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%.
Retention means keeping the customers you have who have stayed with you through the journey. It requires thinking beyond “the funnel” and continuing to inspire and educate clients and customers. Sure, account managers can work with your customers to make them more successful but with dozens of accounts how can they actively market, sell, and maintain? Let customers get to know you with video. What kinds of information do customers need to be successful with your product? Is it a series of tips and tricks? Accompanying products or gear? Targeted video content can make sure this valuable relationship continues to be profitable. Customer retention is the lifeblood of any company. Let’s use video to build relationships that last.
Why Video Works in the Retention Stage of the Customer Journey
"The funnel" used to be the full marketing model because, after leads closed, marketers didn’t know how to approach those customers in a relevant way. Attract, convert, close, repeat. It seems so simple! Having a conversation with someone you already know, who you don’t have an “offer” for, however, that just feels hard.
Don’t fear, marketer. An easy conversation starter? Assisting your customers in performing better with videos profiling complementary products and services.
Actually, it is arguably easier to market to those who already know you instead of hunting for new prospects. Here are some retention video ideas: consider a how-to series for related products, a tips series, or focus on the excitement of a new feature/ product launch. Take it a step further and craft video playlists that utilize customer habits to create a different experience for each individual on-site. Post-roll clips can provide viewing choices related to the previous video watched, with the audience preferentially customizing their experience. Video experiences can cater to personas, enabling or teaching them how to get the most from their purchase.
How to Create a Video Retention Campaign: Key Questions
Ask yourself these questions before creating videos for your customers:
- How does video add multi- dimensionality to your conversations with your current customers?
- Does this video content help your customer become a better customer, driving more interaction with the product?
- Which video experiences can be personalized? Can unique video communications be emailed to customers and contacts?
Need more brainstorming prompts? Talk to your customer support team who might be able to clarify some common customer conundrums. In the same way, you position your product to solve problems, position your brand as the ever-present solutions provider for your customers. A hand to hold, if you will.
Where to Promote Your Video Content to Customers
In our Video Marketing Hero’s latest guide, Strategies for Video Marketing Across the Customer Journey, we’ve included handy charts so at a glance you can understand what you should post and where. Retention videos thrive in email, on your blog, and throughout social media channels. (Don’t forget to launch a campaign asking for follows and likes!)
As for the content itself, you still want to be helpful and informative, but more so with the utilization of your product or service. After you’ve mastered instructional and support videos, consider what sort of supplementary content can you create purely for goodwill. How does your product or service fit into your customer’s life? Think of similar subjects like spokes on a wheel and dive into these topics to keep creating interesting content for your customers. This doesn’t (and shouldn’t) be related exclusively to what you sell. Embrace content marketing. Build loyalty by nurturing this relationship and demonstrating that they didn’t just buy into a product or service but into a brand uniquely aligned with their values. Buyer’s remorse? Not here.
What to Measure: Key Metrics for a Video Retention Campaign
In marketing, we know that our audiences like to know what is expected of them. Your customers are no different. Engage customers through video and direct them to an action across your channels of communication. Pull their activity from your online video platform, content management system, and marketing automation platform into your CRM so you can build out fuller audience profiles. The best part is that in understanding your customers better you can build out channel communications specific to them, but also double down on efforts to attract these same types of buyers. Consider the following criteria for growth and overall customer stickiness:
- Difference in email open rates / product update subscriptions
- Growth in video shares and user- generated product recommendations
- Total product launch and customer support videos watched
- Percent likelihood to continue to purchase
- Increase of loyalty program adoption and percent of customer special offers redeemed
- Average number of pieces of content consumed monthly (video plays, blogs read, papers downloaded).
Plainly put, it’s easier to keep customers than sell new ones. Furthermore, growth can’t be achieved if you don’t keep a healthy base. By lessening attrition, you’ll stress less as a marketer and know your campaigns targeting new prospects and leads are moving growth forward, instead of accommodating for loss. Warm fuzzies for marketers, all around.
Marketing to your customers can also win you favor in other business units and sectors of a client company! Recently, our demand generation team launched a campaign with the intent of keeping/up selling current customers and expanding reach within large, global enterprises. Our video messages were a huge success! To see how we did it, check in on Thursday.
