How to Use an Animated Video in Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation and video are two effective tools that can bring excellent results for the business. Both of them are gaining momentum today. 

Due to the fast-paced life and quick business processes, marketing automation has become an urgent need almost for every company. It is the unstoppable force that helps businesses grow and manage time-consuming tasks more easily.

If you are reading this guide, you are probably familiar with the power of animated video for your marketing strategy. According to Cisco, 82% of online traffic will be video three years from now. Most of the modern customers prefer this type of entertaining and useful content over others.

Here we will consider how animated explainer videos can reinforce your marketing automation to drive even more leads and conversions.

Set Your Goals

Illustration by Yuliia Dobrokhod

The goal-setting stage is essential to each marketing strategy. Before you start deploying any marketing initiatives, ask yourself, what do your customers and your business need? Marketing automation allows you to develop personalized experiences based on the customer’s needs. What, actually, should the video help you achieve? 

The primary marketing goals can be divided into three big categories:

• Lead Generation. If you need to grow your mailing list, you should connect with new prospects. Marketers commonly do it by adding a form to collect email addresses. 

• Lead Nurturing. At this phase, brands are trying to listen to their leads and capture what do they need at the moment, so companies can adjust the content and provide them with all the needed answers. In this case, you should think of producing relevant animated video content for your emails.

• Customer Delight. If your goal is to provide customer provide, you need to create the video content that will engage, entertain, and build an emotional connection with customers so as they can become more loyal to a brand and help you grow a positive reputation. 

Research Your Target Audience

Illustration by Dzmitry Kazak

You need to understand who is your target audience, where they are located in the sales funnel, what questions and goals they have at this stage. 

To avoid sending the same video to the same people all the time, you must divide your prospects into categories by specific characteristics. It will help you make the content more personalized to particular needs and requests of your customers. Are you producing the video for those who have just subscribed to your newsletter? Is it, maybe, a marketing qualified lead or sales qualified lead? Each group interacts with a company at a different level. 

The main categories of prospects include:

• Subscribers. These people are pretty new in your sales funnel. They do not know much about your company, however, they have become interested in your brand and decided to receive some news from you periodically. Offering them the engaging video content in your emails, you can nurture them and move forward in the sales funnel. 

• Leads. Likely, this category of prospects has revealed a bit more interest in your company and, probably, would like to learn more about what you do and stand for. If they have filled a form, you have more personal information about them, like gender, age, location, etc

• MQL. Marketing Qualified Leads are very interested in your brand and actively interact with your content. They are more sales-ready than regular leads, however, not enough to close a deal.

• SQL. Sales Qualified Leads are people who know your company and what it offers very well. They have thought about making a purchase and likely need only a slight extra nudge to complete it. These people are the right audience for follow-up emails and reminders. They may have the last-minute questions about your product or service, so you must have your content be ready for it.

• Customer. This category does not need many explanations since these are your current customers who have already made a purchase and, maybe, even plan to make it again. 

Classify Your Video Content

Illustration by Julia Hanke

If you have already defined who is your target audience and what does it need, it is time to determine what type of video will appear the most useful and engaging for them. 

How-to and educational videos are the right fit for your lead generation stage as they bring valuable and relevant information to prospects. In addition, educational videos can significantly increase brand awareness if they spin around a particular topic and are spread on the web for public access. The how-to videos target people who have questions related to the specific topic, and the video is an excellent way to answer them and connect with the audience.

At the lead nurturing phase, your main goal should be to build a stronger relationship with customers, start interacting with a target audience at an emotional level, and make them more loyal to a brand. At this stage, you should give your customers big arguments on why they should choose to stay with your brand. Animated explainer videos are great for this moment because they deliver information in a short, easy-to-digest, engaging, and super-entertaining form.  

If your goal is customer delight, then your video should be particularly visually stunning to make the “wow” effect. For example, you can send them a beautiful and funny “thank-you” video after the first purchase and express gratitude to customers for their choice and loyalty to your brand. It will be perceived as a small and pleasant gift from a company, will create a lasting impression, and motivate them to come back for new purchases.

Final Words

The video is one of the most powerful tools for audience engagement. Combined with marketing automation, it can constitute a doubled value and drive the best results for your business. Using the right type of video at the right stage in sales funnel, you can increase the number of qualified leads and conversions.

Animated explainer video marketing implemented in a business strategy can grow brand awareness, build a strong reputation, and bring the sky-rocket success to a company.