Why Your Videos Aren’t Converting Viewers to Customers

During the Super Bowl in 2018, Dodge ran a video ad featuring footage of their Ram truck with some snippets of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “Drum Major Instinct” speech playing in the background.

The ad had sparked a wide online outrage over Dodge’s decision to use Dr. King’s sermon in an attempt to sell Ram trucks. It has since gone infamous as one of the most misleading ads in history. And with that, Dodge’s goal of attracting more people to buy their Ram trucks fell flat on its face which serves as a cautionary tale.

To get viewers to take the desired action, whether it’s making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter, your video must not be thoughtless. A video that can succeed at lead generation needs to speak to their audience’s interests and values should be highly visible and encourage a clear step ahead.

Be it looking to improve your landing page’s conversion rate, or generate subscribers from your webinars, or increase sales from your product videos, we’re here to assist you.

Listed below are four common reasons why your videos might not be working as well as they could and how you can separately solve each problem to increase conversions.

1. Your Videos Aren’t Actionable Enough

Has it ever happened that you watched a compelling documentary and were compelled to find all the other pieces to the story online? You spend hours on Google, sniffing through the material and trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together like a modern-day James Bond.

Great video content simply moves people. It encourages action. For business videos, that indicates having a clear, definite Call to Action (CTA). After all, how is the video going to help drive business if viewers aren’t clear about what to do after watching it?

Simply said, if lead generation with your videos is a part of your content marketing strategy, you need to make sure your videos serve this goal with actionable next steps for viewers.

How to Improve
The simplest way to make your video more actionable is to include a clear CTA in your video. Mostly, a CTA appears at the end of a video after you’ve highlighted the importance of a particular aspect of your product to the viewers.

But it is also acceptable to include a CTA somewhere in the beginning or middle of the video. The point is simply to ensure that the viewers understand the importance of clicking on the CTA before receiving it. It should make sense why there is this next step.

The action you want your viewers to take should always be in alignment with the stage of the marketing funnel they’re in. A top-of-funnel video might simply collect the viewer’s email so you can send more valuable information to them whereas a bottom-of-funnel video is a more direct sales pitch to encourage a purchase.

The wording is crucial when it comes to CTAs. Use powerful and purposeful language that is clear and comprehensive.

2. Your Videos Aren’t Customer-Focused

While watching a business video, people want content that is beneficial to them in some way — whether by providing entertainment or some useful information or both.

Note: Whether it’s an in-depth funny ad or a product tutorial, the video content should always be centered on customers’ needs and issues.

How to Improve
For creating video content that is customer-focused, begin by analyzing what the viewers wish to see based on their position in the marketing funnel. Not all viewers are ready to make a purchase, so serve up some sweet top-of-funnel or middle-of-funnel video content to increase brand awareness and educate prospective customers first, like explainer videos.

If they are anywhere nearer to the final stage of the funnel, deliver the types of videos that make a powerful case for your products, such as case studies and testimonials, and push them closer to finally making the purchase. Highlight how a specific feature of your product can help viewers solve a problem they’re facing or streamline their business efforts. Bear in mind while creating videos that B2B leaders and marketers are always running on tight schedules and want to understand quickly and briefly how your product can help them.

3. Your Videos Are Hard to Find

There’s nothing worse than putting your heart and soul into creating a high-quality brand video and then having only a few people watch it. Beyond creating disappointment, it also means less engagement, meaning low brand awareness and fewer conversions.

One possible reason for low watch numbers? Your videos are difficult to find. Your videos may not be optimized for search engines, which means viewers aren’t finding them in relevant Google searches. Or, you might be sharing videos on channels that have very little or almost no traction for your business and missing out on important placement opportunities. The ability to be discovered needs to be an essential part of your video marketing strategy, and an investment in video SEO is totally worth the effort.

How to Improve

Like all written content, video content needs a little search engine optimization to rank better on Google. Optimizing your video content will contribute to more viewers finding your videos and increase the probability of conversion.

If your videos appear on random Google searches for keywords or search phrases that your company doesn’t need to rank for, you should realign your video SEO endeavors to match the right intent. Ensure that you include the right keywords in titles and meta descriptions so Google can crawl upon them.

In terms of missing important placement opportunities, decide where to publish your videos from a viewer’s perspective. If it is a product demo video, it shouldn’t be buried in a YouTube Channel with a mere 40-50 views; this way the people who are interested will never find it! Instead, take the same video and embed it directly onto your product page for your website visitors. A visitor on this page is considering your products already, so it’s the perfect time to show a demo and inspire conversion.

4. Your Videos Don’t Deliver On User Expectations

Using clickbait is standard practice on platforms like YouTube, where brand awareness and credibility aren’t always a priority for viewers. But if you include clickbait in client-facing B2B videos, it’s sure to get those viewers to discard your videos entirely and make your business appear untrustworthy.

When you publish a video with the title “10 Tips to Improve Your Blog Posts”, viewers are expecting exactly that. If the video fails to explain how they can improve their blogs, they’re going to feel disappointed and misled. That disconnect will negatively affect your conversion rate and can diminish consumer trust in your brand.

That same breach of trust can also affect your video SEO efforts. If your video’s meta descriptions and tags do not represent your video aptly, Google can revert, penalizing your video content that doesn’t live up to the users’ expectations.

How to Improve

The first and the foremost question you should always ask yourself after putting together titles and descriptions for your video is easy: “Do these accurately represent what my viewers can expect from my video?” If the answer is affirmative, you need not worry about anything. If it is negative, you need to be extremely honest with yourself about the inaccuracies and how you can rectify them.

Always be truthful with everything you convey to your target audience. Use compelling and strong language, but never overpromise. Even if you are not getting as many clicks initially as you might with an exaggerated title, the viewers you get will think of your business as credible and knowledgeable. Delivering what you promise your viewers can also increase the click-through rate (CTR) and increase conversions by building trust with your brand.

Want More Conversions? Try A Professional Video Marketing Solution.

Getting viewers to take expected action on your video requires some finesse, and it won’t always work the same way. As you experiment with various digital marketing strategies, consider hiring a professional firm like ours to help you get the best out of your marketing endeavors.