Even as the customer journey gets more complex in the digital world, brands are increasingly focused on perfecting their funnel strategy. Consideration is the middle part of the marketing funnel that begins with awareness and ends with the conversion. Your customer can be aware of your brand, may even have an opinion about it, but awareness alone may not lead to a purchase. In fact, a recent study from Marketo shows 96% of potential buyers who visit a website are not yet ready to buy. It’s only when the buyer reaches the “consideration stage” that they start making the actual decision of making a purchase. Often called the “forgotten part of the funnel,” the consideration stage is where marketers need to focus their efforts.

Why is the consideration stage of the marketing funnel important?

 At the top of the funnel is the awareness stage where consumers become aware of your brand’s existence. Past this stage is the consideration funnel where consumers conduct some amount of initial research. At this stage, they are aware they have a pain point and may be evaluating your service or product along with others as a potential solution. At this point, buyers will carry out more research to zero in on one brand and make a purchase decision. As per a study, while 71% of buyers utilise a search engine to discover a new service or product, 74% of them use search engines to dig deeper into the brand’s offerings to see if they match their specific needs.

At this stage, customers are also looking at product reviews, influencer’s opinions or recommendations to evaluate and compare your brand’s offerings with your competitor’s. For your brand to excel in leveraging the middle funnel, you need to channel macro and micro influencers that your consumers trust for purchase advice. While the content at this stage needs to explain the different solutions you offer, it should also begin to differentiate your brand from competitors. Marketing professionals need to provide solid evidence as to why your customer needs to trust in your brand with testimonials, case studies, lab tests, demonstration video and brand stories in an engaging format.

Role of interactive videos at the consideration stage

 Consumers today are overwhelmed with information overload, paid advertisements and ‘digital stalking’ that brands indulge in. A study found that while only 35% of digital ads were viewed, only 9% of these were viewed for more than a second. A mere 4% of ads were viewed for two seconds. Moreover, a majority of internet users utilise ad-blocking add-ons and extensions.  A vast majority of print and digital display ads suffer from “banner blindness” where the target audience ignores the ad, or the ad fails to engage the viewer long enough for moving the consumer to the purchase stage.

Interactive video content is highly effective in engaging leads and can boost purchases by as much as 144%. Here are some statistics on why interactive videos are the best tools at the consideration stage:

• Four times as many potential customers prefer to watch a video about a service or product than reading about it
• 50% of online users look for videos on product or service before visiting a store
• Adults in the U.S. spend nearly six hours a day watching video
• Eight seconds of video can convey as much information as 30,000 words
• 87% of marketers say that interactive content grabs the attention of the reader more effectively than static content
• 72% of businesses say video has improved their conversion rate
• Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video
• 64% of potential consumers said watching a marketing video on social media influenced their purchase decision

Not surprisingly, 82% of marketers say interactive videos have yielded a good return on their investment while an equal number say videos are an integral part of marketing strategy. Interactive videos are the most valuable assets for marketers to push the customer from consideration stage to purchase stage.

Interactive videos can be used in multiple ways to educate the viewer by using product demonstrations, user testimonials, case studies to show how your product or service solves their problem. Videos help you build trust and showcase the human side of your brand by featuring brand stories, behind the scenes footage, quality policy or employee stories.

Types of Consideration Stage Videos

 Qantas created a virtual reality app that allows users to experience 360-degree video tours of exclusive tourism experiences. After enjoying the video tours, users have the option of booking a flight via the app. Financial services company Morgan created an interactive microsite to make users take a tour of some of the places that are most affected by climate change.

These are just two of the ways interactive videos can help in the consideration stage.There are multiple other ways to use the consideration stage video depending on what you offer, the industry niche and your target audience profile.

Some of the video types include:

• Product comparison : Below Wootagged video will demonstrate how Estee Lauder is driving viewers to learn different shades available, allowing their audience to choose their preferred shade.

•  Features Visualization : Here is Wootagged Ford Execution enabling their audience to watch and learn more about the features of the car driving strong consideration.

Other examples such as,

• Expert guides
• Live interaction videos
• Games, quiz, puzzles
• Calculators and configurators
• Live chats
• Interactive infographics
• Animation

How Wootag helps in generating Audience Consideration

 As the leading authority on interactive videos, Wootag aims to transform your consumers’ experience by harnessing the power of visual storytelling. These figures speak volumes about how Wootag can help you achieve your marketing goals:

To Download Infographic Audience Insights – Click here. 

An action-inspiring, compelling video not only boosts brand awareness but clears the path for purchase when used at the consideration stage of the funnel.

With interactive videos, you can not only engage with your viewers but also generate two times as many conversions and five times as many page views as compared to static ads. Calculators, before and after, demonstrations, quiz, poll or assessments – the possibilities are endless when it comes to how you can use interactive videos to generate interest in purchase.

Now that you know the immense potential of interactive videos in this stage of marketing, the next step is to device the right video strategy that resonates with your target audience.

Wootag steps in at the crucial phase of the marketing funnel to craft visually stunning interactive videos that help you accelerate brand visibility while driving conversions.

Get in touch with us today to take your brand to new heights of success.

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