A comprehensive guide to Using Videos on Landing Pages

We all know the 7-second adage for capturing your audience’s attention. But what happens after capturing it is equally crucial. A consumer’s subjective attention span for your content depends on the content you’re using for grabbing it and how gripping, how valuable the content is for them. An allegedly sureshot way of holding your audience is videos.

Videos drive a whopping 86% more conversions than static content.

They have become quite important in all kinds of digital material, including landing pages. But certainly, just adding a video to a landing page is not enough. In the next few minutes, we’ll be studying all aspects of making videos on your landing pages work for your marketing goals.

Let us begin with the why of landing page videos.

Why add videos to landing pages?

Apart from the multitude of statistics across the internet showing that videos work better than any other content format, we give you some functional and utilitarian reasons to believe that video content is indeed the way forward for landing pages in particular.

1. Keeps visitors on your page:

A video can achieve what a long explainer or promotional copy cannot. Once you hook the viewer with the video and give them something interesting to watch, they will stay on your landing page till the end. Increased time-on-page is always a great factor for brand affinity, brand relativity, and ultimately, conversions.

2. Increases clarity:

Some people are naturally inclined towards consuming text better, and some towards images. Video can give you the best of both worlds by adding supporting captions and text along with moving images. That is one of the several reasons why video content appeals to a wide section of people.

3. Simplification:

Some things simply cannot be explained well through text. Along with short attention spans, rising complexity makes text instructions really tedious. Imagine Ikea giving installation instructions for a huge, intricately designed bookshelf through text instead of video. It doesn’t work, right? Viewers retain 95% of the information in a video they watch as opposed to just 10% from a text.

4. Shareability:

It is a known fact that videos have exponentially more shareability than text and images combined. You should always add elements such as social sharing buttons to help viewers immediately send them to others, thus increasing your brand reach.

Types of landing page videos

First and foremost, you need to gauge your landing page strategy and decide what content category your landing page video falls into. Out of the several types of marketing videos, these are the ones known to work best on landing pages.

1. Explainer videos:

For products that are highly innovative, new to the audience, or complex, explainer videos with professional voice over are necessary. They provide a high-level insight into how your product can solve their problems. But it is necessary to remember that you need a good lead-in to the video for making them click it in the first place. Research suggests that 72% of people would prefer the video format for learning about a product.

2. Demo videos:

Demo videos are similar to explainer videos. They address the end of the funnel by telling consumers how to use the product in a step-by-step or detailed manner. The ‘show don’t tell’ philosophy works best here for a generation used to how-to videos and YouTube.

3. Promo videos:

Promotional videos work best with lead-capture forms focused on offers. They act as teasers of what the audience will get once they fill the form or follow a CTA.

4. Testimonial videos:

If the audience for your landing page is the kind that will need some more convincing for trial, conversion, or any other action, testimonials are a certain way of getting things right. Testimonials in a video format add a human touch and make them more appealing by making the audience feel as if they are part of a conversation. You can couple a testimonial video with more social proof such as social media scrolls.

Here are the different formats in which brands have been embedding videos on their landing pages:

1. Hero landing page video:

This is an above-the-fold video that makes for the main visual or replaces the hero image on the top of your landing page.

This SharpSpring landing page wins the game by adding not just a CTA but an entire form right next to the hero video. The moment you understand what their offering is, you can sign up for it.

2. Supporting landing page video:

A below-the-fold video that plays the role of a supporting asset on your landing page. For example, Slack has decided to add its explainer video below-the-fold and focus only on the proposition above.

3. Background landing page video:

A video in the form of an animated background that can be used to draw attention to the headline, a button, key copy, or another element that demands to be seen. These videos are more about aesthetics and usually don’t include sound.

Take this Animaker page for example. It is an excellent illustration of a background video landing page. It is a product display in itself, given that it’s an animation services provider. The quality of the video is rich as well, communicating the quality of the product.

4. Lightbox landing page video:

A video that opens up in a lightbox popup when the viewer clicks or hovers over a button, thumbnail, or link. The most classic example is the Netflix website, where hovering over a show/movie’s thumbnail opens up a lightbox where you can watch the trailer and check what you’re signing up for. You can further click play to watch the show/movie.

In another example, this GoodFood landing page makes optimal use of the lightbox feature. It keeps all the important elements from the background visible while adding focus on the little video box.

Creating video landing pages: Best practices

Whichever form and format of videos you use on your landing pages, there are certain practices to follow which will ensure success with your marketing goals.

1. Script your landing page video:

Scripting your landing page video is very important, no matter if it is an infographic video, a stop motion video, an animated video, or a full-fledged advertisement. While scripting, you end up taking into account a lot of marketing strategies such as consumer behavior, messaging, etc. With the help of an AI script generator tool, you can streamline this process and ensure your script is well-crafted to resonate with your audience and convey your message effectively.

Here is a starter for a video script that can help you prep for your landing page.

2. Don’t distract viewers:

There’s a reason you always watch YouTube videos on full-screen for the complete experience. With too much text or too many CTAs around the video, the viewer will not be able to focus on it, even if it’s a lighthouse popup.

3. Optimize for SEO:

Pretty much all of the rules that Google applies to content for ranking apply to video content as well. Make sure that your video has utility for audiences. Add interactive elements, optimized metadata, full transcriptions, and sitemaps to impress Google’s ranking algorithm further. It is preferable to embed a YouTube video simply for an SEO shortcut and to provide your target audience another source for a referral. Additionally, make the video embeddable as well for greater shareability on various platforms.

4. Keep them short and simple:

One of the main purposes of a video is to do away with lengthy text. If your video itself is too long for consumption, the purpose is defeated. No one has the patience for a 20-minute video of any kind these days. So perhaps, your landing page video should not be more than the length of the average music video in 2021.

5. Autoplay or no autoplay?:

This has been quite the debate in marketing circles. Autoplay, on paper, seems like shoving your message down the viewer’s throat. On the other hand, not using autoplay might affect the experience you try to create with, say, a background video or a prominent hero video. How do you decide? The answer is simple. A/B testing. Because each product’s audience is different.

Conclusion

We will leave you with the ultimate landing page video tip: 

Make the first three seconds count.

As per research, the first three seconds of a video are what can make or break it for the viewer. They’re akin to the ‘hook’ of a written text. So, after following numerous tips and tricks, be sure to follow this golden rule. Enrich your landing pages with video content, and make a spectacle out of it.