Every marketer wants to boost their landing page conversion rates. Including you.

In fact, a study by Econsultancy found that only 22% of businesses are satisfied with their conversion rates.

And you can make an argument that apart from the remaining 78%, the satisfied businesses also want to capture more leads. You can achieve that boost with videos on your landing pages.

But what kind of results can you get? With the addition of video to a landing page, TutorVista.com, an online tutoring company, got an 86% increase in conversions.

This makes sense when you consider that landing page visitors tend to engage better with videos than written content. According to a study, our brains process videos 60,000 times faster than text.

However, if you have never used video as a marketing medium on your landing page, it can look really complex. Don’t worry, in a moment, I’ll show you how to use videos on your landing page to increase conversions.

Let’s go into the important details…

Two ways to Use Videos on Your Landing Pages

There are two main ways of using videos on your landing pages:

• Video landing page: This uses a video on the landing page with few supporting text. It means the video does most of the job that text is supposed to do. Below is an example from Salesgenie:

• Adding video to landing page content: You can use a video on your landing page while still having texts that do the same work of convincing a visitor to sign up to become a lead. Below is an example of a Vidyard landing page with both video and texts. Adding the video led to a 100% increase in conversions.

Having said that, let’s consider 7 ways to increase your landing page conversions with videos:

1. Have Your Video Above The Fold

If you want your videos to convert more leads, the first step is to ensure that visitors actually view your video. Placing your video above the fold means it is the first piece of content any page visitor will see.

This increases the chances of getting more views for your video and convincing viewers to become leads.

Wistia found that your video’s play rate decreases the lower your video is placed on your landing page.

You can see a massive difference in play rates between a video at the top of the page and one at the bottom.

2. Use an Attractive Thumbnail

The first view of your video is its thumbnail. And you only have one chance at a first impression.Click To Tweet If the thumbnail looks boring, very few people will view your video. Keep these details in mind when making your thumbnails.

• Use a smiling human face: people are attracted to happy faces.

• Use thumbnail related to content: in some cases, using a human face might be impossible. Another tip to keep in mind is to use a thumbnail that is related to your video content. See some thumbnails below and you’ll notice that the second thumbnail is most related to the content.

• Brand your thumbnail: you can have your brand name on your thumbnail to make it easy for viewers when they see your videos in other places online.

When you captivate or pique curiosity with your thumbnail, you will get more viewers of your video.Click To Tweet

3. Add Lead Capture Form to Videos

What if you can convert your visitors while they are highly engaged with your video? You can achieve this by adding a lead capture form to your videos.

This gives your viewer an option to submit their details before the end of your video. See an example of that below:

Of course, this form is optional and viewers can always click on the “skip” button if they are yet to be totally convinced. However, it is a proven way to capture more leads for your business.

When Wistia carried out an analysis of its videos with lead capture forms (called turnstiles) they found that forms that appear in the first 10-20% of the video have conversion rates of 43%.

This is a case for showing your lead capture form when your viewers are highly engaged with your video. But wherever you place your form, an average conversion rate of 11% is still a good value for your landing page.

4. Make Your Video as Short as Possible

People who come to your landing page are not there to spend all day. They probably clicked through to your landing page because of an offer they saw on your website or a pay-per-click (PPC) ad.

It’s important to talk about this offer as soon as possible in your video to keep a viewer engaged. While doing this, you should keep in mind that people generally lose interest in longer videos. 

A study by Wistia found that the sweet spot for your videos is 2 minutes. After this time, there is a sharp drop-off in engagement till the sixth minute.Click To Tweet

5. Include a Call To Action in Your Video

What do you want people to do when they visit your landing page? To submit their details of course. You need to tell them to do this in your video.

Creating an interesting video that just rambles on for a few minutes won’t take you closer to your goal. If you do not tell people what to do, they will just watch your video and leave.

You can have your call to action button after your video so viewers can click to submit their details. If that is impossible, you can tell them in the video to submit their details on your page.

Below is an example of a call to action telling viewers to watch another video:

With a tool like Vidyard, you can set a form to pop up beside your video.

You can set the time to be the same time you tell your audience to sign up in the video.

6. Use Social Proof in Videos

People want what other people want and more poignantly to business, people want to use a service that other people use.Click To Tweet

Before people submit their personal details to you, they want to know what others have gained from doing so in the past.

Displaying social proof in your video can tip the scale in your favour. There are two common ways to do this using videos:

• Feature current customers in your video: show one or two of your customers in your video and let them say how your service has benefited them.
• Have video testimonials on your landing page: these videos will feature satisfied customers talking about their problems before they used your service, how your service solved these problems and the results they got for their business. See an example from mHelpDesk below:

This will help convince a landing page visitor looking for the same solution.

7. Carry Out A/B Tests on Your Videos

No matter what you do on your landing page, you should never stop testing. This is how you can continually improve your conversion rates.

A/B tests provide an objective view of how a change affects your conversion rates. You can always see the results of two variations. This allows you to make changes to your landing page based on results.

You will get many ideas on how to use videos on your landing page, but some of these ideas might not work out in your particular situation. A/B tests help you to find what works best for your landing page audience.

What are the aspects of your videos you need to test on your landing page?

• Autoplay: Nobody wants a video to start blasting automatically. Especially if they are viewing in a silent office. The best practice is that you stop autoplay for your videos. But what if you try autoplay with the sound off? You can carry out tests to find out the option that leads to the best conversion rates.
• Placement: Generally, the best practice is to have your videos at the top of your landing page. But your visitors might engage better with your videos at the end of your page. You need to test the two options and use the placement with the best results.
• Thumbnail: As mentioned earlier, your thumbnail has an effect on whether people view your video or not. Use different thumbnails and track their effects on your conversion rates.

One point to keep in mind while carrying out A/B tests: you should only test a single element of your video at a time. This helps you to track the change responsible for your results.

Conclusion

Video has become one of the most popular content formats. It’s no surprise that YouTube is now the second largest search engine and the second most popular website online. You can use the power of videos to capture more leads on your landing pages.

To recap, follow these steps to increase conversions on your landing page with videos:

• Have your video above the fold
• Use an attractive thumbnail
• Add lead capture form to videos
• Make your video as short as possible
• Include your call to action in your video
• Use social proof in videos
• Carry out A/B tests in your videos

Implement these steps, and you can start reaping the benefits of video marketing on your landing page.

If you’d like to learn more marketing tactics that boost conversion rates, check out:

• The Customer Avatar: Find and Reach Your Target Market
• The Psychology of Colour in Marketing
• Marketing Psychology 101: Rejection Then Retreat Strategy