Video content has emerged as the chief vehicle fueling subscriber engagement and lead generation for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies in the cloud software space today.
In fact, explainer and product demo videos, when effectively tailored for each stage of the sales funnel, can grab prospects’ attention and significantly impact SaaS key performance indicators – including website traffic, lead conversion rates, onboarding completion, churn reduction, and more.
Whether your subscriber engagement goals entail driving brand awareness, nurturing leads towards conversion, speeding up onboarding, or boosting retention; videos give multiple avenues to interact with your target personas when designed strategically.
This is why forward-thinking SaaS startups to enterprises alike have embraced video marketing strategies with explainer and demo-centric videos leading the charge.
In this article, we encapsulate 5 foundational types of videos that need to serve as pillars underpinning the video initiatives of any serious SaaS player to accelerate their lead and revenue flywheels.
5 types of SaaS video content that drive growth
Video content has clearly emerged as a pivotal facet driving subscriber engagement and lead gen for SaaS firms today.
Now let’s dive deeper into the 5 fundamental types of videos:
- Explainer Videos
- Product Demo Videos
- Customer Testimonial Videos
- Onboarding Videos
- Webinar Videos
1. Explainer Videos
Explainer videos educate prospects on a SaaS company’s key features, value proposition, and how its product or service solves core customer pain points. The goal is to provide an understanding of what the offering is, how it works, and why prospects should care.
For example, Slack’s product explainer video started with “Modern communication is chaos”. They have specifically identified the problem within modern communications channels and offered a tool that can solve it.
Although it’s a 2-minute video, but Slack was successful in presenting the platform as an improved communication method.
Tips for creating effective explainer videos –
- Keep explainer videos 60-90 seconds long, crisp, and high-level focused on the core messaging
- Use dynamic animation and visuals to showcase a product in action
- Have a clear call-to-action at the end guiding viewers to a free trial or contact sales
Explainer videos are best suited for the top of the funnel to raise overall brand awareness and educate cold prospects just discovering the SaaS company. They can published on the homepage, product pages, blog, and social channels to capture new visitor attention.
2. Product Demo Videos
Product demo videos enable SaaS companies to showcase their platform’s key capabilities, user interface, and overall experience via specific use case scenarios. The goal is to highlight the end-to-end workflows and tangible value customers can achieve.
Take Airtable for example, their classic product demo video uses animation to show how users can benefit from it. The best part of this video is it demonstrates several different use cases, taking a broad, top-of-the-funnel approach that will attract the masses.
Here is what you can do to create a stunning product demo video –
- Carefully select the product capabilities to showcase aligned to target customer personas
- Demonstrate the workflows using real data/scenarios via screen recordings
- Highlight ease of key tasks with UI elements to position user experience
- Have a clear CTA to start a free trial at end
Product demo videos play a pivotal role in the middle-of-funnel to educate and nurture prospects showcasing how the platform can solve their needs. They can be embedded in landing pages, and email nurture streams, and play a big role in sales conversations.
3. Customer Testimonial Videos
Customer testimonial videos help build trust and social proof for SaaS products by featuring real customer advocacy and success stories. The authentic experiences establish credibility.
Here, WhiteSource shared customer experience from their customer Open Raven, which is a data security company.
In this video, the customer explained their operational industry and how video making in this particular category gives a push to their business. The video also has a WhiteSource logo, a good way of creating brand identity.
The best way to create impactful customer testimonial videos is –
- Interview multiple real customers from your target segments
- Capture quantifiable metrics and achievements from using your product
- Keep testimonials conversational, authentic, and emotional
- Include company logos for added trust and recognition
Testimonial videos play a key role in the middle and bottom of the funnel to convince prospects to convert to customers. They can be placed on landing pages, website visitors see upon signup and even shown by sales reps.
4. Onboarding Videos
Onboarding videos help speed up the setup and ramp-up process for new SaaS customers allowing them to achieve desired outcomes faster. They aim to proactively anticipate questions and provide helpful guidance.
Slack has a great series of onboarding videos like a quick product tour, tips to customize the workspace, app integration capabilities, etc. that help administrate and prepare teams new to Slack to collaborate effectively.
To make a great onboarding video –
- Create step-by-step walkthroughs of key workflows for users via screen recordings
- Showcase platform configuration, customizations, integrations, and administrative tasks
- Produce a range of 2-5 minute videos tackling specific use cases
Onboarding videos play a pivotal role post-signup to ensure a fast ramp up reducing early customer churn. They can be integrated into welcome and onboarding emails, in-app placements, help guides, and support conversations.
5. Webinar Videos
Webinar videos enable SaaS companies to share educational and valuable content to engage, nurture, and convert high-intent prospects already aware of and interested in their offering.
Zoom regularly conducts webinars on topics like Hybrid Learning for educators that provide tactical advice positioning themselves as experts. The webinars nurture prospects and have clear CTAs to convert leads.
Tips:
- Identify topics and questions target customers care about for content.
- Promote and publish webinar replays removing time constraints.
- Include a slide deck for visual engagement along with speakers.
- Have a clear CTA to sign up or contact sales to convert prospects.
Webinars play an important role in spanning the mid to bottom of the funnel to engage and convert aware prospects by educating and building authority around key customer issues. Promoted via email, social, and paid channels.
Importance of SaaS Marketing Videos
Video content has great importance for driving awareness, lead generation, and revenue growth for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies in today’s digital age. Stats show video viewers retain 95% of a message compared to 10% when reading text.
That is why forward-thinking SaaS firms big and small have embraced video marketing fueled by explainer videos, product demos, testimonials, onboarding walkthroughs, and educational webinars.
Compelling, strategic videos mapped across the subscriber journey can influence every facet of SaaS growth flywheels. Videos grab attention faster helping brands educate cold prospects on capabilities and value propositions in an engaging manner.
Product demo videos further qualify leads by showcasing workflows, UI and real customer success use cases matching their needs. Customer testimonials then provide the social proof and trust for prospects to convert to customers.
Onboarding videos facilitate quick ramp-up of new users while webinars nurture and convert high-intent leads via valuable content.
In aggregate, SaaS players need a tailored video strategy centered around explainer, demo, testimonial, onboarding, and webinar videos supporting users across discovery, consideration, conversion, and expansion stages.
These videos collectively educate users on the offering, build authority around the solution, generate leads, accelerate sales cycles, improve conversions, delight customers, and boost retention thereby growth hacking the entire revenue engine.
Specifically, SaaS startups see videos fuel organic amplification over digital channels thanks to higher perceived value versus traditional formats.
This includes owned channels like websites and blogs, earned avenues like social and email shares, and paid channels like YouTube ads. Video interactions give unprecedented customer intelligence to optimize video performance analyzing viewership metrics.
Results reveal the highest traction content types and segments to double down on.
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In fact, a SaaS video strategy integrated tightly with the marketing technology stack including CRM, marketing automation, and multi-channel publishing creates a flywheel delivering compounding video returns over time.
First-party subscriber data feeds videos while video analytics re-inform the martech stack – which then reinforces overall funnel optimization, personalization, and retention driving metrics like lower CAC, higher LTVs, and revenues further.
Therefore, rather than ad hoc videos, SaaS firms need an integrated video strategy tightly coupled to the martech stack centered around the 5 fundamental video types supporting subscribers across the buyer journey.
This creates a systematic video machine delivering outsized business impact and growth.
