Compared to any other medium, creating video for businesses is the best way to reach new audiences. In fact video has always been the gold standard for advertising. As a result, it can be fantastic for generating leads, conversions and sales. But many businesses get the most crucial part of their videos wrong. This has a huge impact on the effectiveness of their video conversions.

In this video I provide some insights on how to maximise your video conversions. You can view more educational video marketing content like this on the Falkon Digital YouTube channel.

Improve your video calls to action

The call to action (CTA) in your video, is your best opportunity to compel a viewer to perform a specific action. Whether this is to simply “like” the video, to subscribe to your channel, click a link to your website or even to make a purchase.

Unfortunately, many people get this important step wrong. At the very least, don’t give the CTA it’s best chance of success. So here are just a few different ways you can optimise your video content so that your videos convert much better.

Use a verbal instruction in your CTA

It’s very tempting to use on screen CTAs for your videos. Typically these asking for actions related to growing your audience. For example a “subscribe to the channel” animation, a “like this video” are perhaps the most popular. Another popular animation shows all the different socials accounts a creator might have.

In the videos on my own personal channel, I used to use these a lot. Now there are a lot of factors to consider when trying to measure the success of these, but typically I found that viewers followed this action around 0.5% of the time. However a verbal instruction was followed around 4-5% of the time.

On screen CTAs are very easy to ignore. If you’re like me, sometimes I don’t even notice them because I’m so conditioned to filtering them out while watching videos. So if you want a viewer to take an action – ask them to do it.

Use a single CTA in each video

I’m sure we’ve all seen videos where the creator asks for multiple calls to action. Does this sound familiar?

• If you enjoyed this video, then please give it a like
• Please subscribe for more content like this
• Don’t forget to click the notification bell so you don’t miss any updates
• Leave a comment
• Click the link in the description to visit my website

Do you see the problem with this? They’re basically asking for 5 different CTAs in one go. In my experience, if you ask for too many actions, the viewer typically takes no action. So think very carefully about the best CTA for that specific video. Use only that CTA, and make it as compelling as possible to really improve the chances that a viewer will follow through.

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Ending your videos with a CTA

If you’re a business creating video content, then in most cases, you most likely want to convert the viewer into a customer. In some cases it could be prudent to immediately link them to product. For example, think of TikTok videos where you see a product demonstration. There is an easy link to make a purchase. For higher ticket value items or services, it might be better to offer something of value for free. An offer such as a lead magnet can get the viewer into a sales funnel.

If you’re a creator looking to grow your channel, one of the best things you can ask a viewer to do is to watch another video. This is far more valuable than “likes” as it increases the total session time the viewer spends on your channel. Session time is a really important metric YouTube users to determine the quality of your content and your channel. You can improve this further by making it feel like the user “needs” to see the next video. Position it as holding some related piece of information to the current video, and without they’re not getting the full picture. This creates a curiosity loop in the viewers mind, and even a little bit of FOMO (fear of missing out). This can really increase the chances of them clicking through.

Even more CTA improvements…

These are relatively simple changes that most creators can implement on their channel. Of course there are far more improvements we can make to CTAs so they become really effective, based on your audience, content and desired action. But this can be a really great place to start, and can have a huge impact on your video conversions.