In today’s B2B marketplace, video can play a powerful role in engaging and converting your target accounts. According to Wyzowl’s The State of Video Marketing 2018 report, 97% of marketers say video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service—and 76% say it helped them increase sales.
Not sure where to begin when it comes to B2B marketing videos? Here are some general best practices to ensure your content is as effective as possible—and a guide to the types of videos you can make.
What are some best practices?
There are a variety of factors and procedures you should keep in mind to ensure your video campaigns are as successful as possible:
Know your audience
In order to create valuable B2B marketing videos, you must understand your audience and their needs. Ask yourself the following types of questions:
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What types of information are customers looking for when it comes to your brand and product offerings?
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Do you need to fill a particular knowledge gap?
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What types of resources will help your point of contact create a powerful business case?
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Which professional roles do your customers normally fill, and how can you develop characters and personas that represent them effectively?
Determine your distribution strategy
Before you begin working on a script and overarching concept for a particular video, you should understand where this particular asset is going to live. After all, the video’s “home” should play an important role in determining how long it should be, what type of tone you should use for this asset, and more. For instance, a video for social should be much shorter than that for a landing page—and can be written in a much more fun and light-hearted tone.
Establish your brand style
While your videos can certainly vary in length and format, it’s important that all of your assets appear consistent. Before you launch your video marketing plan, make sure you come to an internal agreement on the look and style of these videos—as well as your overarching messaging (from both a product and persona perspective). By creating a consistent brand style, you can establish a visual identity amongst your audience, thereby increasing your overall “stickiness.”
Always include a CTA at the end
So your customer or prospect just watched one of your videos: Now what? In order to maximize the ROI of these assets, you must always give your audience a clear next step to take. Create actionable CTAs that link out to relevant landing pages where you can earn a conversion—such as a product page or a Contact Us form field.
What types of B2B marketing videos can you create?
In a world of endless video possibilities, it can sometimes be difficult to know which content types to prioritize—and how to incorporate these assets into the customer journey . While your specific video strategy should depend on your overall marketing and sales goals, creating the following types of videos can be a great place to start.
Brand videos
A short video that provides a quick overview of your company, products, or mission statement is an extremely valuable top-of-the-funnel asset. These types of videos can give a behind-the-scenes look into your brand—highlighting the people and offerings that make it unique. Overall, these assets serve to help prospects understand the basics of what your company does and represents, allowing them to make an informed decision about whether they want to connect. You can think of a brand video as a more visually appealing and engaging way to get your “About Us” content out into the world.
Need a little inspiration? Check out this video by Deloitte:
Product demos
Before your prospect even considers signing on the dotted line, they’re going to want to make sure they understand the full functionality of your product suite—and how your offerings will improve their day-to-day operations. While it’s always important to provide these types of details in writing on your product pages, you can really take it to the next level by showing your products in action. Create product-specific video demos that highlight specific functions, outline individual use cases, and answer frequently asked questions.
Interested in seeing an example? Here’s a short video about Brightcove Video Cloud :
Customer testimonials
When you’re operating within the B2B marketplace, it’s important to remember that your point of contact will likely have to make a business case to his or her boss in order to invest in your technology. Of course, making these cases successfully requires multiple proof points that highlight your company’s value.
This is where customer testimonials can be extremely powerful. These videos should highlight one of your current customers’ success stories—calling attention to how your product(s) helped them to increase revenue, overcome a specific challenge, or reach a particular goal. This message will resonate on a deeper level when it comes from your customer’s own words.
Need a little inspiration? Watch this video we created with Pat MacFie, global director of media at Xero:
Webinars
Another way to capture the attention of a target account is to demonstrate your company’s expertise. By creating informative webinars focused on the specific industry topics your audience is interested in, you can highlight the value of your partnership in an exciting new way. In a world where viewers are bombarded with promotional content on a daily basis, a thought leadership webinar can break through the noise. Whenever possible, choose an internal subject matter expert to lead the webinar, as doing so will highlight the level of knowledge your team possesses.
Interested in seeing an example? Check out our recent webinar on jumpstarting your video advertising strategy:
Live streams
By adding live video into your marketing mix, you can grow your audience, enhance brand awareness, and build unique content that you can repurpose into video on demand (VOD) assets down the line. Not sure where to start? Consider live streaming interviews with in-house subject matter experts, scenes from the show floor at an industry event, or your team’s presentation on a trending topic. By live streaming directly to your social channels, you can increase your reach even further.
Overall, video can be a powerful tool for getting your brand name out there and increasing engagement with your current customers and prospects. By following the tips and best practices outlined above, you’ll be well-equipped to start incorporating more video into your B2B marketing strategy today.