B2B Video Marketing

Last year, the Web Video Marketing Council conducted a survey in B2B Video Content Marketing [1]. Guess what they found? Yes, as one might expect, that B2B Video Marketing is BIG NEWS in the B2B sector.

Headlines from the survey showed that:

• 96% of B2B organisations are engaged in video content marketing
• 83% are using video content for website marketing
• 75% are optimizing video content for SEO
• 50% are using video for email marketing
• 73% said that video has positively impacted on their marketing results

The survey has an American focus, but let’s face it where they lead we will follow. And indeed, whether you are engaging with B2B or B2C audiences/viewers/customers (call them what you will), there are a few trends and ideas that you might find useful to know.

Make sure you’re not stuck in the ‘digital video past’

B2B video marketing is more complex than simply the number of views on YouTube or having a gorgeous promo on your homepage. The most successful video marketers use videos throughout the sales & marketing funnel from brand awareness to sales conversion. When a video project is created or commissioned, it has a specific function along your customer journey.

As a Video Content Producer, my plea to customers is please don’t expect a video to do something for you that it wasn’t designed to do! If it was produced with the aim of raising awareness of your brand, you are unlikely to see an increase in sales on the strength of it. Indeed, a recent report by Ascend2 [2] showed that the companies seeing the greatest success with video marketing were able to rank the importance and effectiveness of different types of video.

It seems that most businesses focus their video spend on things like company promos (top of the funnel type production), but if you’re after sales conversion then customer testimonials and product demos are most effective.

So, what can a B2B marketer do?

When you’re at the early stage of customer engagement (the top of the funnel), entertaining video content without an overtly ‘sales-y’ message is a great way of getting your name out there. This could include fun social media video campaigns or content that offers trends, tips, knowledge and advice.

At the consideration stage, you want to engage your viewers by showing off your company culture and enticing them with your products or services. Here, video content like ‘customer testimonials’, ‘meet the experts’, ‘company or product explainers’ or ‘how to product demos’ are great way of convincing customers that you can do what you say, and that you’ve done it for others.

At the bottom of the funnel, use video to help convert the sale. Bear in mind here that a 2015 report by Demand Metric [3] found that 74% of businesses reported that video content outperformed other content types in driving conversions. A face-to-face sales person might have product demos and customer testimonials on their phone or tablet. Or they might send a personal greeting video or a customized product demo to help seal the deal.

There’s lots to go at … and it isn’t going away any time soon. If you’re a B2B marketer and you’d like some help and advice with video marketing production, please contact Sally Reynolds on 0115 969 3636 or sally@vpoint.tv