The use of B2B video marketing is on the rise and the current pandemic is only accelerating the adoption of video in B2B marketing.
According to Wyzowl who surveyed over 500 different companies:
Online video marketing is used by 81% of respondents; a 21% increase from 2016.
Nearly all business who are using video plan to continue in 2020 and 85% plan to increase their video marketing budgets
On average, prospects watch 1.5 hours of online video per day.
It’s time to tell your story in front of a camera to reach more buyers in 2020.
Below are 6 great ways to leverage video to improve branding, customer engagement and increase sales
1. Have the right content strategy
Your video strategy has to be in sync with your overall content strategy. It is important to identify ways to complement your existing content strategy with videos. As per a Vidyard study, email conversions shot up by as much as 500% with the help of personalized videos.
Knowing this, your video strategy may also include email marketing as part of your portfolio.
Even though video marketing has strategic applications across the sales funnel, it is best to focus on your most critical objectives, especially if you do not have the organizational resources to manage a multi-faceted video campaign. Given the higher engagement levels offered by videos, you may focus on marketing pain points that have not been adequately addressed by your existing content formats.
The final step in the process will be to identify the specific kinds of video that best serve your campaign goals. There are several kinds of marketing videos to choose from.
You could have videos focusing on building a brand or demonstrating business values, showcasing your product or service, as well as conversion-focused videos like case studies & testimonials.
2. Include humor
Nothing sells like quality content and if you’re looking for shares and better engagement, adding humor to your video content is a great way to stand out. It’s a misconception that professionalism and humor do not mix. The worst thing your content can be is bland, and humor is a great way to get out of the generic video slump. Think about what your product is/does and what spin would work well while still being informative.
Here's an example by Adobe, they have created a number of funny and creative examples to market its Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Click, Baby, Click! is one of the most successful. The video shows a company selling printed encyclopedias seeing a huge surge in sales. However, it turns out to be a case of a ‘tech savvy’ baby repeatedly placing orders on a tablet.
Along with the question: “Do you know what your marketing is doing? We can help” – the video succinctly highlights Adobe’s USP while conveying a less-serious attitude (than one typically displayed by large corporate companies).
While Adobe’s videos are clearly costly – with the brand able to invest big in B2B video – its ability to perfectly position its brand in just one minute is a skill that money can’t buy.
3. Getting personal and telling a story
People connect with people, not companies. By humanizing your brand, you have a better chance at making genuine connections with potential customers. This is the same reason company culture posts generate so much engagement. Don’t get lost within your company or product. You are the people that make it happen, so sell that!
Here's an excellent example from Slack. They used relatable team of office professionals, just like you, to bring home the point of how the product gets used in office on a daily basis.
Don’t forget that your B2B customers are living, breathing human beings. Create content that will engage their emotions, as well as their intellect.
4. Get to the point
Many people don’t have time or desire to watch a long B2B video, especially early in their consideration process. No one wants to see another video full of meaningless buzzwords. Overcomplicating things leaves your viewers confused and discouraged. Don’t give them information overload, tell them who you are and what you do without muddying the waters.
Keep company overviews and explainer videos under two minutes long. Reserve the 15-20 minute videos for webinars or on-demand demos targeted to prospects interested in learning more about your product or service.
5. Use closed captions
We all know that most native video channels and even popular social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook default to having the sound turned off. Savvy marketers have started using AI to transcribe audio to create closed captions for their native videos, and this has made them more searchable. Further closed captions enable the video to engage better with the B2B audience even in mute mode. Forrester Research reports that it is 53 times easier to rank a video in Google’s search results than other content. Video content will become even more search engine friendly due to an increase in closed captioning.
6. Use the right analytics
With B2B video content set to double over the next 12 months, more and more marketers are investing in intermediate and advanced analytics to track engagement and ROI. In fact, companies that invest in analytics are twice as likely to report better returns on video investments.
As video becomes a vital part of B2B content strategy, analytics can provide marketers with the customer engagement insights required to optimize their video strategy for maximum impact.
Most public platforms already provide the basic analytics support required to understand viewer numbers, view times, shares etc. But advanced analytics can generate more granular insights into viewer interactions, engagement and conversion.
As the sheer volume of B2B videos explode, marketers need to invest in strategies that can help them balance volume with performance.
An effective strategy begins with a clear definition of the role and objectives for video within the content marketing mix. Marketers then have to ensure that they deliver the right content to the right customer at the right time and on the right platform. They need to invest in the right analytical tools that enable them to continuously optimize video performance against objectives.
Finally, marketers must be willing to experiment with a video content strategy that works best for their B2B business.
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