The past few years saw the emergence of business to business (B2B) video marketing. Video marketing is the use of videos to promote brands, products, and services. It uses the power of video to cut through the content noise and grab the target audience’s attention. Video marketing benefits to companies is many and its on the rise with technology changes.
Video production for marketing campaigns used to be a luxury that only big brands with deep pockets can afford. Today, even individual marketers and regular users have access to video production tools. It’s also easier than ever to spread videos on marketing channels like email, social media, websites, streaming platforms, and even instant messaging apps. These factors perked up the B2B world’s interest in video and its marketing potential.
Benefits of Video Marketing for B2B
Here are the benefits of B2B video marketing:
1. Elevate Your Account-Based Marketing
B2B buyers receive hundreds of emails from hopeful vendors per day. To them, a personalized video message is a breath of fresh air. It stands out, shows eagerness, and conveys that you already did your research about their company. This has the potential to exponentially boost the effectiveness of your Account-Based Marketing (ABM).
2. Native Ad Support
B2B networking platforms like LinkedIn support videos for native advertising campaigns, increasing view rates by up to 82%. Native ads look inconspicuous and similar to in-feed posts. This convinces more users to view the ad or leave it on autoplay than if the ad is presented pre-roll or on a different banner.
3. Get More Social Media Shares
In addition to higher view rates, LinkedIn reveals that video content gets 20 times more shares than other content formats. Social media shares exponentially magnify the reach of video content. And since shares also increase the likelihood of re-shares, they sometimes create a snowball effect that propels content to virality. Some of the widely shared videos include those with popular quotes on TikTok, Behind-The-Scenes (BTS) clips such as office tours, feature or product videos, etc.
4. Educate Prospects About Your Products
B2B leads are more likely to buy after conducting their own research as opposed to learning information from sales reps. Statistics show that 65% of high-value B2B purchases incorporated self-guided experiences in at least part of the buyer’s journey. That is marginally higher than the 24% of buyers who completed high-value purchases through SR-led experiences. For instance, creating how-to videos, such as a tutorial on how clients can buy SEO articles on your website, is a great way to educate prospects about your services and products.
5. Market Anywhere
B2B marketing via video conferencing platforms has become the norm during the height of COVID-19 social distancing restrictions. Video marketing allowed marketers and salespeople to leverage the engagement factor of face-to-face interactions while also utilizing features like recordings, screen sharing, and other tools offered by virtual conferencing software. It also matched the new content preferences of B2B buyers, which lean towards omnichannel experiences.
6. Videos Perform Great Across Devices
Whether your leads are on their phones, tablets, or personal computers, video content offers an immersive and convenient learning experience. Mobile apps, websites, and even email apps can play embedded videos natively. As a result, around 90% of consumers consume video content on a mobile device.
7. Customers Love Video
With video sharing platforms and social media features on the rise, people now watch 19 hours of video on average per week. Furthermore, 88% of customers were convinced to buy a product or service after watching short-form videos, webinars, and other types of branded video content. These changes in the online audience’s content consumption behavior are hard proof that the age of video is just beginning.
If you need more evidence on how much customers love video, set up a content tracking strategy for your videos to see how well they perform.
Types of B2B Video Content to Hook Your Audience
If you plan to use video marketing for B2B lead generation, here are ideas you can’t miss:
1. Launch Hybrid Events
Launch hybrid events to cater to the different attendance preferences of B2B prospects. Hybrid events are built on top of traditional, in-person events by adding virtual elements and attendance options.
For example, you can host a live conference at a physical venue and broadcast it live to virtual attendees. Balance the experiences by offering activities to those watching your event at home, like games, Q&A sessions, contests, event highlight replays, and more.
2. Create Product Demos
Record and publish product demos to showcase the unique features and conveniences you offer. For instance, you could create a quick explainer video on your robust customer onboarding software to show potential clients how users can easily enter their ecosystem. Remember, video content plays an important role in self-guided purchase decisions. Explainers, product demos, and tutorials help educate leads about your products and services at their own pace. These videos can also utilize text, animations, and data visualizations to make data-rich information more digestible.
All these factors make video content highly effective in B2B lead generation and nurturing. According to the State of Video Marketing 2022 report by Wyzowl, 94% of marketers agree that videos helped their prospects understand their products and services better.
3. Highlight Client Stories
Client success stories make for relatable and compelling video content. Invite past clients to share their experiences in an interview setting. Start with their background and the challenges they faced before working with your company. Most importantly, highlight how your services or products helped them overcome those challenges and achieve their business goals. Apply content writing best practices to nail your client success and story videos’ descriptions, captions, and even your story-telling.
4. Run Video Ads
Video ads are highly effective top-of-the-funnel content for maximizing online reach and brand awareness. They have the highest click-through rate (CTR) out of all display ad types in both B2C and B2B. LinkedIn is an ideal ad channel to reach executives and decision-makers with video ads. They shared the following best practices for launching successful video ad campaigns on the platform:
- Tease the takeaways of the video within the first 10 seconds.
- Add video subtitles for users who mute their devices when scrolling.
- Aim for a video length of around 30 seconds to maximize completion rates.
- Show, don’t tell—reap the full benefits of video content with data visualizations, animations, and real-life footage.
Video Marketing Benefits: FAQs
Is video marketing effective for B2B?
Yes, video marketing is effective throughout the B2B buyer journey. It can be used to raise brand awareness, educate prospects about your product or service, and close deals. In a world of heavy email marketing, video can stand out from the rest and get you noticed.
Why is video important for B2B?
Video content helped B2B businesses stay connected with their target market during the pandemic. Today, video content is preferred by B2B and B2C audiences for obtaining information about bands and their products.
How do I promote my B2B video?
An effective way to promote your B2B marketing videos is through social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook. Video content can be shared as organic posts or promoted as ads.
Conclusion
B2B video marketing isn’t just a passing trend. There are many video marketing benefits and the popularity of B2B video content may have skyrocketed during the pandemic. But that doesn’t mean the ease of quarantine restrictions also marks video marketing’s decline. In fact, the signs show that video marketing will continue to boom—eventually becoming the biggest marketing strategy in the foreseeable future. Adapt now and use the strategies below to be ahead of the curve.
