How to use video in B2B marketing campaigns

We have been talking about using video for marketing for the past decade, so if your business isn’t using video you are likely falling behind your competitors.

In the past five or six years, several video platforms have emerged, including Periscope, a live video streaming app for Android and iOS, and more recently, apps like TikTok.

It is not difficult to believe that the 2020s will be the “decade of the video” because every day more tools are being made available to people (and businesses) to create video.

Video for business marketing

These tools make it easier for everyone to create video content, including business marketing teams looking to capture their audience attention.

But while YouTube has been around for a long while, many marketers are still not making the most of the platform.

Video marketing can demand a lot of resource: you need to plan your content, record your content, edit it, upload the video to YouTube, and come up with things like description text for SEO purposes.

But done right, video marketing can provide an excellent ROI.

And with newer mobile video platforms and apps, you can create a wide range of video types, allowing your potential customers to consume which ever style of video appeals to them.

There really isn’t any excuse for not investing in quality business video content.

Video marketing is popular, and it works

While a lot of savvy business owners have been successfully using video for their B2C marketing campaigns for the past decade, B2B marketers are now catching on to it’s potential.

According to a recent report:

• 82% of B2B marketers report success with video marketing initiatives
• And for 63%, spend on video is on the rise.

From a sales and marketing point of view, you can use engaging video content in just about every part of your marketing campaign and marketing funnel, from enhancing your business website, growing your brand recognition, building your email list, onboarding your customers, to retaining existing customers and building brand loyalty.

And don’t forget about the appeal of using video animation techniques to engage with and guide prospective customers along your marketing funnel. 

Shake off the corporate video mindset

When many people think of business videos, the old fashioned stiff and stuffy corporate video springs to mind.

But to be successful today you might need to lose the heavily scripted interview type of video (that can be really boring) for content that is more interesting and is designed to influence the watcher.

Here is where you bring in your customer research data (customer avatars/personas) to help.

You need to plan your video content in the same way as you produce your other marketing content and make it relevant and highly targeted to your ideal audience, in this case, your B2B peers. 

Key points to consider 

As well as recognising your target B2B audience, you will also need to plan for such thing as:

• Your budget: How much can you afford to spend?
• Deadlines: What deadlines do you have in place that you need to meet?
• Who to include: Build your team and assign jobs. Who will make it? 
• Where to film: How is the video going to be shot, in-house or outsourced?
• Management: Whose approval do you need? What constraints do you have?
• ROI: How are you going to measure your return on investment?
• Hosting: Where will your video be hosted? Vimeo? YouTube? Elsewhere?
• Sharing: Where are you going to share your video? Social media? Blog? Website?

If your target audience is B2B, then you need to work out how you are going to deliver your video to them and what you are going to do once they have seen it. How are you going to follow up your video message?

How you might use your video for B2B marketing

Whether you decide to take short, simple videos shot on a hand-held digital camera or a good quality smartphone to offer a more authentic look and feel, or you choose a highly polished video production to convey a sense of quality and professionalism, there is space for both approaches in your business.

Let’s look at some ways to use your video content for B2B purposes:

Your homepage

Video can make your company website look more interesting than a still image background. As long as you make sure your website remains responsive and quick to load your visitors won’t lose patience waiting for your site to load.

Company news podcasts

Rather than offer a traditional news page on your website, you could offer short news podcasts that are more engaging than lots of press-releases and blocks of dry text to read. 

Customer interviews/case studies

Having a good business track record is an important part of building trust with a B2B company so being able to watch in-person testimonials and visual case studies can help with the decision making process.

Create explainer videos

Explainer videos can be a very useful way to help your B2B customer to quickly understand what you have to offer. You can get your message across and simplify the steps of your business procedures to enable your B2B customer to work with you. 

Promote upcoming business events

When holding an event to encourage new business, or to announce that you will be appearing at a trade show, you can shoot footage that will explain what potential new B2B customers can expect to see, learn or gain from attending. This helps to build excitement or anticipation through delivering a positive, uplifting video. Don’t forget to do a quick broadcast from your exhibition stand or a trade show you’re attending on the day. 

Record and distribute live webinars

If hosting live webinars are part of your marketing strategy, then recording and sharing it afterwards will help reach those prospective B2B customers and existing customers that missed the live session. This can help greatly with customer engagement and retention. 

B2B video marketing is an invaluable tool to help you leverage more sales and build stronger working partnerships. 

Whether you choose to stick to pre-recorded video content or you love nothing better than grabbing your phone and video streaming live to Facebook whenever inspiration hits, you simply cannot afford to miss out on video marketing.