How Do You Leverage Video Content in B2B Marketing?

Business to business (B2B) companies without a solid marketing plan are heading towards disaster. This might sound harsh, but then the truth must be told. Add to this prophecy to another bold claim that B2B companies improve their chances for success if they allow video content to spearhead their marketing campaign. How do you leverage video content in B2B marketing?

4 Types of Video Every B2B Business Should Leverage

Already the amount of video content created and uploaded on various platforms is doubling every year. The increasing use of videos in marketing tactics is due to the growing demand from customers for all types of videos. Customers are quite open about their bias towards video content.

According to a study, around 84% of consumers make a buying decision after watching product/service videos. That said you’re setting yourself up to fail if you don’t use the right type of videos in your marketing campaigns. To strike a chord with the target audience, B2B businesses must deploy the following types of videos.

1. Product Videos

Whether you use an in-house creator or delegate the task to video animation services, make sure a bunch of product videos forms part of your B2B marketing campaign. The other types of videos in the list, although important, tend to come secondary to product videos. Regardless of what the B2B Company sells – a product, software, or anything else – product videos communicate information about you and your offerings that help the audience make a decision.

Product Video Functions

Product videos take several forms and their versatility allows their inclusion in every step of the customer journey. Use this video type to demonstrate, explain the functioning, teach how best to use, and review the product’s usefulness – the things one can do in digital marketing with product video are endless.

All the various video formats that come under the umbrella of product video have a few attributes in common. They educate and entertain the audience and at the same time highlight why your B2B Company is best suited to satisfy the customer’s interests and needs.

Product videos to have a chance at hitting their mark must engage the audience. This is true for other types of videos as well. But it’s most important in product videos since the audience is just warming up to the brand. Engage the audience with storytelling, humor, and cool visuals like animation and special effects.

Video Platforms

While planning product videos choose the platform to publish carefully. Short product videos (demos, product tours, teasers, etc.) are well suited for social media platforms. Webinars and expert interviews are great attractions on YouTube and the website.

Sometimes adding video to a page or website isn’t enough to attract or hold the audience’s attention. Give them more reasons to stay engaged with you by designing user-friendly websites. If you’re planning a website or redesigning a page, use these unique website designs for inspiration.

Squarespace: Dreaming with Jeff

In 2015, Squarespace used the star power of Jeff Bridges to demonstrate how easy it is to create a website. The simple product video shows the actor venturing into a forest to capture the sounds of the jungle. He creates sleeping tapes, develops a website, and uploads the content.

2. Commercial Videos

B2B commercials can very well be termed as an offshoot of product videos. But they need special attention because of the investment involved and impact on the marketing campaign. Commercial videos are designed to create brand awareness and impress the audience to take the next step. These videos are always accompanied by a compelling call to action.

B2B Advertisement Videos

It’s a challenge to create compelling B2B advertisement videos. The best video ads are short, which requires you to impress the audience with creative storytelling. Ideally, video ads shouldn’t last more than 30 seconds. If you have more points to convey to the audience, create more B2B advertisement videos. Personalizing the video ad could help B2B businesses reach their target demographic.

Dive deeper into the passions and preferences of your audience. Doing so increases the chances of engagement and responsive action from the audience. Even though the B2B video ad is short you need a script to ensure the content is relevant and engaging.

Unlike long-form videos, with B2B commercials you don’t have the luxury of a slow build-up, a gripping middle, and a strong finish/climax. You have just a few seconds to grab attention and deliver your message. Make every second count by developing a tight script for the video ad.  

Ad with a Social Media Influencer

Another unique method to develop engaging online content is to create an ad with a social media influencer or content creator. Many industry experts, influencers, and social media content creators have a strong group of followers. Collaborating with them will allow you to get your message to these people faster and more effectively.

Some might consider it too risky to experiment with B2B commercials because of the money involved. Sometimes taking the road less traveled can yield better results. Use graphic design experts to create commercials using animation. Alternatively, you could keep the feel of the video real and raw instead of video ads with high production value. 

Adobe Marketing Cloud

The Adobe video spins every product video guideline on its head. The commercial is hilarious, insightful, and of course impactful. Instead of listing reasons to choose Adobe Marketing Cloud the video envisions the world without their service and the consequence thereof. The audience will thoroughly enjoy the video and by the end understand the benefits of the company’s offering.

3. Customer Service Videos

We all have witnessed the phenomenal growth of the e-commerce business over the years. This has benefited everyone, from B2B businesses to the end consumers. The consumers are overall happy. But this doesn’t mask the fact that most of them face one major problem – customer support. In the absence of a credible after-sale service mechanism, most customers are forced to rely on third-party how-to videos on YouTube.

Why is this a big issue for B2B companies that need to be fixed immediately? Businesses can lose customers due to poor customer service. According to a study, 82% of all customers ditched a brand sighting poor customer service. Whether you’re selling a product or service, videos are ideal for all types of customer assistance.

Businesses can use videos for customer onboarding, to resolve issues, to delight customers, and to build long-term relationships. Businesses can combine chatbots and video FAQs to boost communication with prospective customers. Service videos also make the customer happier because they can get more out of your product.

How do you improve customer satisfaction with video content?

Video Knowledge Base

Customers prefer quick answers to their queries. Plus, most people are too busy to go through lengthy guides and manuals. Businesses can ensure quick and satisfactory replies with the video knowledge base.

You can create a video to answer the most common customer questions. This way, businesses can deal with scores of customers at once, instead of the time-consuming produces of making a customer service personal answer one by one.

Troubleshooting Videos

Certain problems are best dealt with using face-to-face communication. Suppose a customer has a problem with a software feature. You can use live video chat with the customer to troubleshoot the problem without any delay. You could also record the solution and deliver it to the customer’s inbox.

Thank You Videos

Thanking the customer for their trust and support of your brand can go a long way in building customer loyalty. Keep in mind that 20% of the customers will bring 80% of the business. You could combine the ‘thank you’ and ‘onboarding’ messages into one video and send it to the new customer using email marketing software. With solid customer service, B2B companies can turn their customers into promoters.

4. Case Study Videos

We are firm believers in the saying that ‘action speaks louder than words.’ Don’t tell your prospects what you’ll do for them; show what you have already done for your customers. More than half of the B2B businesses who participated in a study said they successfully used case studies to convert prospective customers.

Case study video content is many marketing tools bundled into one. To start with, use proper thumbnails, create compelling title tags, use catchy descriptions to optimize the videos and drive traffic to your website. Videos that show how you work with customers to solve their challenges and help them achieve their goals highlight your best qualities. The videos show your competence, dedication, and service – some of the qualities customers want to see in a brand.

A case study is a lot like customer testimonials, but it’s more data-driven and technical. It shares the brand’s take on the relationship. Case study videos show customers why they need to choose this brand and not any other. One of the challenges for B2B businesses is finding the right participants. Approach customers who are willing to share positive experiences and their journey from start to finish. If you involve the right clients, the prospective customers will see themselves reflected in the videos.

B2B marketers can use case study videos at any stage of the customer cycle. With the right call to action, these videos could be used to generate interest in your product. Create compelling case study teasers and when those interested share email addresses you can post the full case study videos on the email verification page.

Samsung – animated case study from Sennep on Vimeo.

Video Every B2B Business Should Leverage

In the end, B2B marketing is about making your brand available to the target audience, building connections and engagement, and developing relationships that’ll benefit both. The four types of video content we discussed do exactly what you want. They stay with the audience through the various stages of the customer journey.

They introduce your brand, highlight the positives, solve the customer’s pain points and also show them how, and promise to do it all over again if the customer wants. Video content is a powerful marketing tool. These 4 types of video content will help B2B businesses leverage their full potential.

Author bio: Cristian Stanciu is a freelance video editor, owner and post-production coordinator of Veedyou Media – a company offering video editing services to videographers, marketing agencies, video production studios or brands all over the globe. I can catch up with him on his blog or on LinkedIn