2021 Will Be The Year for B2B Video Marketing. Are You Ready?

Ready. Set. Action! The use of B2B video marketing is on the rise. It’s time to tell your story in front of a camera to reach more buyers in 2020.

2021 Will be the Year for B2B Video Marketing. Are You Ready?

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.

Marketing Tip: If you are looking for some ideas on the best video for your business, schedule a complementary No BS web analysis. We will take a look at your business and your competitors and give you several cost-effective ideas for promoting your business with video.

What is B2B Video Marketing?

B2B Video Marketing is an element of content marketing and involves planning, developing, and sharing your content in video format. There are many formats for B2B video marketing including; YouTube videos, webinars/webcasts, video-podcasts, social media lives, and social native videos. Just like typical content marketing, some of your video content should be “free” to access and some should be gated.    

Why Are More B2B Marketers Using Video As Part of Their Media Mix?

• People would rather watch the Internet than read it,
• Video tells a story and adds color that can’t easily be replicated in text,
• Video educates and informs. Would you rather watch or read “how to” instructions?
• People do business with people. Video allows a personal connection.
• Video makes websites more sticky as users tend to spend more time and view more pages.
• 59% of B2B decision-makers prefer video over text content

Video also helps with SEO. 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. Most native video channels 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.

Now that we all carry a video production studio in the palm of our hands, look for B2B video to take on a more personalized approach. Video messages will start showing up in social, email, and as an alternative to phone calls. Videos will be created to thank a customer, answer their questions, or provide context around complex purchase decisions.

9 Examples of Business Video Marketing That Works

Stop thinking about the glitz, glam, and high-dollar expense when you consider adding an online video marketing strategy to your content mix. Below are 4 ways to easily add video without having to hire an expensive corporate video production company or purchase a lot of equipment.

1. Repurpose Your Best Content – Many B2Bs are already creating video content in the form of webinars. A simple and very effective use of webinar content is to pull your segments and repurpose them into a format that is consumable in other channels. In the example below, we lifted ~2 minutes of content and shared it on LinkedIn. Obviously the typical scroller on LinkedIn isn’t going to watch a full video, however, they will consume a key point. This helps you get your brand and point of view out to a much larger audience who may not register to attend your webinar.

 2. Blog to Video – One of the most exciting options for B2Bs if you have been blogging for a while. You already have ample material for great business videos. Recycle older blogs by producing a video highlighting key points. Then upload the video natively in social as a teaser to grab users’ attention and drive them back to your blog. Move the video to your YouTube channel after a few days to get an SEO boost. In the example below, we produced a simple animated video highlighting a blog article and our social selling action plan. We produce similar videos for clients for around $300 each. We use Lumen5 as our online video maker for these videos.

3. Live Video – We used Facebook Live as a way to bring awareness to Wells of Joy, an organization in Kenya that feeds and educates kids in the Lunga Lunga slums. Facebook live is a great way to get your message out there in video format and obviously, the cost is $0. We shot this on a PC with a $49 Logitech Procam.

4. Webinar Replay – Possibly the easiest online video to produce. Using tools like GoToMeeting or ZOOM you can record a presentation and convert it to a webinar replay. These videos can be added to your YouTube channel and your website. Webinar replays are also great options for gated content. Based upon the level of valuable information, consider asking users to opt-in before watching.

 

5. Promoting a Product or Service – Video can be a great way to introduce products in a format that is easy to consume. The key is to focus on the problem that you solve and how the product is the answer to the problem. This 2nd video was produced using video clips and simple editing software. We use the video to highlight the importance of social selling and how we can help businesses get started. The video is 15 seconds which is the perfect length to use as a native video in Facebook or LinkedIn.

 

 

While B2Bs need to leverage these low-cost ways to create and publish videos, there is also value in upping the production quality for certain types of business videos. Videos that represent your brand or would be considered part of your offering should be professionally produced. Professional video production doesn’t have to be expensive. The best way to maximize value is to shoot a lot of footage at one time with the plan of producing multiple videos. With a full day of shooting, you could expect to get 4-8 final cut videos at a cost of $10-20K. That includes the crew, equipment, and pre/post production. Here are 4 examples:

6. Corporate Brand Video – Corporate brand video should be targeted towards your company’s brand promise and what makes your brand stand out in the marketplace. Because brand videos represent who you are they should be professionally produced. Here are two great examples. The first is from Intel that provides a look into their perspective on the use of virtual reality for businesses. The second is a whimsical video from Zendesk that uses clever storytelling and humor to represent their brand promise.

 

7. Education as marketing – In B2B, educating your audience is a great way to market your company due to the complexities normally found in B2B offerings. Here is an example of a video series we shot to educate sales reps on the basics of social selling. We shot 7 videos in a half-day session using a professional on-camera talent, 2 cameras, in a studio with a white background. A budget for a video series like this would be around $2-3K per video.

8. Testimonial Video – Happy clients are always the best sales reps for your company because people trust what others think about you more than what you say about you. These types of videos need to be professionally produced but aren’t that expensive because your customer is the talent. You can keep costs down by shooting multiple testimonial videos at one time. Consider renting a meeting space at an annual conference and invite customers to come “tell their story.” The first example below is awesome because the customer tells a story and paints a before and after picture…pure gold for FreshBooks. The second video is one of ours and was shot while visiting a client at their location. I brought a cameraman with me and captured this amazing testimonial. We send a link to the video whenever we send out a proposal to a prospective client.

 

9. Promote Call to Action – Corporate video can be used to boost conversion rates by adding that extra element of persuasion on why the buyer needs to take the next step. Prospects are always asking three questions; What do you do; how will it benefit me; how do I take the next step. The video below answers all three questions in a whimsical way.

Remember, B2B prospects would rather watch the Internet than read it. Incorporating any of these 9 video marketing tactics into your digital media plan can make a difference without breaking the bank.

Key Takeaways:

• If you aren’t publishing video content for your audience you are really missing out.
• Many B2B decision makers prefer to watch content vs. read content.
• YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world and you need video to show up in this platform
• Get started today be looking at your current content strategy and see what content can be re-purposed for video

Can We Help?

Do you need help developing a business video marketing strategy? We offer strategic planning and video content production services ranging from low-cost blog to video production to full scale on-site or in-studio video production. If you are interested in learning more, sign up for a complimentary initial consultation/discovery meeting. Schedule yours today and let’s see if we can help.