B2B content marketing is often more complex than consumer brands. Blog posts, whitepapers and industry news are used to reach other business owners and deliver value, but there’s a missed opportunity – video.
While often overlooked in the B2B space, video marketing offers a unique opportunity to distill complex concepts and engage a business audience in ways that other content can’t. If you don’t have a video marketing strategy for your B2B brand, you’re losing out.
The Value of Video for B2B Marketing
B2B marketing has a longer and more complex sales cycle than B2C. These brands have to appeal to different stakeholders (and get the buy in), showcase different benefits that address different pain points, and speak in terms of return on investment instead of the joys of an impulse purchase.
Still, video offers a lot of value. Here are some key benefits:
Increased Engagement
You can use video marketing to stimulate meaningful engagement and draw attention to your brand. Video is easier to consume and holds attention better than text, giving you an opportunity to deliver your message and build an emotional connection. As a result, viewers have a more memorable experience that keeps your brand top of mind when they need your product or service.
Better Search Engine Rankings
Video is now an important part of SEO. If you produce engaging, shareable and keyword-rich videos optimized for search, you can improve your visibility in the search engine results pages.
Search engines like Google are showing more video content. If you have quality videos that align with common search queries in the title, description, and tags, you can improve your video’s visibility and get more eyes on your content.
Better Social Media Exposure
Many social media platforms, including Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, are primarily video. If you create videos for these platforms, you can meet users where they are and increase engagement across a broader audience.
Distilling Complex Ideas
One of the challenges of B2B sales is that it can be difficult to communicate highly technical or complex ideas to different stakeholder audiences. If your CFO client is confused, it won’t matter what the CTO thinks.
Video can be helpful for demonstrating your product or service benefits in real-world context to help everyone – even non-technical or non-industry users – see its value. This is also an opportunity to show off your product with customer testimonials for social proof.
Brand Trust and Credibility
Videos can be powerful for establishing trust and loyalty among your business customers. While you’re still focused on the ROI, you’re showing the human side of your brand and the service you provide to your clients. It’s also crucial for thought leadership, which establishes you as an authority in your industry.
How to Include Video in Your B2B Marketing Strategy
Video is dominating virtually every digital landscape. You can’t afford to sit it out because you’re a B2B brand. Whether you need to elevate your current strategy or start from scratch, here are some tips:
Know Your Audience – Every audience is unique and has different pain points, desires, preferences and interests, especially in the B2B space. You have to understand who you’re speaking to in order to create video content that speaks to your audience’s wants and needs.
Set Objectives and Goals – Like any marketing initiative, your video marketing strategy should have goals and objectives. Your goals should be SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound – to ensure you’re maximizing your video efforts. Once you have goals, you can establish your key performance indicators (KPIs) to see if you’re on track to reach them.
Choose Appropriate Video Content – Video content isn’t one-size-fits-all. You can use explainer videos, product demos, customer testimonials, Q&A sessions, and webinars to speak to your audience. Think about what kind of content aligns with your goals, your message, and the target audience.
Optimize for Search Engines – Your videos should always be optimized for search to allow search engines to find and index them. Make sure you include keywords in your titles, tags, and descriptions. Sharing videos on reputable platforms, such as YouTube, will help with visibility.
Promote Your Videos – Once you create your persuasive video, you have to promote them to get them in front of the right audience. It’s best to take a proactive approach with email campaigns, social media posts, and website announcements. You may benefit from collaborating with other industry leaders to expand your video reach.
Leverage Video Marketing for B2B
Video content is often overlooked in the B2B space, but it offers incredible potential for building trust and credibility, communicating complex concepts and generating leads. If you’re not on board with video marketing, now is the time to develop your strategy, start creating and reap the benefits of video content.
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