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13 min
Are you satisfied with the results your B2B company is receiving from your content creation efforts? Do you have a steady flow of inbound leads that are filling the hands of your sales team? If that’s the case, you probably wouldn’t be reading this.
The thing is, a typical marketing strategy for a B2B company relies heavily on written content:
– The copy on your website (product pages, software features, landing pages);
– Your blog articles (following the best SEO practices);
– The organic posts you write on social media, trying to increase engagement;
– Downloadable eBooks, white papers, infographics, and other PDFs you use to educate your target audience;
This written content is usually accompanied by static images or short GIFs to translate the main idea visually, and I believe you leverage LinkedIn for content promotion. That’s completely fine. Creating content that is useful and of high quality should stay your top priority.
But opting out of using video is no longer an option for success-driven B2B marketers.
Because social video generates 1200% more shares than text and image content combined. And if you’re not using it, you’re missing out on a huge potential for business growth.
Let’s solidify that statement with facts.
The potential for B2B video content to achieve ROI across marketing, sales, and customer support in 2022 is rapidly growing with no intent to stop. The findings support the use of branded video content as an important part of a successful B2B inbound marketing strategy.
Let’s look at the latest stats.
According to research by WordStream, viewers understand and retain 95% of a company’s message when they watch it in a video, compared to just 10% when reading text.
And 64% of B2B consumers make a purchase after watching branded social videos.
As a matter of fact, during 2020 (at the height of the pandemic) 80% of marketers started incorporating video into non-paid advertising strategies – to drive traffic, attract and convert leads. Obviously, that has served them well.
94% of marketers say videos have helped their customers better understand their product or service, and 80% of video marketers say video has directly helped increase sales.
Why?
Maybe because 59% of executives say they would rather watch a video than read a text.
And yet, 41% of marketers still haven’t started creating videos because “it’s too complicated”. (Biteable)
Yes, creating videos will require extra effort, time, and budget for a video editing tool to start with, but the return on your investment is guaranteed.
Business-to-business companies, especially SaaS startups, offer more complex products and services than a pair of jeans or a cosmetic product.
And they need to be properly presented in order to catch anybody’s attention.
Techstack solutions, such as cloud-based platforms for recruiting, sales automation, cold email outreach, marketing automation, or SEO tools, are best presented using video format.
Video lets your target audience get a real feel of your solution, and understand how it works and what it can do for their business – from their own point of view.
Because videos perform so well on social media, you can generate demand for your product and keep your sales pipeline filled by attracting new followers and leads with a viral video in your niche. Great videos educate and entertain their audience with useful information, and therefore get reshared.
But let’s start humble.
Try adding video to your cold emails and landing pages. If you can get your prospect to open your email, including a video inside will only improve your click-through and reply rates.
As your prospects move through the customer journey, testimonial videos and case studies will help solidify your offer, when they see “themselves” in the shoes of your already existing (and happy!) customers. “Later, you can use call services along with a call center noise reduction app to provide additional customer support and communicate with them better.”
Your B2B video content should be informed by your niche audience’s interests and needs. Understanding your ideal customer profile is the foundation of all successful marketing, including video!
You’ll also want to make sure your video format suits the platform or channel where you’ll be streaming it.
e.g., Videos intended for email or LinkedIn will look very different from Instagram videos or Reels in terms of length, format, and the type of information you want to share.
(image source: ContentBeta)
P.s. As a rule of thumb, it is best to keep your videos under two minutes. But here’s more information about how to determine the optimal video length for each platform.
Test the waters by starting with one or two types of videos.
See which of them is the easiest for your team to create and test what type of video brings more engagement from your audience. Then try different video types, and different messages for each stage of the buyer’s journey, test, improvise and optimize.
The best way to present how your platform, app, tech tool, or software solution works.
For a B2B SaaS company, a product video might look like walking your potential customers through the features of your project management software. Or showing them how the automated workflow for prospecting can save them hours of time and improve their productivity.
Focus the attention on how the product itself will assist your customers to overcome a challenge, fulfill a need, or remedy a pain point. In other words, how it will make everything easier for them once they acquire it.
Make sure your product video isn’t dry or salesy.
Since it is longer than usual, this type of video is best suited for your business’s YouTube channel and your product webpage. If you have different pages in the website menu for each software feature, try creating a separate video for each feature and uploading them to the corresponding page. Moreover, with the help of a digital signage platform you can take that content from online to on-location and demonstrate your product video at events and tradeshows turning any screen into an extension of your brand’s message.
Example of a great product video: What is Notion?
Video advertisements are—you guessed it!—promotional videos, which are part of a paid marketing campaign with the goal of converting. They are designed to grab the attention of your target audience and inspire them to take further action regarding your business. They practically fuel your lead generation machine.
B2B video ads have been a standard of SaaS marketing in recent years, and for a good reason. They have proved to be more effective at motivating buyers to sign up for SaaS subscriptions and B2B products or services.
Here are some guidelines to have in mind when creating a promotional B2B video:
Aim to turn a complex idea into something simple and tangible. Here’s how HubSpot does it:
Scaling across the seven seas seemed impossible. Until this CEO onboarded the HubSpot CRM platform. Now she's making waves. Connecting fleets. And treasuring customers along the way. That's a #HubSpotSuccessStory. pic.twitter.com/5KDj0rCb8p
— HubSpot (@HubSpot) March 17, 2022
Explainer videos in B2B SaaS are very similar to product demo videos. The difference is that explainer videos tend to show how their product or service fits the bigger picture in the new company or team that will be using their solution. Meanwhile, product demo videos aim to present the software or the service close up and shine a light on the actual platform or its system of providing services.
DigitalOcean used storytelling in video format to bring their platform as a service (PaaS) closer to their customers and present the benefits visually. Even though the ocean has nothing to do with software applications, the designers decided to use it as a general concept. In the depths of work overload (ocean), they present how developers can save time & effort when the background noise of additional tasks and obstacles is taken care of.
Here’s the video description:
“It’s every developer’s dream to simply write code, click a button, and then automatically deploy and run their code at scale for millions or even billions of users. Introducing DigitalOcean App Platform, which does the heavy lifting of managing infrastructure, app runtimes, and dependencies – so you can focus on what matters the most: building awesome apps.”
Introducing App Platform by DigitalOcean
Educational videos aim to teach your target audience something and provide value to the community. In a B2B setting, you might be educating them on how to overcome a recurring industry challenge, or how to improve what they’re already doing, e.g., how to write better emails.
You can also provide useful information that’s related to your services, e.g., a video walkthrough on a subject that’s relevant to them, such as an explainer on sales prospecting or tips on Reddit marketing + how your feature fits in.
To keep educational B2B videos useful and engaging, get specific. Use an actual person to illustrate what you’re explaining, and simplify an obstacle in your niche. Show how whatever you’re teaching solved the same problem for your company, in a concise and visual way.
Example of a high-quality educational B2B video
How to Write a Blog Post That Attracts Backlinks (Case Study) [Ep 1]
To outshine your competitors and win prospects’ affection, you need to share an authentic story about your company vision and mission—who you are and what you’re here to do.
A successful business can’t survive if it doesn’t have a strong brand strategy and is effectively communicating it through every piece of content, including video.
Video helps you strengthen your brand—what people think, feel and say about your business, when you’re able to communicate your brand message
Company culture videos can act as a great tool for talent acquisition. In a highly competitive market, such as the IT industry or even B2B sales, attracting and retaining top talent is not an easy job.
The demand for senior developers or, let’s say, top sales performers will always be on the rise. That’s one of the reasons why many B2B and tech companies invest in producing company culture videos.
Try to attract and retain the best and brightest in your niche by building an employer brand that people want to work for using company culture videos.
Example of a short but fun “work with us” video by 2Coders.
Case studies, or testimonials from satisfied customers, are cited as the most effective type of content for influencing B2B purchasing decisions. Case study videos, then, are crucial for not only helping SaaS startups stand out in the competitive market, but also a great way to answer their potential customers’ most pressing questions.
This is a case study video from Slack. And it’s funny to see how the situation turned around and ended in a beautiful collaboration for both companies. Where the B2B video production team, “Sandwich video”, ends up trying Slack in their own company – the tool they were doing marketing for! And then they chronicle how it all worked out in this interesting example of a B2B case study video.
Plus, it’s amazing how the video succeeds in clearly highlighting the tool’s features and benefits, all while potential customers can witness how easily Slack gets integrated into this team’s workflow.
Nothing will set you as the thought leader in your industry better than starting your own academy online.
Running a successful B2B business involves navigating the uncharted territory in your niche through trials and errors… until you have found a clear path to get you to the wanted business goals and objectives.
Those are the insights to die for! And your community will be grateful for sharing your knowledge and expertise from personal experience on how to overcome their most pressing pain points.
The team at Sales.Rocks has built a complete sales automation platform that enables you to find your ideal B2B customers by filtering through its huge database of business information. Then, you can reach out to your prospects using a cold email outreach tool with advanced personalization. Everything they know about sales—inside and out—they share with their community on Sales.Rocks Academy.
It’s natural to feel overwhelmed if you’re new to video marketing. The good news is that video is a quick and efficient approach to explaining the value of your B2B product or service to your target audience.
Besides, now that you’re inspired by all these different types of videos, you won’t be starting from scratch. As we’ve seen, there is a variety of marketing videos that are well-suited to B2B audiences. Brainstorm with your marketing team what video types would be the best fit for your audience, product, and goals, and start testing them one by one.
Creating and editing a video doesn’t have to be technical or time-consuming when you have plenty of tools at your disposal. Movavi is a versatile and easy-to-use video suite for creating and editing videos that helps you turn raw footage into a compelling story for your B2B business.
