Video makes up more than three-quarters of all internet traffic and will reach 82 percent by 2022, according to Cisco. Despite this, some B2B marketers are still reluctant to use video to interact with buyers. In this blog post, we discuss why video content is important to your B2B marketing and how to use video to reach a wider audience.
Why Use Video for B2B Sales and Marketing?
Video packs in far more information than text and makes complex topics easier to understand. The human brain processes video 60,000 times faster than text, Dr. Liraz Margalit writes in Psychology Today. Humans are hardwired to avoid demanding cognitive strain, she writes, so more often than not we will choose information that is easier to process than that which takes more effort. In short, video is the best medium to deliver information that causes people to pay attention.
Millennials, people born from 1981-1996, and Gen Z, born 1996 onwards, together account for about 40% of the workforce. In the next decade this figure is set to rise to 58%. These digital natives grew up with video – first MTV, later YouTube. It’s no surprise then that 56% of Millennials polled in a recent Brightcove survey said they found video more engaging than other forms of content, compared to 45% of consumers overall.
Fuze, a cloud communications and collaboration software for enterprises, used video in it’s The Future of Work campaign to highlight the unique trends and challenges faced by tech workers. Unlike static formats like HTML and PDF, “video created awareness on both a product and a thought leadership level and connected more emotionally with buyers,” says Amanda Maksymiw, Fuze content marketing director.
More than any other medium, video can tap into the emotions that drive people to buy, according to Forrester Research. “Videos are such an important part of who you are as a company,” says Sangram Vajre, co-founder or marketing platform Terminus. “Nothing builds more trust in a relationship than looking into someone’s eyes. When you’re on camera, people can see visual cues that support your confidence and expertise.”
What are the Elements of Good B2B Video Content?
Like other types of marketing content, good video can come in many different forms. According to Vidyard, an online video platform for B2B marketers, these include:
- Expert Interviews with employees and industry experts about recent developments, important topics, and opinion topics.
- Tutorials, walk-throughs and demos of products and services – explaining how they work and what the benefits are.
- Quick tips or products or how to work faster or more productively in the industry.
- Videos that shine a light on the inner workings of the business, such as employee interviews, community involvement, or how products are made.
- Customer testimonials about their experience with your business.
- News and updates about the industry, covering and explaining hot topics through examples or an expert narration.
In this era of viral social media content, video producers tend to fall into the trap of equating high viewing numbers with success. In B2B marketing, view count is just a vanity metric – a number that makes you feel good but doesn’t mean anything to your bottom line. The best metrics for measuring a video’s effectiveness are those that link to purchase behavior.
Vidyard suggests several methods for turning videos into leads and conversions:
- Adding calls to action (CTAs) on the video.
- Gating the video with a form, either in the beginning of the video or at a point in the middle.
- Integrating the video with a chatbot that is used to communicate with the viewer.
- Emailing prospects with personalized videos to increase engagements.
Using an Online Video Platform
An online video platform (OVP) helps B2B marketers manage their video content and track how well it performs. OVPs automate part of the process of creating and publishing videos. For example, they allow the user to publish content simultaneously across multiple social channels, saving the user the effort of having to upload each video separately.
Good OVPs:
- Integrate with other systems, such as your CRM and marketing automation platforms.
- Make it easy to push videos to different social channels.
- Provide detailed analytics, allowing you to understand things like who watched the entire video or which points in the video had high bounce rates.
- Automatically transcribe each video for SEO purposes.
- Have a centralized dashboard for all your business’s videos.
Video Content Helps You Stand Out
Technology has developed to the point where anyone can integrate video into their sales and marketing strategy. Text and other content formats have important roles to play in your content strategy, but they can only do so much. Including video in your content is critical for going that extra step and creating super-personal connections with people.
B2B Video Content: Why It’s Important for Your Business
February 8, 2020
Erin Cohen
Video makes up more than three-quarters of all internet traffic and will reach 82 percent by 2022, according to Cisco. Despite this, some B2B marketers are still reluctant to use video to interact with buyers. In this blog post, we discuss why video content is important to your B2B marketing and how to use video to reach a wider audience.
Why Use Video for B2B Sales and Marketing?
Video packs in far more information than text and makes complex topics easier to understand. The human brain processes video 60,000 times faster than text, Dr. Liraz Margalit writes in Psychology Today. Humans are hardwired to avoid demanding cognitive strain, she writes, so more often than not we will choose information that is easier to process than that which takes more effort. In short, video is the best medium to deliver information that causes people to pay attention.
Millennials, people born from 1981-1996, and Gen Z, born 1996 onwards, together account for about 40% of the workforce. In the next decade this figure is set to rise to 58%. These digital natives grew up with video – first MTV, later YouTube. It’s no surprise then that 56% of Millennials polled in a recent Brightcove survey said they found video more engaging than other forms of content, compared to 45% of consumers overall.
Fuze, a cloud communications and collaboration software for enterprises, used video in it’s The Future of Work campaign to highlight the unique trends and challenges faced by tech workers. Unlike static formats like HTML and PDF, “video created awareness on both a product and a thought leadership level and connected more emotionally with buyers,” says Amanda Maksymiw, Fuze content marketing director.
More than any other medium, video can tap into the emotions that drive people to buy, according to Forrester Research. “Videos are such an important part of who you are as a company,” says Sangram Vajre, co-founder or marketing platform Terminus. “Nothing builds more trust in a relationship than looking into someone’s eyes. When you’re on camera, people can see visual cues that support your confidence and expertise.”
What are the Elements of Good B2B Video Content?
Like other types of marketing content, good video can come in many different forms. According to Vidyard, an online video platform for B2B marketers, these include:
In this era of viral social media content, video producers tend to fall into the trap of equating high viewing numbers with success. In B2B marketing, view count is just a vanity metric – a number that makes you feel good but doesn’t mean anything to your bottom line. The best metrics for measuring a video’s effectiveness are those that link to purchase behavior.
Vidyard suggests several methods for turning videos into leads and conversions:
Using an Online Video Platform
An online video platform (OVP) helps B2B marketers manage their video content and track how well it performs. OVPs automate part of the process of creating and publishing videos. For example, they allow the user to publish content simultaneously across multiple social channels, saving the user the effort of having to upload each video separately.
Good OVPs:
Video Content Helps You Stand Out
Technology has developed to the point where anyone can integrate video into their sales and marketing strategy. Text and other content formats have important roles to play in your content strategy, but they can only do so much. Including video in your content is critical for going that extra step and creating super-personal connections with people.