A successful marketer has a number of powerful tools in their toolkit, including video. In this article, we’ll investigate why video is important for B2B marketing and how it can help convert tire kickers into buyers.
Before we get started, does a resistance to video exist? Sometimes, yes. Non-video marketers say they don’t create video because:
- 23% are short on time
- 16% aren’t sure where to start
- 10% think it’s too expensive
However, marketers who are on the fence about video are missing out on a huge opportunity. The persuasive power of video marketing is at an all time high. From 2017 to 2022, video views have increased by 1500%. In fact, Cisco reported videos are predicted to account for 82% of internet traffic by 2022.
On top of that, 55% of buyers consume video content for informing their decision-making.
The numbers make it clear: video drives traffic to your site and is a key medium your audience uses to inform their buying decisions.
More intuitive video creation, editing, recording, and hosting tools also make it easier to spin up beautifully designed videos in minutes. Solutions like Vimeo Events and other webinar and events solutions also help B2B marketers reach more customers across the globe.
Additionally, video drives important business impact. Take a look at the incredible ROI other marketers are driving:
- 93% share video has helped grow brand awareness
- 81% say video has contributed to directly increasing sales
- 94% say video has helped increased their product/service understanding
- 87% and 82% say video grew their traffic and increased dwell time, respectively
These reported numbers make a strong case for video as one of the proven B2B marketing strategies to try. So with that, let’s cut to the chase and start with a brief definition of B2B video.
What is B2B video marketing?
B2B video marketing is a marketing strategy focused on planning, creating, and distributing content in video format to attract your B2B audience.
This could be video on social media, a virtual event to drive leads, a video that’s part of your newsletter, or OTT channel to drive entertainment marketing – whatever the case may be, you need a solid strategy so that video can deliver the expected ROI.
17 must-try B2B video marketing ideas
The options for B2B marketing videos may seem vast. If you’re unsure where to start, note that the most widely used B2B videos are product videos.
HubSpot’s research confirms this. It reveals product promotional videos, brand storytelling videos, and product demos are the most common B2B video types.
However, don’t feel constrained and limit yourself to a series of product demos and feature updates. Instead, expand your pool of ideas and check out some other ways B2B brands are leveraging video content.
1. Customer story or video testimonials
Some of the best marketing comes from your customers. Customer stories and video testimonials bring social proof into the picture, which is psychologically proven to convince people to make a purchase.
Upwards of 50% of customers consider “people like me” as the most credible product information source. Fortunately, customer video brings testimonials and stories from people like your viewers, which helps you convert them.
2. Product review videos
Product review videos are an easy way to show your prospective customer what you offer and why it’s relevant to them. Just remember that reviews have more power when paired with B2B influencers, creators, and members of your community (if you have one) who can add their own commentary and additional context.
For instance, you can collaborate with creators in your field – asking them to record a video showcasing how they use your tool in their workflow. Or, ask them to educate their audience about the many features/benefits of your product.
Similarly, offer your tool for free to an influencer in exchange for an honest review in video format or a live Story video on social media.
Not only does such a B2B video type grow your brand awareness, but also exposes you to new audiences.
3. Promotional videos
From a new feature reveal promo video to a teaser video for the event you’re hosting, these videos come in various shapes and sizes.
Take SEMrush, for example. They used videos to excite marketers to join their weekly Twitter chat.
Similarly, use video to create hype around the new ebook, in-depth blog post, or a survey report you’re going to publish.
4. Webinars
Webinars are a great way to generate new leads, showcase an upcoming product, or build authority as a thought leader in a specific industry. 54% of B2B professionals watch webinars weekly. So a good way to create episodic or seasonal video content is to invest in creating webinars.
Remember though, the key to success with webinars boils down to:
- Hosting them on topics super-relevant to your audience
- Having a distribution and audience engagement plan in place
5. Virtual events
The popularity of virtual events remains unaffected despite the changing reality with covid-19 and the subsequent variants.
If anything, a 2021 survey reveals 40% of the events respondents plan to attend in 2022 are expected to be virtual. Another 35% say they’d be attending hybrid events.Afraid planning successful virtual events will take a lot of effort? With the right virtual events platform, hosting online events is a piece of cake. Here’s your easy guide to planning and hosting virtual events like a pro.
6. SEO videos
Help boost your brand’s SEO strategy with video optimized for search.
Consider the types of educational topics your audience is searching for and create videos that help unpack key areas related to your product, industry, or topics that are important to your audience.
Want another idea? Create an expert interview series to spice up the educational content you’re creating and tap into the experts’ audiences too.
Bonus: If you’re looking to rank on the SERP, be sure to use some video SEO best practices like using your target keywords in your title, meta description, and transcript, in addition to chaptering your video content.
6. Video ads
Video ads are an excellent way to catch your audience’s attention. Take Twitter video ads, for example. The blue bird network shares video is their “fastest-growing adverting tool.”
These not only attract attention but also encourage action with video tweets getting 10x more engagement than tweets without video. The best part? You don’t have to dedicate a substantial amount to video ads production. You can try Vimeo Create to design animated ads and you’re good to go.
7. Product demo
The best way to market your product is to show it in action – something video can help you do the best.
You can always create a full product demo to feature on your home page or share it as sales collateral with your sales team.
8. On demand video and evergreen content
Don’t let your virtual events or live videos end up on the threshing floor. Reuse existing content for your on demand webinar strategy.
Have questions that your target audience frequently ask – whether related to your product or industry? Answer them using video. But make sure you distribute this evergreen content widely.
9. Live videos
Whether it’s live webinars or live streaming on social media, live videos help build a well-knit community in no time.
On LinkedIn alone, brands leveraging live streaming see 7x more reactions and 24x more comments than those sharing published videos.But you don’t have to struggle choosing between which social channels to live stream on. Instead, live stream on multiple channels at once (technically: simulcast) with Vimeo.
10. Customer onboarding
97% of companies realize how important user onboarding is for a product’s growth. Thankfully, short and to-the-point videos can make onboarding easy by guiding new users at each step of the way.
In fact, you can also create videos explaining how to use advanced features to retain and offer more value to regular users.
11. Behind-the-scenes (BTS) videos
This type of B2B video is a must-create for showing your business’s human side. And they don’t take much work too. Why? Because it’s only when you focus on authenticity (the key to success with BTS video) that you can capture real-life team moments.
Share them in your newsletter, on your social channels, and with your Slack/Discord community.
12. Brand videos
Brand videos are essential for showcasing your culture that, in turn, helps earn your audience’s trust as well as attract new talent to your business.
Want an example brand video idea? Create a year in review video or a “X years of your business” video.
13. Screen recorded videos
Screen-recorded videos are probably the easiest types of videos to create. All you’ve to do is to record your screen and voice explaining something.And you don’t even have to pay for a screen recorder.
With Vimeo Record, you can create these videos for free – straight from your browser 🎉
The best part? You can use screen-recorded videos for marketing, sales as well as internal employee communication.
For example, use it to walk your teammates through project overviews, share feedback with them, and more. Plus, use screen-recorded videos for staff training, and welcoming and onboarding new employees.
14. Tutorials
Another useful B2B video idea is to create bite sized how-to videos that walk your target audience through specific features or solutions. Share them in your product-led blog posts when you talk about specific features.
And once you have a library of these how-to videos ready, add them to your knowledge base and share the videos with the customer support team.You can also repurpose these videos by sharing them on social media and as video in your email marketing campaign.
15. Animated explainer videos
Planning on sharing tips, listicles or steps as part of your educational, top of funnel content for raising awareness? Animated videos are the perfect medium for this.These B2B videos don’t take much in production time and any marketer can create. How? By leveraging Vimeo Create’s ready to use, 3000+ templates.
16. Social media videos
It’s helpful to reuse published video content on social media by changing its dimensions. But you can also knock together unique social media videos using templates within minutes.
Pro tip: Be sure to not only post videos but also video Story content to grow your social engagement.
17. Repurposed videos
And, finally, make recycled videos from other content that you’ve already created. Doing so saves your time, helps you drive the most value from published content, and gets you into video production with minimal effort.
So what are some ways to create repurposed content? Change the following formats into videos:
Blog posts ➡ Educational videos
Podcasts ➡ Expert interview videos
Takeaways from live streams ➡ On demand video recaps
Twitter chat replies ➡ Quick tips videos
Text-based case studies ➡ Customer story videos
Event takeaways ➡ Event recap videos
You can also go the other way around by repurposing the information in your videos into other formats such as blog content, social media posts, and infographics.
Best B2B marketing videos examples from winning brands
And before we wrap this up, here are four B2B video marketing examples:
Monday.com
The project management tool creates customer success stories in video format. They then pair it with their text-based posts so visitors can enjoy the story in any format they prefer.
Zendesk
The Zendesk Morning Show is a series of live virtual broadcasts that features guests, educates their audience, and shares resources in their 20 minute episodes.
The ROI? The company reaches 170K+ of their customers regularly, staying on top of their minds and providing extensive value to them.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a great example of companies using screen-recorded video.
They use Vimeo Record to create these videos for previewing new features internally and with their clients. This saves them from starting another long email thread.
Add video to your B2B marketing mix
Hopefully, you’ve got the creative wheels churning with these 17 sure-to-deliver-results B2B video ideas, we’re sure you’re feeling excited to tap into video marketing. For more ideas, check out our in-depth guide to video marketing.
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