Video marketing is an evolving marketing tool that enables your business to grow closer with prospective customers, businesses, and audiences. Because of technological innovation, your brand has the opportunity to leverage assets like vlogs, 360-degree videos, and customer testimonials to influence B2B decision-makers toward an informed buying decision.
We’ve outlined the six types of B2B marketing videos that your company must utilize to separate itself from competitors. It starts with providing value, but these marketing tools are sure to capture the attention of your target audience.
1. Vlogging
Vlogging is a very effective marketing tool because it provides a unique lens into your business. Your prospects can view what daily life is like within your company. This increased transparency will build trust with your potential buyers and showcase how great your company culture is. It will also establish a meaningful, personalized connection with your potential customers.
Businesses will buy your company and what it stands for before they invest in your product or solution. Vlogging will showcase how your employees interact, how teams collaborate, and how ideas are shared. These videos also provide a glimpse into the work ethic of your people. If your team members have unique talents, vlogging is an excellent way to convey these capabilities.
Vlogging enables your company’s thought leaders to step up and share their insights with the world. Executive leaders are often the face of the brand, so hearing their vision for the future will also instill trust in B2B prospects. Good people are a critical competitive advantage between the players in the space. When promoting the creativity of your team members, your brand will be tough to ignore.
Although vlogging can focus on the daily operations of your company, it can also be a valuable tool in promoting your product or solution. Since you already have your audience’s attention, vlogging allows your team members to hype up your products, teach your prospects about the benefits, and guide them toward making an informed buying decision.
Lastly, you should integrate a call-to-action in your vlogs. Throughout your videos, it would be best to add small bits about how your prospects and customers can keep in contact with your business.
Your goal should be to increase conversions, and you cannot do this without driving action. Focus on incorporating calls to action in the earlier stages of the video to boost engagement, elevate conversations, and create more sales.
Related: 5 Video Marketing Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs
2. 360-Degree Videos
Videos will always have the upper hand on photos because they can showcase your product or service in a real-time way. Your company can also take it to another level by presenting your offering through a captivating 360-degree video.
360-degree videos enable the viewer to have more authority and personalization in viewing your product or solution. A standard video is a predetermined sequence of actions, scenes, and events. However, a 360-degree video enables the B2B decision-maker to go through a virtual product demo.
The 360-degree video is also on-demand, so the decision-maker can pull it up and view it any time. If other people in the prospective business also want to view the 360-degree video and product demonstration, it can easily be passed on while preserving the experience.
It is essential to mention that 360-degree videos might work better for B2B companies with a physical product. The 360-degree video enables the viewer to inspect smaller components of the product and see the ins and outs without having to hold it in their hand. Most people learn through visual demonstration, so a 360-degree video is a perfect addition to a B2B marketing strategy.
Here are some articles on sales/marketing video that you might be interested in:
- Making Your First Personalized Sales Video Email
- Personalized One-to-One Sales Videos: Do’s and Don’ts
3. Educational or Teaching Videos
Any video your brand publishes should provide value in one way or another. Educational videos can serve as an excellent learning tool for your prospects. These teaching videos help students retain information, but they also enable your company to guide B2B decision-makers through the buying process.
As we all go throughout our day, we see advertisements everywhere. These messages drive us toward buying a product. However, the advertising space can be overwhelming because the marketing pitches are on our phones, televisions, billboards, and signs around town in addition to everything you will send to your customers. Your business can take a different approach by developing and distributing video content that informs the prospect.
As you plan your video content, your motivation should not initially be to sell. It should be to deliver unique information to your prospect. It should educate individuals on ideas that can help them do their job better, grow their business, or make life easier. When you seek to provide free value upfront, your brand builds trust. When you establish this trust, you will receive more leads and customers.
Educational visuals can also be effective for your current clients in the form of customer service. These videos could include product explanations, demonstrations, and advice on how to maximize your product as a solution. If your clients are struggling with using your service at an odd hour, an on-demand video can provide a lot of value at the moment and grow long-term trust.
4. Videos on LinkedIn
As of 2021, LinkedIn is the largest professional online network with over 774 million users. The platform makes attractive job opportunities accessible for individuals of all experience levels. However, the site is more than a place to search for jobs and upload your resume.
As the platform continues to evolve, it opened the door for individuals and businesses to share content. LinkedIn also launched a new B2B video marketing initiative, which provides brands the opportunity to connect with potential employees, customers, and clients. While it is too early to showcase the data behind LinkedIn marketing success, there is still a lot of potential on this platform.
LinkedIn is also the perfect space for B2B decision-makers. Many of your target prospects will be C-level executives or established team members within their organization. These same stakeholders will tend to make hiring and talent acquisition decisions.
At the end of the day, video marketing is all about capturing attention. Your potential B2B audience will crave video content, especially as they scroll through LinkedIn. Although LinkedIn is focused on connecting professionals, it is still a social media platform.
Related: Lead Generation on LinkedIn: 11 Proven Ways to Secure Qualified Leads
5. Customer Testimonial Videos
There is nothing more influential than social proof in the form of customer testimonials. Customer testimonial marketing videos have several advantages: they build trust and credibility, boost referrals, and are easily shared on social platforms.
You can communicate your value proposition to your prospects all day. However, the power of your brand is amplified when other people speak about how excellent your company is. Your customers can provide their real thoughts and opinions about your brand, products, or services, which immediately increases your credibility. Your marketing team should leverage your most powerful tool: customer satisfaction.
Customer testimonial B2B marketing videos also create the opportunity for referrals. When you request a testimonial video from a customer, it shows that you value their opinion. This connection builds rapport with the customer, which incentivizes them to tell even more people about your business. As your trusted clients tell their friends, this creates even more brand awareness for your organization.
It is valuable to have written testimonials on Google, Yelp, or other review sites. However, text testimonials are not as shareable on social media as video testimonials. Videos are more popular than ever, and social media is where a lot of decision-makers hang out. In fact, 78% of individuals view videos on social media each week.
Lastly, customer testimonials add a unique twist to your marketing campaigns. Every individual has a different story and interaction with your brand. Testimonial videos will bring these meaningful stories to the front stage. Your B2B prospects will still make the decision based on emotion, and special testimonials will aid in that buying choice.
Related: 5 Expert Tips and Predictions for Video Marketing in 2019
6. Videos Made to Tackle a Specific SEO
Search engine optimization is a key component of your video marketing strategy. It allows your website to show up higher in search engine results and boost visibility for your brand. In the past, businesses focused on optimizing their written content, product descriptions, and headlines.
This strategy is not good enough in the current SEO climate. Your brand should focus on leveraging a search engine optimization strategy with video content. Search engine search tools can provide you the top videos for a certain keyword, and your brand has the potential to be at the top of that list.
It is not too late to start implementing this strategy, but more companies are moving in this direction with content. As more content floods the internet, it means your company will need to focus its video marketing strategy on inputting necessary keywords and terms. So, how do you execute this method? Below are a couple of activities your team can start with:
- Use closed captions and engaging subtitles
- Develop customized thumbnail photos for your marketing videos
- Research relevant keywords and use them for file names, descriptions, and titles
- Integrate popular search terms and tags that relate to your video’s mission or topic
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are meaningful ways to showcase your brand, product, and solution effectively. If you want to provide a virtual product demonstration, a 360-degree video will differentiate your company. Search optimized videos will increase visibility for your website. Vlogging will showcase your employees and daily operations in a special way.
