In recent years, B2B video marketing has rapidly increased in popularity. Today, brands everywhere are competing to create the most engaging visual content to market their products or services. And with so much of modern digital marketing taking place on social media, it’s no wonder that videos are more popular than ever. But getting started with video marketing can often be daunting – and brands often struggle to work out how to do it effectively.
By following a few easy steps, even the smallest companies can succeed in creating successful video marketing on a tight budget. In this blog, we explain how to get started with B2B video marketing through a simple, six-stage process.
1. Plan a strategy
The first thing you need to define is how your video will fit into your wider marketing strategy. B2B video marketing can be a great tool – but to be truly effective, it should work seamlessly alongside your blogs, website and social media marketing.
If you’re planning on just making one video to get started, then you should make sure to target the most effective point in the customer journey. You want to be able to effectively target the content of your video to the precise needs of the customer at their point in the cycle. Creating content explaining how to buy your product before educating them on its functions is pointless.
Videos can be more personal and friendly than the written word, which makes them particularly good for reassuring potential customers at the early stages of the customer journey. If you’re going to produce multiple videos, then you’ll need to consider how they relate to each other. Ensure each video targets viewers at different points in the customer journey, with a logical progression of ideas from one point to the next. Each video should draw upon and develop the information outlined in those that came before. Alternatively, if you’ve got a wide range of customers in different industries, make sure your videos target the specific needs of each one.
2. Choose your video type
There’s not just one type of B2B video marketing – there are plenty of different ways you can appeal to your audience through visual media. When choosing the type of video you want to make, consider the needs of your audience, the messages you’re trying to convey and how well the format fits in with your wider content strategy. Here’s a look through some common examples:
Product explainer
A product explainer is a great starting point for your first video. Consider this the visual version of a blog; it should succinctly set out the business problems your customers faces and how your product is the solution.
Tutorial
A tutorial is a good way of explaining how to use your product or service. This is particularly useful if you create software applications, or similar tools that require customers to learn how to use them. Tutorials encourage adoption among existing customers and demonstrate the capabilities of your offerings to newer viewers.
Case study
Videos allow you to extoll the proven benefits of your products or services. If you’ve got happy clients, then visually explaining how you helped them could be a great way of finding new ones. Make sure your video is focused on the specific problems that you helped your client solve.
The list of different types of video marketing doesn’t just end here. If you’re an experienced video marketer, you could branch out and focus on webinars, brand videos, educational explainers and much more. The possibilities are endless. But if you’re a beginner looking for a video idea that’s easy to execute and provides real value – these three are certainly the best place to start.
3. Define your audience
Like any type of marketing content, you need to understand who you’ll be talking to before you can get started. Good B2B video marketing involves a clear and focused understanding of your customer’s situation – what the problem is and how your solution applies to that.
Creating personas is a great way of doing this. This is a fictitious outline of your average or ideal customer that uses market research or real data about your existing customers to build a profile. Outline the customer’s role, what their job entails, and which industry they work in. Then, specify the problems they face, their pain points and the reason they would choose your product as the solution.
Once you’ve created your persona, you’ll have a character that you can create messages for. When writing your script, recording your voiceover and creating your designs – keep in mind how it appeals to this persona.
4. Write your script
Good scripts are one of the most essential parts of successful B2B video marketing. But it’s also one of the most difficult things to get right. If you’ve written marketing material for your business, you’ll be used to the kind of tone and marketing messages that this involves. But there are important differences between writing for the written word and for the spoken voice.
Find the right tone for your script. Try to strike the right balance between casual and formal. A good script should sound natural and spontaneous, using jargon-free language that makes your viewers feel comfortable. Address your customers directly; your script should flow like a conversation with a friend. Keep in mind that this is still marketing material and customers could be put off if the language is too colloquial. Try reading your script out to a colleague. If the words roll off your tongue and sound authentic, then you’re definitely on the right path.
Most importantly, make sure to keep your language short and to the point. Introduce your problem then describe the solution. If you can condense your ideas down to a 2-3 minute video, you’re on your way to creating fantastic B2B video marketing content.
5. Make your video
If you’ve put the right preparation in, this should be the easiest part of the process. With a good outline and script in place, now you need to get recording and creating.
People often think that to make a professional looking marketing video, you need specialist, potentially expensive, equipment and software. In 2019, however, that’s not the case. Decent quality microphones have never been more affordable, and there are plenty of cost-effective tools that allow you to easily make professional looking videos.
If you’re looking to dip your toe into the video marketing waters, then you’ll want an inexpensive, easy-to-use tool to get you started. Here’s a look through some of the most popular choices.
Wideo
Wideo features an easy-to-use interface that allows anybody to make professional looking videos. The platform also features a range of pre-made video templates to make your creation process even easier.
Viewbix
With Viewbix, creating video marketing material can be as easy three simple steps, in as little as five minutes. Obviously, this is particularly good for first time users, but users may find the functionality restrictive as they develop.
Stupeflix
Stupeflix makes video production easy by allowing you to gather pre-existing images, videos, music, and a whole range of third-party media together. The interface allows users to unify different types of content into a single, professional looking design. It then makes it easy to publish this on the web, either on YouTube, Facebook or on your website.
Wistia
Wistia is one of the most powerful video marketing tools, including detailed analytics features which allow you to analyze the success of your strategy. This could be particularly useful for more advanced users that want to continue building and improving on their video marketing strategies.
Once you’ve found the right video marketing tool, the rest is easy. Fortunately, many of these will offer a free trial – so why not take the opportunity to shop around and find which tool is the best match for your business?
6. Push your content out
You might think that once you’ve made your video, your work is done. Like any type of marketing material, however, you need to encourage people to watch it. To do that, you need to generate attention.
Pushing your video out on social media is generally a great way of doing this. Pay attention to LinkedIn and Twitter, since they tend to be more popular among business audiences. Most importantly, make sure you can embed the video onto the social feed, since users are far less likely to watch something that requires them to click away from the page. Hosting your video on YouTube is a particularly good way of doing this, since it allows you to easily embed content on other platforms. Try and make sure any voiceovers are subtitled so users without immediate access to sound can still enjoy your content.
Getting started with B2B video marketing
With these six easy tips, you should have everything you need to get started with your B2B marketing campaign.
When making your video, it’s important to remember that not everything you produce must be of the highest, professional video quality. But it does have to be short, simple and to the point. With a little bit of preparation and the right tools, even the smallest businesses can get started making successful B2B video marketing material.
At Fifty Five and Five, we’re experts in creating professional level marketing material for your B2B technology business, including video marketing, animations, blogs and much more. Get in touch with us today to see how we can help your business.
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