Contributed by Sonny Sultani B2B professional services create customized offerings for buyers and develop relationships with each business based on trust. While there are several ways to build this relationship, video marketing is quickly becoming one of the top strategies for marketers.
However, is video marketing relevant in B2B marketing, or is it a passing trend among consumers?
Explore the potential of B2B video marketing for professional services and five ways for using video in B2B marketing.
What Is a B2B Marketing Video?
A B2B marketing video promotes your business, introduces your services, and builds trust with your audience. You can share your marketing video on your website, social media, or a third-party website where users can view it. Then, they can use links within the video or in the description to return to your website and sign up for your services.
“A B2B marketing video promotes your business, introduces your services, and builds trust with your audience.”
Is Video Marketing Necessary?
The demand for video content is growing as more buyers prefer the immersive experience that the media format offers rather than traditional channels for interacting with brands. Today, 86% of marketers use video as part of their strategy and plan to continue using it because of its high ROI.
To remain competitive in today’s market, you must incorporate video into your strategy.
Is YouTube Good for B2B Marketing?
The second most visited website is YouTube, the online video hosting giant. It provides the tools and audience you need to launch your next video marketing campaign.
Before you start investing in YouTube, here are a few B2B video marketing statistics you should know about the platform:
- 30 million users log onto YouTube daily, and two billion monthly
- Users watch over one billion hours of YouTube content daily
- There are over 38 million channels on YouTube
- 90% of digital consumers also use YouTube
Among that large audience are your B2B buyers, looking for relevant content in their industry. You can position yourself as a leader by providing that content through the most popular video site.
Why Is Video Important in B2B Marketing?
Here are four benefits to including video as part of your B2B marketing efforts:
Increases Lead Engagement
Videos are one of the best content formats for encouraging engagement.
For example, videos on Facebook have the highest engagement rate, videos on Instagram receive twice the engagement of regular photo posts, and tweets with videos see ten times the engagement as those without.
Engagement shows your viewers are interested in your message and trust your brand. It also lets you know whether most of your viewers are having a positive experience.
The ideal video length for engagement is within two minutes. After that, many viewers tend to leave. However, if viewers stay at least six minutes, they will most likely remain for the full video.
Addresses Different Learning Methods
Not everyone learns the same way. Roughly 65% of the population are visual learners. Visual learners retain information by viewing images, videos, and charts.
“Roughly 65% of the population are visual learners.”
You are missing a large demographic if all your touchpoints are only text emails, blog posts, or phone calls. Bloggers publish over 6 million new posts daily, and the average office worker receives over 121 emails daily. You want your content to be memorable despite the oversaturation of digital media, which requires a mix of strategies and an incorporation of media.
Adding a visual touchpoint through a B2B marketing video ensures that most of your audience will retain the information and remember your professional services brand.
Improves Your Search Ranking
On average, 68% of online experiences start with a search engine. So before your buyers ever find your brand, they will be on a search engine like Google looking for solutions or learning information in their industry.
The more content you create, the greater your chance of ranking in those searches. In addition, over half of website traffic comes from organic searches, which means search engine optimization should be a high priority in your B2B marketing efforts to drive new traffic to your site.
Video in your blog posts and web pages improves your site’s ranking in search engines. It also ensures the traffic you attract stays on those pages longer as it keeps them engaged.
In addition to supporting other content, video also ranks in a search engine by itself. YouTube videos appear in search queries based on the keywords you use in your closed captions, description, and title, as well as the video’s engagement rate.
Works Well with Social Media
Since 59% of the world’s population is on social media, spending an average of two and a half hours each day browsing content, it should be a core part of your marketing strategy. However, reaching your target audience isn’t always easy as there are millions of users and competing content.
Video content helps cut through the noise by adding an engaging touchpoint to your social media channels. To ensure your video appears in front of the right audience, you can sponsor the content and use filters such as profession and location to target your B2B buyers.
The top social media marketing platform is LinkedIn. There are over 630 million professionals on this social channel. In addition, 80% of them are decision-makers in their businesses. If you are looking for the best channel to share your B2B video content, consider adding LinkedIn to the top of your list.
Builds Trust with B2B Buyers
Trust and authority are the cornerstones of a buyer relationship. They need to trust your brand and recommendations and see you as a leader in your industry before they are willing to invest in your services.
“Trust and authority are the cornerstones of a buyer relationship.”
Video helps build that trust by developing a relationship through personal interactions on video. It gives you a fresh way to interact with your buyers and deliver messages. In addition, because they can see a face and someone’s eyes as they speak, it also improves the experience of receiving information.
Studies revealed the power of eye contact in communication. Some of the benefits of showing your eyes when communicating include:
- Sharing emotions without speaking
- Appearing more honest
- Increasing your persuasive power
- Improving understanding
- Building respect
How To Use Video in B2B Professional Service Marketing
Use these five strategies for incorporating video into your B2B professional service marketing:
Types of Video Content
1. Thought Leadership Content
Roughly half of decision makers spend over an hour interacting with thought leadership content each week. Thought leadership is content where experts speak on a topic in their niche for the education and inspiration of others.
When you create thought leadership content, you establish yourself as an authority in your field. Your clients will see your content and learn to respect your opinion.
You can publish short-form thought leadership on YouTube or as short business-to-business marketing videos on your website. These are snippets of ideas and inspiration you share through video. They work well as complements to other content.
However, some of the most effective B2B video thought leadership are webinars. About 91% of marketers who use webinars say they saw great success with the format. Webinars allow you to dive deeper into a subject as most attendees prefer them to last around 45 minutes. In addition, they can be live events or on-demand, allowing you to share the webinar on YouTube and your website even after the event ends.
2. Monthly Video Blogs
About 94% of people will watch a video to help them understand a business and its services. Instead of only publishing regularly written blogs, you can add video content to your monthly or weekly schedule.
Regularly published video blogs can cover a wide array of subjects, just as you would on your website’s blog. For example, you can explain how your services work or talk about why businesses need services like yours, which creates demand.
Your monthly video blogs might also include training to help current customers continue benefiting from your services and maximize their returns. For example, if you offer content creation services, you can post videos on effective lead nurturing and follow-up strategies. These will help your customers convert the leads your content brought in.
3. Client Testimonials
Your buyers will conduct online research before choosing what services they will buy. About 92% of buyers will read reviews as part of that research. In addition, 95% of people say that reviews influence their decision.
Sharing reviews on your website can build trust with future buyers as it shows you are a reliable company. Reviews also sometimes share specific ways others can benefit from your services.
However, you can add another layer of authenticity to your reviews by creating video client testimonials. As with your video content, testimonials are more trustworthy when the audience can see the speaker. They have more faith that the previous client is providing an authentic review and that the experience was positive because they can see the client’s body language and eyes while they share their experience.
Case studies are one of the most effective B2B content types. They are testimonials about past customers and how your brand helped that client succeed. In addition, it can serve as a roadmap for future clients looking for the same results and build trust with buyers since it provides specific ways your services benefit businesses.
4. Company Introductions
When you meet clients in person, your first act is reaching out your hand, making eye contact, and introducing yourself.
However, when a client’s first interaction with your brand is your website, you don’t have a chance to offer that hand of trust. Instead, you rely on your website to give a positive first impression. One way to make your visitor’s acquaintance is through an introduction video.
An introduction video appears on your about page or landing pages as a greeting to new customers. It gives them a friendly face to see while introducing them to who you are and what services you offer.
The ideal introduction video should be between two and three minutes long. Keep it professional yet remain human throughout. In the end, provide a clear call to action. These might be directions for contacting you or a specific service they could sign up for.
5. Talent Acquisitions
The expert team supporting your business is a crucial part of your outstanding services. However, finding that talent is getting more difficult in today’s labor shortage. There are 3.4 million fewer Americans working today than there were in 2020.
Because of the competitive market, you want your business to stand out to attract the best in your industry.
Video promotions for your business give job seekers an inside look at who you are as a company, what you stand for, and what your company culture is. It helps potential employees know whether they are a good fit and can attract new employees because the engaging format stands out in stark contrast to the thousands of plain text job listings.
Add Video to Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy
The upward trends in video marketing show that B2B video isn’t going away anytime soon. Therefore, those in B2B professional services marketing should adopt video into their strategy to remain competitive and stand out in today’s immersive multimedia society.
Contact us to learn about our video content solutions for B2B professional services.