Why is the production of B2B video marketing so important for any effective strategy today? Find out in our latest blog post.
First came the dawn of YouTube in 2005, and their purchase by Google in 2006.
Then, smartphones leapt into our innocent palms.
Now, the pandemic has exponentially boosted and cemented our online media consumption.
The technology to create and consume quality video content continues to evolve — with marketers riding the waves, video has become the dominant form of communication today. Video convinced 89% of people to buy a product or service in 2023, while 91% wanted more online videos from brands (Wyzowl, 2023). From 2021-23, people spent an average of 18 hours per week watching video content, or 16% of your weekly waking hours — provided, of course, video hasn’t kept you awake all night.
That’s just the average person. Can the same be said of B2B video marketing?
In part, video production matters simply because the past few years have put video in front of us far more often: remote working, customer reviews for that neck-stretching thing you don’t need, TikTok toilet breaks, virtual events, lockdowns restricting exercise to cramped living room yoga. In 2022, 35% of marketers reported that they planned to use video in their marketing strategy for the first time (Hubspot, 2022).
But B2B video production has found a few key benefits of its own.
1. B2B video helps communicate complex information.
B2B products tend to be more complex than B2C — they’re far more likely to be niche or difficult to understand. Video can simplify that information for their audience. There are explainer videos, product demos, tutorials, and many more ways to convey complex info in a way that’s easy to understand, and therefore efficiently sell.
2. B2B video improves your SEO.
When you embed videos throughout your website, not only are you increasing engagement and conversion rates, you’re also improving the SEO value of the pages you’re putting them on. Search engines, like Google, are better able to index your pages with videos from sites like YouTube and Vimeo, so your pages appear higher in their search results.
3. B2B video builds trust through testimonial.
B2B buyers are looking for simplicity to balance the complexity of their problem. Video not only simplifies things, but offers the opportunity to see real people in talking head videos giving their testimonies — showing body language, facial expressions, alongside their words of positivity. It’s far easier to believe that someone actually said something when you see them saying it. In fact, according to HubSpot Research, consumers and customers prefer ‘authentic’ video over anything artificial or salesy — this is part of the reason influencer marketing has grown from $9.7 billion in 2020 to an estimated $16.4 billion in 2022. And that brings us to…
4. Video B2B beats B2C on TikTok.
More B2B brands on TikTok see higher engagement and better ROI than marketers for B2C brands. And 58% of B2B marketers plan on increasing their investment in TikTok in 2022 vs. 49% of B2C brands. Expect more tech companies and B2B platforms to invest in TikTok, developing expert brand personas on video channels, and providing actionable tips in a digestible format.
With the rise of sites like Vimeo and YouTube, social channels like LinkedIn and Twitter incorporating video, and dramatic improvements in streaming quality, videos now appear throughout all the stages of the marketing funnel.
There are as many forms of the marketing funnel available online as there are videos featuring cute cats — so we thought we’d add our own! This one, though, shows where videos fit into your process.
First, you introduce someone to your business (awareness), before educating them about what you do (consideration), justifying why what you do is exactly what they need (decision), then retaining those people (delight).
For your business and marketing efforts, there’s little that’s more important when it comes to brand awareness and improving engagement, therefore boosting sales, than video. Given its increased consumption, and its proven success in communicating complex messages that engage and build trust, video has become a crucial component of any B2B marketing plan.
Of course, video requires resource: time, money, equipment. And, as with any marketing tool, it will deliver on all its promises if done well.
The numbers speak for the benefit of B2B video marketing, it pays itself back, and it’s often less a question of whether you should do it, but who — is it this something you can do in-house, or one of those tasks that an external agency, like Transform Digital, can help support you with?
If so, get in touch to find out how we can help.