So you understand the benefits of using B2B; you’re hearing all about how it can help with SEO, increase click through rates and you can track your return on investment, BUT does anyone actually watch B2B video? I can’t recall many viral videos Hayley…
You raise a good point. Tying into my blog from last week about putting your audience and message before your branding, I want to take a look at how you can use video in your B2B video and achieve.
No, your video is not going to go viral
Unfortunately unless your a B2B business selling cute cats or celebrities… no it’s not going to go viral. However, like I just mentioned about putting your audience and message first, why would you want it to? Yes ok it might get your name ‘out there’ but will it actually be reaching the right people? If you create a video to increase sales in bulk stationary and your video did go viral how many of those ‘views’ do you think equate to people who have a need for bulk stationary? It doesn't matter how many people, it matters how many of the right people! If your video is aimed at a specific buyer persona in your target audience and it gets 100 views rather than 1,000,000, if 5 of those sign huge contracts with you, job done!
Purpose and Audience
With B2B deciding on your purpose is even more important than B2C. What are you trying to achieve? What are you going to measure to see if it is working? Are you trying to make a sale? To generate a lead? Demonstrate a products features? Educate your clients?
Knowing this will then dictate your audience. For example if you’re trying to make a sale, you’re going to want to reach decision makers not entry level employees. If your aim is to educate then you are talking to people outside of your industry.
Tailoring your Content
Once you know your audience and purpose you can then tailor your content to appeal to this audience and achieve its purpose. This is where things like type of video, tone and language come into play.
Animations, talking heads, interviews, testimonials, product demonstrations, how to’s, event coverage… the list of types of video goes on. What’s important is which type of video fits in with your branding as a company but is also most appropriate to the subject matter and appealing to your audience? There isn’t much point creating a video to educate people about your field of expertise if you are going to use a talking head discussing an advanced level subject, sounding patronising and using ‘techie’ terminology. You’re going to want to start with the basics, sound enthusiastic, use layman’s terms and probably use graphics and examples to help explain things.
Storytelling
As I talked about last week, stuffing your video with your branding might be appealing to your boss but it wont be to your audience. Your audience also doesn’t want to be ‘sold to’ or watch a video of you blowing your own trumpet for 3 minutes. Your video needs to tell a story; have a beginning, middle and end. What is it that you or your product does? How does that help your audience? What pain points can you help them to avoid? What do other people think of it? Where can I find out more information?
What do you want your audience to know at the end of the video? More importantly how do you want them to feel?
Using Humour
Humour is a great way to engage your audience and make your content memorable, we would highly recommend using it; but this is business after all, trying too hard to make your content ‘funny’ or creating something cheesy is a great way to strip creditability and professionalism from your video. Again it all depends on your audience. Going for ‘laugh out loud’ content might go down well with entry and middle level employees but might not so much with the c suite …
Length
The general rule of thumb is 1-5 minutes for B2B video. According to a Forbes insight report 36% of c suite executives prefer 1-3 minute videos and 47% prefer 3 - 5 minutes. We’re all very busy and want to the point information in bite size formats!
Again it all comes down to your audience, purpose and the type of video. You’re not going to convince me of your features in 60 seconds but I’m not going to sit through 6 minutes. I might watch your 30 minute keynote from an industry event you’ve talked at discussing something I am interested in; I definitely don't want to watch your 10 minute how to video on how to create a spreadsheet. Think about what your audience is going to feel and understand after your video. You don’t want them to have not taken anything away from the video as it was too short but you equally don’t want them to stop watching the video because they have got lost or bored as its too long…
To Conclude
Yes, video does work for B2B. It’s not just increasing sales, improving SEO and helping with ROI; it’s helping companies get across who they are and what they do, and helping to fulfil their needs by finding the right companies that can help them do that.
Next time your commissioning some B2B video just ask yourself:
Why are you making this video?
Who are you trying to reach and engage?
Whats the best type of video to do this?
What are we going to show them?
How do we want them to feel?
How are we going to make them feel this?
Within what time can we make them feel this?
Still not convinced? Well here are some examples of B2B videos done right (and more importantly proving I’m right!)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwECPUAUQay-4v39TvXgmDdh9bwxMKOyI
Well I hope this helps! Get in touch to tell us about your experiences with B2B video or your opinions on the subject.
Hayley
