Video continues to grow in importance in marketing, especially for B2B organizations. According to Content Marketing Institute, nearly 80% of content marketers expect to invest or continue investing in video marketing in 2023. Last year, this number stood at 69%.
Businesses adopting video marketing enjoy a wide variety of channels to post their marketing content. YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook remain obvious options, with relative upstarts like TikTok and Instagram also on the rise. Targeting different types of video by channel makes sense to boost the efficacy of your company’s marketing campaigns. A Wyzowl study notes 89% of people bought a product or service because of watching a video.
Here is a high-level overview of the five most widely used types of video marketing for B2B companies. We also cover what video channels work best for each type to help you better understand how to effectively leverage them. With your competition likely investing in this marketing approach, your business definitely needs to embrace B2B video marketing.
Long-Form Educational Videos
Longer, educational videos should be one of the cornerstones of your overall content marketing strategy. Long-form videos present an opportunity to interview industry experts, answer customer questions or address pain points, and provide commentary on relevant industry topics. YouTube and LinkedIn remain the most appropriate channels for these kinds of videos.
You’ll want to spend time crafting a script for these types of videos. An off-the-cuff approach generally isn’t appropriate, especially when going in-depth on a specific topic. A well-planned production approach ensures your videos provide customers with the content they want. Remember, the audio portion of these videos also function as podcasts, with the scripts suitable for repurposing as blog posts.
In this example, Gigster talks to a Web3 expert in a long-form interview format:
Short-Form Video Content
Any B2B business also needs to consider producing shorter videos. Short-form videos might repurpose clips from longer videos, provide quick tips, feature a quick list of tips or product recommendations, or even provide commentary on industry trends and news. This approach lets you target other channels more suitable for shorter content, like X, Instagram, or TikTok.
When creating short videos for other platforms, be sure to produce something specifically targeted at that channel. For example, Instagram videos tend to get more engagement when no longer than a few minutes and focused on live human activity. This same rule especially applies to TikTok. In fact, the latter channel is great for making your company’s product or service quickly go viral.
Gary Vaynerchuck is the classic example of a short-form video produced for social media:
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Webinars
Webinars provide B2B companies with a platform to provide general education, thought leadership, industry expert interviews, and take a deeper exploration of their products and services. Using them to offer tips and insights on any customer-service product also makes sense.
In essence, these online events are related to long-form educational videos but typically take place in real-time. When hosting a webinar, ensure your business’s video conferencing technology offers high scalability. You don’t want technical issues – especially buffering – to reduce the reach of your message.
Considering the “event” aspect of a webinar, they work well as a virtual customer conference. SME speeches and interviews related to your business also fit within this format. In addition to the audio and video, also take advantage of your webinar software to share infographics and other related material.
In this example, Pacvue addresses a new development in the industry, highlights new features of their SaaS platform that address this development, and leave time for a Q&A:
Video Case Studies
Video case studies serve a similar purpose as the text-based versions, but can be far more engaging. They provide the means to fully explore a specific customer success story leveraging your organization’s product or service. Use the study to focus more on the customer journey and how your company helped.
Notably, the Wyzowl stats note that 96% of the surveyed marketers felt video increased user understanding of their product. Even more interesting is the fact that video content is 4x more likely to be shared compared to blog posts. So video testimonials and case studies need to be on your marketing shortlist.
Check out this helpful example of a B2B video case study.
Sales Videos
Finally, sales videos are a critical piece of any well-considered B2B video marketing strategy. Their importance in driving revenue growth for your business cannot be understated. According to the Wyzowl study mentioned earlier, 87% of the respondents noted increased purchasing due to sales videos.
Use this type of video marketing to increase conversions on a sales page or provide demos of your product. Sales videos can also be a powerful way to introduce web visitors to your product and increase conversions, like this video on Resource Guru’s homepage:
If your business wants to improve its B2B marketing efforts, connect with the experts at Monomyth Marketing. We can provide video strategy, scripts, editing, and production services to improve your product’s reach, improving sales as a result. We look forward to hearing from you!
