The Future Of Video Marketing: What B2B Brands Need to Know
As the available attention span for closing B2B deals shrinks, video marketing takes center stage as an effective tool for instilling trust and confidence in the minds of prospective buyers.
It’s long established that over 90 per cent - or nearly all B2B customers - watch, and are influenced by online videos. As growing numbers of millennials (the biggest consumers of online video) take their seats as decision-makers, it is safe to say that video is now one of the top B2B marketing priorities for any brand looking to connect with the CXO audience. Also, B2B buyers aren’t your regular consumers who want a new car or a mobile phone; they are likely some of the most informed and aware buyers in the world.
This is where comprehensive video content becomes crucial for both aspects of B2B marketing – awareness, as well as demand generation. While awareness-led brand building takes a fair amount of time, demand-gen can be leveraged as a short-term tactic to reach potential buyers -and video helps across both the long & short-term windows.
Now, we all know the ‘what’ around videos - be it ads, or explainer films. The future of video, however, isn’t so much about the quantum or the quality of films alone. Like all things trending, B2B videos require brands to think about ways to break through the existing clutter, and importantly - know when to.
The ‘when’ refers to the buying cycle - something quite specific (and important) to B2B marketing. E.g. run a beautiful, soul-stirring film too early into this cycle, and you’d probably get a ton of likes and loves, instead of a good conversion rate you were hoping for.
The secret rests in the decision maker’s content priorities, and there’s an easy way to illustrate that. Let’s take a broad look at an illustrative buying cycle to understand this better.
There are two important colors on this chart - the green bits are the brand’s assets - be it your website, social media channels, or even physical offices or experience centers. These are places you control, where prospective customers can come to validate their interest or inquiry by learning the absolute truth before purchase.
What’s interesting, however, are the yellow boxes - these are 3rd-party sites and sources where B2B buyers and purchase influencers go to research, learn more, compare, check reviews - undertake activities that help them make a more informed decision, and get unbiased perspectives around the planned investment.
This goes on to show that the purpose served by video marketing on “your” site and social media channels alone can be fairly limited. What could work better is when you create video content that is useful across the entire cycle - both on your platforms and across the interwebs, so to speak. Therefore, as you look to market via video in 2024, consider developing films that cover a broader range of topics and spectrum beyond advertisements.
Now that we have covered the “when”, let’s get to the “what” to figure out what videos, or video types brands can leverage shortly to plan their future video marketing strategy and tactics.
Build multi-touch narratives
By harnessing visual narratives, businesses can cut through the cacophony of sales pitches and industry jargon, offering clarity where it's needed. E.g. As you promote a thoughtfully crafted, humanised film on culture, ethics, and brand identity on your social media, consider placing a customer testimonial video on a 3rd-party review site.
Go live often
As B2C brands tap into the opportunities offered by, say, Instagram Live sessions, businesses talking to other businesses also can tap into similar opportunities with live streaming. Most technology brands today ensure their flagship events are live streamed - and it makes a lot of sense, considering registrations for virtual events often surpass counts of their on-ground versions. Moreover, having a smaller audience at the physical event allows for higher personalisation, while reducing overheads significantly.
Webinars & training
The limitations imposed by the 2019 pandemic also opened a few new doors for innovation, and webinars were a major beneficiary. What was considered fringe before suddenly turned mainstream, with nearly all virtual meeting service providers trying to outdo each other by adding features that allowed for bigger audience participation, on-screen interactions, audience engagement, recordings and more.
Immersive experiences
Immersive video is reshaping the dynamics of how businesses connect with their audience. By enveloping videos within a complete digital experience, businesses can go beyond merely capturing attention — they can captivate the viewer, and even establish a destination to turn what might have been an interruption into a useful engagement. B2B brands are now extensively making use of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)integrated video content to make their brand stand out from the others.
Craft thought leadership
Establishing trust and authority is paramount in the B2B space, and a meticulously designed video marketing strategy can also enable brands to ascend as thought leaders in the industry. For example, consider conducting insightful interviews with the leadership, subject matter experts, or even industry thought leaders - both from within and outside the organisation.
Video is poised to stay as the most important marketing tool - at least over the coming few years as mobile connectivity and Internet access speeds expand. I hope these illustrations and examples help write a draft towards building compelling narratives that resonate with your audience. Your success, after all, must be a broadcast!
(The writer is Kamal Krishna, Founder & CEO, Mobilise)
