Plan the Best B2B Video Marketing Strategy

More than 82% of all Internet traffic will be video. That's a fact. This is part of the reason why we believe webinars will play a big role in helping you growing your business.

In this post, I will teach you the basics of both on-demand video marketing and live video marketing, applied to B2B lead generation and customer training.

What is Video Marketing?

Sounds obvious, but video marketing is using videos to market your business, brand, product. You can use videos to showcase customer testimonials, screencasts of your app, motion designs to pitch your business, etc. Live streaming also part of the video marketing use cases.

The Benefits of B2B Video Marketing

There are a lot of reasons why you should have a B2B video marketing strategy. Let's start with facts.

Video converts better

Marketers have declared that video is a huge conversion booster. 70% of them report that it converts better than any other channel. Moreover, 65% of decision-makers have taken interest in a business solution after watching a video.

But they are not just better for on-site conversion. Let's take emails for example. Video boost open rate by 19% and click through rate can be increased by 200% to 300%.

Live video, and specifically webinars, are considered, by 66% of marketers, the best B2B content strategy.

Video is searchable

When optimised, videos will help you grow your SEO and rank better. If your video gets backlinks there are chances your solution's website will also get some.

Being relevant on YouTube will also give you a "findability" boost. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the Web and it's connected to the SERP results.

Who's Already Doing a Great Job At B2B Video Marketing?

There are a lot of great B2B video marketing examples. Some companies have embraced video as a big part of their content strategy.

The first that comes to mind is Moz and they Whiteboard Friday sessions. Not only the content is incredibly good, it is also super optimised: the backlinks and transcript ensure they rank extremely high on certain keywords.

Drift has also been doing videos to highlight their product updates. More recently, they started hosting live webinars and office hours videos which we love here at Livestorm.

Here's what Amy, Brand Marketer @ Drift, told me about Drift's Office Hours:

Originally we were looking for a more human and personal way to answer customer questions, so we created Office Hours to do just that. Dave Gerhardt hosts the show, and we bring on different people from the team who can best answer the questions submitted that week. It’s nice to get different faces on camera so people can really get to know us.

We can’t go grab coffee with every single customer (although we will keep trying to), but Office Hours helps bridge that gap a bit. It’s our way of hanging out with our community.

The format is super flexible, so we change up the content depending on what’s happening week to week, covering anything from product launches, questions submitted form customers, news, the results of our own research findings, etc.

On a more technical standpoint, one of the key learnings was that:

Technically speaking, sound is the biggest differentiator for this series. The footage is casual, but having high quality sound adds the polish that it needs.

Crafting a B2B Video Marketing Strategy

B2B video marketing can be like passive income, you let people come and watch your videos. If you use a video player solution like Wistia you can even generate leads without lifting a finger.

Or you can be pro-active and engage your audience through live streaming. You can expect a much higher engagement rate and more qualified leads. However, it takes more time and resources to set up.

For the latter you can do it for free, using YouTube Live or Facebook Live, but make sure your target audience uses those platforms. Or you can move to a live streaming software like Livestorm.

On-Demand Video Content

On-demand videos can be watched on your website and used for many purposes like:

• On-demand demo screencasts
• Short pitch movie about your business
• Customer testimonials
• Product updates
• Q&A Support videos
• Tutorials
• Video blog post (Moz-like)
• etc.

On-demand video content can be gated behind forms and generate leads and engagement continuously. They also make great resources to reuse when creating new content (support articles, blog posts, success stories, etc.).

Why B2B Video Marketing Is Going To Be Live

Just like other real-time marketing software such as live chats, live video triggers far more opportunities of engagement and conversion.

Live streaming is like a 30min-60min long conversation with your leads or customers...At scale! Plus, you can push forms, surveys , etc. Looking for a topic? Ask yourself "what kind of conversation do I want to start?"

Moreover, unlike the usual video consumption on the Web, people usually watch webinars for… 56-minutes in average. And that number keeps growing!

Last but not least, live sessions can be recurring, every week or every two week. Meaning that 4 times a month you get a chance to have this kind of engagement.

B2B Live Video Marketing Content

This is our area. Live streaming has a great spectrum of use cases. It can be:

• Sales demo webinars
• Customer training workshops
• Live AMAs
• Live podcasts
• Live summits
• Corporate presentation
• Hiring live meetup
• etc.

Live video creates greater engagement because you create expectations, like an IRL event. Therefore, it's easier to trigger conversions and gather data (forms, polls, etc.) during those events.

Job-First Video Marketing Strategy

Still wondering what you can do? What should drive your video marketing strategy is the job you want to accomplish. Like everything else, define your goals before you start.

Want to close more deals? Do sales webinars. Want to scale your customer success onboarding? Do customer training workshops, etc.

Customer Success

The main goal is to provide as much ressource as you can, in the simplest form, to dramatically increase the learning curve of your product.

Here are a few video format ideas you can reuse:

• Video tutorials series on specific features
• On demand demos for quick tour of the product
• Interview with customers on their usage
• GIFs library for all the features
• Live workshops for customers in difficulty, VIPs or new customers

Sales

Your objective is to sell more, convert more at once and keep your CAC as low as possible. The way to go is webinars. Webinars will help you give great demos at scale.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is awesome because you can get really creative with videos. Your objective is to create visibility and grow your traffic.

Here's a list of what you can do with videos:

• Live AMAs with industry experts
• Interviews & video podcasts around your industry / expertise
• Product updates
• Live stream your offices 24/7
• Office hours (cf. Drift above)
• etc.

Video Marketing Software

Choose the right tool for the right job. There are a lot of software out there for webinars, video players, etc. We have short listed some for you:

• Screencast production: Screenflow
• Live streaming control room: OBS
• Lead generation video player: Wistia
• All-in-one video management: Vidyard
• Live webinars: Livestorm ;)

Conclusion

Video Marketing is going to be big, and more specifically Live Video Marketing. Video generates better engagement, conversion and will help you grow, so turn on your webcam and start streaming.