B2B video marketing is now seen by 75% of marketers as the priority for getting attention online, generating more leads and improving the quality of the leads that are generated. According to a new internal study conducted by LinkedIn, B2B brands are making digital video the most important content format in their digital strategy priority list. What’s more, 83% of B2B marketers surveyed indicated that video drives lead volume and lead quality better.
Consumer brands have known for decades that storytelling using video is something that cannot be underestimated. B2C brands have repeatedly given consumers video content in the form of television advertisements that tell the brand and product stories in interesting and sometimes confrontational ways that capture attention, generate demand and more importantly impact consumer purchasing.
Now B2B brands are being pushed to demonstrate their ability to crossover from stoic, dry and boring video content to entertaining storytelling that captures and holds interest and converts that interest into action.
The Challenges Facing B2B Digital Video
Similar to consumer marketing, B2B brands have the distinct challenge to deliver video content that is creative, energetic, inspiring, informative and even humorous. B2B organizations have to deliver on these characteristics in their digital video content if they hope to capture and convert attention from online businesses.
The story that brands tell in their digital video content still has to give their viewers two crucial answers that is nearly identical to consumer brand content. Both of these answers stem from the core question of “what’s in it for me.” B2B video marketing has to clearly show their audience what the value proposition is and how their product or service saves them time and/or money. Add to that the need for understanding of what problem their solution solves and B2B brands have some significant obstacles to overcome.
As we work with our clients to cover all aspects of their digital marketing footprint, we inevitably incorporate digital video within the integrated strategy. This process has led us to understand some of the obstacles that B2B’s face in implementing digital video into their core online marketing approach. Here are some of the challenges we have uncovered.
B2B Digital Video Top Challenges:
- Creativity – Many B2B brands struggle to cross from the product side of their business to the creative side required to make digital video effective. The same amazing minds that develop incredible business technologies and services aren’t always the most creative related to marketing and storytelling.
- Production – Producing a quality digital video is not to be underestimated. Most brands lack the internal team that can produce digital video content that meets the quality and creative requirements to be effective.
- Strategy Alignment – In order to be most effective, digital video must be an extension of the brand and it’s messaging. B2B video can’t stand alone with a different appeal or message outside of what the brand is already doing. Incorporating the video medium within the existing footprint online requires an integrated strategy that isn’t always obvious to brands that haven’t done much video previously.
- Budget – Probably one of the biggest challenges to implementing an effective digital video program is the budget. Creating consistent content that brings the brand value message to the masses has to be an ongoing effort and the costs associated with that effort are sometimes more than a brand is willing to invest.
Digital Video Marketing Facts
Whether you’re a small or medium B2B startup, SAAS or application, there are many reasons that your brand must dedicate itself to implementing and improving your digital video game online. Along with the statistics that I outlined at the beginning of this article, following are some important facts that should be including in your decision to add video into your integrated digital marketing strategy.
- 59% of executives say that they are more likely to choose video if text and video are available.
- Video viewers retain 95% of the message when watched compared to 10% when reading.
- Landing page video can increase conversions by 80% or more.
- Blog posts with video attract 3 times as many inbound links as blog posts without video.
- 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos each week.
- 500 million+ hours of videos are watched on YouTube daily.
- 87% of online marketers use digital video content in their marketing.
- 51% of marketing professionals say video has the best ROI out of all content types.
- A huge 1/3 of all activity online is spent watching video.
- More than 50% of video content is viewed on mobile devices.
B2B Digital Video Is A Must
The question isn’t whether or not digital video is now a must for B2B brands, the question is when and how. With nearly 83% of B2B marketers stating that digital video is the driver of their lead volume, it is pretty clear that video has to be incorporated into your overall digital marketing strategy now.
But how do you do that?
The fact is, if your company is going to quickly get into the online video game, you need resources, expertise and a commitment. There are really just a few choices on how to do that.
1) Recruit and manage your own staff that can execute this internally -or-
2) Partner with an experienced team that can put together a strategy, execute the creative and production components quickly and professionally.
This is part of what we do.
