Brands and customers alike enjoy video marketing – 87% of marketing professionals use video as a marketing tool, after all. But often times, companies are not making the most of their video efforts.
Unsure how to get your leads click into your videos and buy from your brand? Learn our top tricks for increasing lead generation through video marketing:
Why Does Video Marketing Drive Click-Through Rates?
Videos have a way of making prospects interested in learning more about a business by giving just a small taste of what they have to offer.
They are especially impactful if they are part of a strategic content marketing campaign. For this reason, it’s no surprise that 73% of B2B marketers say video positively impacts their ROI
People are watching videos more than ever, and businesses are using videos to drive their click-through rate (CTR) and convert prospects (as they should be).
So, what kinds of video should you create to convert?
A few video types include:
- Customer Testimonial
- Product Demo
- Personalized Sales Follow-up
- Leadership Presentation
- Customer Service Reviews (yes, you can capture these in video format!)
- Tip Series by Support Team
Strategy Roundtable: How to Produce Videos that Boost Lead Generation
1. What’s considered a “conversion” in a content marketing campaign?
In content marketing, a conversion is typically a blog subscription. They’ve enjoyed your educational content, engaging with it, and now they’ve decided to opt-in to receiving on-going communication from you and your brand. Sure, the demand gen team might not be too excited because a simple email collection usually garners less information than a form on a whitepaper. However, when a customer opt-ins for consistent communication, this is more valuable for your brand. And hey, that’s what progressive profiling is for.
Offer the ability for deeper learning on your videos with CTAs to related resources, updates on your video series, or the ability to schedule a demo.
2. Where should you place your call-to-action (CTA)?
More of a video logistics quandary, sorting out the location of your video CTA means your campaign won’t get delayed. All content, video production, demand gen, and the web team should align by talking through how they see a user interacting with this video. What is going to be best for the user experience? You can easily spin-off a new landing page with a form that flanks your video, or almost all OVPs (online video platforms) offer the ability to place a form directly in the video.
3. What are all the valuable actions you can get viewers to take when watching your videos?
Sometimes in the desire to provoke a “conversion” or obtain a lead-form fill, marketers will take away options. Landing pages will be devoid of navigation options or relevant sidebars will disappear. The issue? Putting someone in a vacuum seems more likely to create a negative UX (user experience) or doesn’t allow them to snack on some more trust-building content. Give your prospect these options: the ability to follow on social media, sign up for email updates or notice when a recorded webinar is published. Also, consider a poll – if now isn’t the right time to sign-up, why? Ask for this feedback and provide an “other” option with a fill-in so your data is swayed towards your assumptions.
Another way to engage your viewers and increase your click-through rate is to add interactive video elements, especially because 91% of B2B buyers prefer to consume interactive and visual content.
Viewers will be less hesitant to click on your CTA when they’ve already interacted with your content while watching a video. Look at your content strategy as well as video marketing goals and decide which forms of interactive content are suitable for your specific audience.
Ideal locations to convert prospects are usually where one would expect to be presented with an offer, such as through email, landing pages, or product pages. You already connected with them and earned their trust: now, show them why your company is better than your competitors.
B2B SaaS Video Examples Driving Conversion
Company: Slack
What they do: Communication & Collaboration Tools
Type of video: Explainer/Customer Testimonial
Why it works: Now, Slack is well-known throughout the business community. In 2014 however? Not so much. Ace production company, Sandwich Video, engages you right way with a cast of characters and a story. The Slack product is weaved throughout the quirky culture of their customer, which ideally a communication tool should do – adopt the language, tone, and preferences of the end-users (a flexible product is key here).
And if you’re one for details, this video doesn’t disappoint. As chat cards fly through the air, illustrating conversations, some jokes are only reserved for quick readers amongst us. This perfectly illustrates is how people are still rooted in the real world but work digitally.
It would have been easy to show you the Slack interface, instead we see technology as an accompaniment/enhancement to real people, not a dull video about yet another online tool. (Check out Wistia’s comparison between a $1,000, $10,000, and $100,000 video budget for a product launch, all made by Sandwich Video. It’s a pretty neat analysis about “what you get for your investment” with video marketing.
Company: Adobe Experience Cloud
What they do: Online Marketing and Web Analytics Products
Type of video: Animated Explainer
Why it works: This video certainly assumes that the audience is familiar with the Adobe Creative Suite, and in many cases, already using some of the core products. Going for an upsell, the benefits of buying into a suite membership are presented with simple, engaging visuals. The benefit becomes clear, your audience can take your business further and become a better creative using both the tools and community Adobe offers.
The only critique for Adobe is that at a 00:01:40 the list of features and “things you can do” (“you can do this” ‘you can do that”) gets a bit overwhelming and feels disjointed. Perhaps different personas care about some of these different tools and while the membership video is comprehensive, I would test creating three, tighter videos instead. Remember, you don’t need to tell you audience everything, you need to tell them what they care about – they’ll filter the rest out.
Company: Salesforce
What they do: Business Software for Sales and Marketing
Type of video: Customer Testimonial
Why it works: In a well-polished and high-quality video, Salesforce collects a customer testimonial by Barclay’s. In the beginning, Morgan Weston, Mortgages CEO, clearly articulates the problem his customers face and the critical need for Barclay to provide a solution. The scene is set. Barclay’s history as a prominent and storied business is introduced but we see that they’re struggling with digital transformation, frustrating their users and devaluing their brand as the natural choice.
Salesforce doesn’t enter until halfway through the four-minute video – kudos for making the customer the star of the show! Furthermore, the best b2b marketing videos show how they make the lives of their customers easier and Salesforce gives Barclay the space to pull at this thread. The CEO illustrates how a borrower can get a decision in minutes instead of hours.
Salesforce isn’t directly responsible for saving valuable time for the end-user but is certainly the catalyst for change. Lesson? Always show how you’re making the lives of your customers (or your customer’s customers better)… and interview customers with British accents, they’re much more credible- just kidding!
A quick note on conversion – Often, content marketing and demand gen teams work together, creating campaigns to garner companies more leads. But evaluating content marketing activities by the number of leads, whether multi-touch or last touch attribution, isn’t indicative of the conversations that content drives. A true content marketing conversion is an opt-in, a blog subscription. If the goal of your content is to become a thought leader through engaging blogs, then a viewer or reader who chooses to receive branded content in their inbox holds higher value than a visitor who downloaded one whitepaper without being truly engaged. Sure, we put that second type of content consumer on our email lists anyways (and the practice is questionable), but we shouldn’t be surprised when they unsubscribe. If you’ve created a system to follow leads to sales and attribute actual dollars and pennies to each blog, then GREAT I commend you! Unfortunately, this isn’t a common practice.
Measuring the Impact of Video Marketing Campaigns in Lead Generation
Be sure to track these key metrics for indicators of a marketing-qualified lead, or MQL. They’re heatin’ up!
- Traffic: CTA clicks and landing page visits (be sure to review User Flow in Google Analytics as well!).
- Time: Average time before purchase, average lead velocity rate, and rate of cart abandonment.
- Opt-ins: Total video landing page form completions, rate of email subscriber list growth, and number of email opens.
- Sales: The total number of sales or pipeline opportunities created or click-to-purchase in shoppable video players.
Video marketing has endless potential if you have a solid content strategy in place and don’t expect immediate results. Implement tactics you know will resonate with your audience and remain in-line with your content marketing goals.
Start out by looking over the content you’ve already created and match it with your sales process. Think about the information you’ve given your prospects and the questions they have about your business.
Now, create the type of content that best speaks to their needs and show them what makes your company unique.
Read More of the Creative B2B Video Series
Awareness: How to Use Video Marketing to Drive Brand Awareness for Your B2B Business
Engagement: Content Marketing Strategy: How to Create Engaging B2B Videos
Conversion: Improving Lead Generation and Opt-Ins with Video Marketing
Retention: How to Use Video to Retain B2B Customers
Advocacy: Create Lasting Relationships Using Video for a B2B Customer Advocacy Campaign
