B2B companies want to use video marketing to make an impression quickly.
These brands hope to be introduced in a way that builds their thought leadership or credibility.
Often, they’ll frontload too many messages, pushing business authority while launching a new product, confusing their audience.
Dismayed with the results, leadership will call it a failure. But that’s because there wasn’t a strategic plan in place – one that embraces both B2B brand messaging and empathetic customer communication.
At the awareness stage of the customer journey, you want to earn your prospect’s trust and broadcast your unique solution to address their problems. You can only reach this goal if you know which kinds of videos are most effective where, how to creatively communicate complex business problems (without being a bore) and what KPIs are most important in measuring the success of your video campaign.
Let’s dive into why and how you should be using video marketing to drive brand awareness for your B2B business and analyze those brands that are doing it well.
Why Video Marketing Works for B2B Brand Awareness
According to a recent study, 85% of all internet users in the United States watched online video content monthly on their devices. Not only is video content preferred by consumers, but it’s easy for them to share with their peers, anytime, anywhere – giving you a wider audience reach.
B2B Marketers recognize the opportunity and promise of online video. In fact, around 62% of B2B marketers said videos help them build brand awareness – and 93% agreed videos give brands more opportunity for storytelling and demonstrating creativity.
And if you’re a marketer marketing to marketers (say that five times fast) you’re going to have to be a little more innovative to grab their attention, the barrier to entry is higher. This means pairing creativity with strategy and a focus on measurable results.
Let’s get to it.
How to Create Video Content That Gets Noticed
When it comes to video creation, short, high-quality videos perform best. Test out different video types, such as brand promotions and live videos on Facebook.
A few other video types include:
- Company Profile/Welcome
- Industry Vision
- Infographic
- Expert Interviews
As for the content itself, like a firm handshake, introduce yourself. Any great business pitch doesn’t just tell viewers what you do, it answers WHY you do it.
Explain how your business creates an impact. What is your story? Better yet, where does your story meet that of your viewer or ideal prospect?
Your message should read as though you’re saying to the audience, “Hi, how are you? Don’t I know you?”
Strategy Roundtable: Key Considerations for Creating a Brand Awareness Video
Your video marketing campaigns should educate and pique the interest of your audience. Focus on what is important to them and show how you can solve their pain points.
Work through these video content creation prompts before getting started:
1. What problem is your B2B business solving? How are potential customers affected?
It is important to get inside the mind of your customer and understand how this problem affects their day-to-day. Your video should demonstrate a knowledge of them and their needs.
Videos during the awareness stage should feel as though you’re hosting friends at a party – be hospitable and generous. By making your audience the focus, not your brand, you avoid creating communications that linger and lag, lacking the punch necessary to keep viewers engaged.
2. Will your audience relate to this video? Does it make them react with an emotional response?
Highlighting a relatable situation will certainly keep your viewer watching. But could it be humorous?
Consider contrasting real-life against fantasy. How would your ideal buyer love to react to an annoying situation versus how they’re forced to react in the constraints of everyday business? Exaggeration can lead to a lot of laugh-inducing video concepts.
Another emotional response instead of amusement? Sentimentality. Think of some pivotal firsts in the life of this person that you’d like to highlight or show what they could experience if this problem didn’t exist at all. Instead of coming up with the fix, imagine a world where everyone uses your product already – what can they focus on instead?
3. Can people see the human side of your company? Which qualities can your videos demonstrate?
As with any content marketing project, you should start creating videos with a clear understanding of your brand.
Go beyond a documented brand and style guide and imagine your company or product as a person. Are they tall or short? Do they wear glasses? How do they walk? Discuss this concept with colleagues and see if you can create a composite of this character. You don’t have to hire an actor, just make sure the tone or feel of this person is present throughout artistic choices.
This is how you create videos that resonate with your target customers and boost brand awareness – people come first.
B2B Brands Building Brand Awareness through Video Marketing
Let’s review some examples of b2b videos that are currently doing a great job of building awareness with their target audiences
Company: Taulia
What they do: Invoicing and Supply Chain Management
Type of video: Brand Promo
Why it works: Very simply, Traulia highlights a problem their user faces and then asks, “What if?” They focus on questions such as:
- What if you paid all your suppliers late?
- How could paying all your suppliers late affect you?
- Could these affects negatively impact your personal life or even your way of life?
Taulia keeps pulling at these strings to highlight cause and effect. It keeps the viewer engaged because they can’t wait to see what happens next. We sort of want to see this blaise employee get punished, right? Well, Traulia delivers while succinctly highlighting their company as a simple solution to this nagging payment needs.
Company: Privy
What they do: Ecommerce Conversion Tools
Type of video: Brand Promo
Why it works: Under thirty seconds and with only one line of dialogue, this a creative and uncomplicated brand promo is A+ work by Privy. Using prompts to easily convey who the buyer is and adding a bit of ridiculousness, we understand that it’s this young man’s birthday. When faced with a choice (ah, what will he choose?!), he opts for the personalized offer.
Answering the oft-asked question for ecommerce businesses, “How can you convert more customers?” Privy simply offers their solution without being pushy or inundating you with a list of features.
Company: Groove
What they do: Helpdesk software
Type of video: Company welcome
Why it works: Groove uses an animated video to introduce customers to their product. It starts by addressing one of their target customers’ pain points (it’s difficult to manage customer support through email) and offers their product as the solution. Introducing this up-front, they set context for the conversation.
Groove provides detailed information about their product, yet it doesn’t seem overwhelming because of the friendly, animated video format. The way they demo the product, although not particularly creative, does a great job of showing what their product can do (the video medium’s great strength is showing) and generates intrigue.
KPIs for Video Brand Awareness Campaigns
Your team needs to integrate your online video platform with your CMS and continually review these items on Google Analytics:
- Social: Number of shares, likes, and retweets of videos.
- Traffic: Percent increase in website visits and referral sources, average number of unique visitors to the homepage, and the difference in number of blog visits and inbound links.
- Views: Number of video views on the homepage (or wherever videos are featured on your website).
While these might seem like basic metrics, we’re simply assessing total exposure of the video. Later in this series, we’ll dive into more around engagement and conversion metrics.
TL; DR (In summary)
To reach your company’s goal of building brand awareness, you need to know which types of videos perform the best (and where to promote them) and understand how to creatively discuss what could be seen as drab business problems. It’s also important you are measuring the right KPIs to determine the success of your video campaigns. This should all be detailed in a strategic plan that focuses on brand messaging and empathetic customer communication.
Get started today by meeting with your team and nailing down which types of videos your B2B company wants to produce – and how you’ll use these videos to earn your target audience’s trust. Use this as your foundation when creating video campaigns that effectively communicate how you can solve your prospects’ problems with your products or services.
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