Audiences crave video. And with 74 percent of all internet traffic projected to come from video by 2017, it’s foolish for marketers not to serve it up to their prospects and customers, establishing and furthering relationships with their brand.
Video tells a story and guides your audience through the customer journey like no other medium can. But when it comes to getting started with a video marketing strategy, many of us are stuck at a roadblock, wondering what type of video content to produce and how to produce it. In this post, we’ll explain five simple videos for your enterprise content strategy meant to engage customers and prospects at every stage of the customer journey.
1. Thought Leadership Videos
Best Customer Lifecycle Stages: Awareness
Your audience is facing a problem. Your brand offers a solution. But many challenges aren’t so black and white. There are lots of questions from your prospect, and trust is still being established.
Creating awareness can be an ever-moving obstacle for most marketers. In many cases you’re actually marketing to the “pre-awareness” stage, trying to cultivate an understanding of a problem.
When done well, thought-leadership content highlights your brand’s expertise to create the awareness you are in need of.
When looking to spread awareness, video gets you noticed because video reaches 3x as many people and gets 20% more attention than standard blog posts.
Thought leadership content is produced to help educate and inspire during the very early stages of the awareness stage, generating goodwill. Your audience is just starting to ask questions and they’re seeking the best answers to solve their problems. Your brand can make a positive impact early in this customer journey by positioning your company’s subject matter experts as their trusted advisors.
Video reaches 3x as many people and gets 20% more attention than standard blog posts.
-Contently
Get creative and add authority to your brand. Craft thought leadership videos like interviews, webinars, and event coverage videos to create buzz. Executives, account managers, digital marketers; they all know your audience and possess the experience to educate viewers and stimulate interest and awareness.
Want to see some companies doing it well? In How to Use Video Marketing to Drive Brand Awareness for Your B2B Business we break down some examples.
Thought Leadership Video Best Practices
Answer Prospect Questions: At this point in the journey, audiences crave information. Steal a note from the classroom style format and try a webinar. Webinars have shown to be consistent drivers of engagements for brands with 78% of buyers listing webinars as content used to make B2B purchasing decisions.
The controlled environment of a webinar allows you to tell the story while still having direct interactions with prospects and customers through Q&A. Not only are webinars great for live event streaming, but on-demand video can be utilized post-event for social promotions and email nurture campaigns.
Use Expert Opinions: Interviews allow audiences to engage directly with experts.his humanizes your business, helping the consumer to associate your name with individuals they feel expertly understand their problem.
Immerse Yourself in the Community: You’re asking your audience to invest in your solution and should, therefore, be an expert in the community you’re serving. Conferences and showcases are a hub for industry influencers. Presentations, panels, and roundtables naturally position you as a subject matter expert. Live streams this content and and later make it available as video-on-demand – and make it easy to find, not hidden away in some rarely visited “webinars” section of your site. Reduce redundancies and find ways to continue the conversation and reuse event content.
2. Instructional and ‘How To’ Videos
Best Customer Lifecycle Stages: Awareness, Engagement
Once they’re aware they have a problem, audiences actively search. So it’s vital that the keywords from your site SEO strategy are integrated into that of your video marketing.
Conveniently, “how to” videos have titles that are naturally query-driven ( i.e.: ‘How To Perform Keyword Research’). Video content that correlates highly to the user’s intent guarantees a better user experience and one less hurdle to purchasing. It’s no wonder then that explainer videos can increase conversion.
If you’re planning to develop a collection of “how to” videos for your site, host them on individual pages so search engines can index each video asset individually. Embedding all of your videos on the same page does nothing to aid your sitemap’s size or authority and makes it difficult for the searcher to find the content they’re looking for.
Instructional Video Best Practices
Have a Great Script: A great script not only educates but engages as well. When drafting your script consider your audience and be sure be sure your content is giving them the answers they’re looking for while still embodying the tone and voice of your brand. It’s important to write it down because being engaging and educating all at the same time can be hard!
Don’t Overthink the Creative: The simplest how-to videos are produced with two shots, one with your instructor speaking into the camera and a secondary camera angle collecting demonstrative footage. Also, don’t forget, not every video has to be live action, use screen grabs and images that supplement what you are explaining. Being quick and direct.
Capitalize on Curiosity: Interactivity is a fantastic tool to keep audiences engaged and assess knowledge retention of your how-to video. Once you’ve attracted an audience, keep them engaged by introducing interactive elements like quizzes, questions, and polls to entice your audience as they watch. Not only does interactivity increase engagement earlier in the customer journey, but it allows you to review analytics to see how the viewer chose to control their experience and the flow of information. Examining this interaction with your video content, you can react and test the actual video content or decide on different interactive options and content suggestions to drive action.
Want to see some companies doing it well? In Content Marketing Strategy: How to Create Engaging B2B Videos we break down some examples.
3. Product Demonstration Videos
Best Customer Lifecycle Stages: Engagement, Conversion
How do you get them to seal the deal and make the purchase? Product demos work well because prospect questions are answered, and you effectively mitigated any concerns. In fact, 90% of users say that watching a product video assists in their purchasing decision. this is the optimal moment to guide your prospect to conversion.
Product demonstrations work wonders in the engagement stage because they stimulate interest through explanatory information paired with sight, sound, and movement. This helps a prospective customer understand what it is to use or own your product or service. Video almost makes this feel “true-to-life”. According to eMarketer, 4x as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. This is where video drives engagement through the customer or buyer journey. By seeing your product in practice, prospects can better visualize their unique challenges overcome. This content paired with the feeling of success elicits a sense of ownership pre-purchase.
Viewers are 4x more likely to want to watch a product video than read a description.
-eMarketer
Product Demo Video Best Practices
Tell a Winning Story: The main reason product demos fail? They are too product-focused. Yes, your viewers want to go deeper but ultimately they need to know this product is aligned with their goals. So, how will your product or service achieve these goals and why is it the superior option in comparison to all products on the market? Think big picture here and remember that needs evolve. This is a great time to bring up periphery problems or issues that your prospect hasn’t even thought of, and position the value your solution delivers across the board.
Use Analytics: One of video’s advantages is its insight into viewer behavior over other content marketing mediums. Review your video analytics of previous product demos to determine who’s watching your video, how long they watched it, and any actions inspired after the fact. How can you keep this prospect engaged?
Sync with Sales: Be sure to connect with your sales team to find out how the content was received. Which questions do customers and prospects still want answered? Can you create a playlist or other type of content path with video to accelerate lead velocity?
Want to see some companies doing it well? In Improving Lead Generation and Opt-Ins with Video Marketing we break down some examples.
4. Case Studies and Customer Testimonial Videos
Best Customer Lifecycle Stages: Conversion, Retention
Consumers and service evaluators like to learn from their peers. Customer testimonials showcase your proven solution to those exact problems and leverage the brand power of your current customers, increasing your brand’s authority within the market while resonating with your target personas.
82% of marketers use case studies as one of their content marketing tactics.
-Content Marketing Institute
Case studies offer the vital social proof customers need in the conversion stage. This emotional, “feel good” endorsement of your brand is powerful. It validates the (soon-to-be) customer’s choice. Last minute hesitations melt away.
Case studies also offer tremendous versatility. Whether they’re used as stand-alone content or integrated into blog posts, press releases, or landing pages; case studies give you valuable content for all of your digital marketing efforts.
Video Case Study Best Practices
Pick a Relatable Customer and Target Your Audience: Make sure you’re highlighting a customer whose challenges are universal or similar to those of your prospects. Sometimes customers will use different products in different ways, for example as a video technology company we have customers who use us for live events, internal communications, or demandgen. Each case study needs to be crystalline in its focus.
Deliver Compelling Data: Verbal testimonials give your prospect a sense of relief that your solutions work, but it is numbers and hard data that will push them from engagement to conversion. Conclude with customer results to demonstrate impact.
Get Specific: Though your customer may be benefitting from your solution in a multitude of ways, direct them to devote focus to where they see seeing the strongest results. The clarity frees the viewer from distractions and gives them tangible strategies for a specific, yet prolific problem. A lack of specificity is where many a marketer goes wrong in their content marketing strategy.
Want to see some companies doing it well? In How to Use Video to Retain B2B Customers we break down some examples.
5. Company Culture Videos
Best Customer Lifecycle Stages: Advocacy
People want to do business with those that they like and companies that embody their values. In fact, brands that inspire a higher emotional intensity receive 3x as much word-of-mouth marketing as less emotionally connected brands. Use video to project your business’s personality to the world and gain brand advocates who willingly engage and share your messages.
Humanize your brand and offer a behind the scenes look with video. Not only are you able to showcase your company’s greatest assets (your employees) to prospective customers, but you’re also propping open the door for future talent down the line. This can have significant benefits for your recruitment initiatives.
Company Culture Video Best Practices
Show Them, Don’t Just Tell Them: You don’t want them to just hear why your company is great to work with, show them. Use video to bring customers around the office and let them see all the aspects of a day in the life. Which visual elements align with your brand beside your website?
Capitalize on Internal Advocates: Your employees know your brand best and, chances are, there’s more than one reason they’ve stuck around this long. They’re your internal advocates.
Join Forces with Your HR and PR Teams: If you’re anything like Brightcove, you’re a ton of fun, and not afraid to show it! Launch parties, happy hours, trendy online challenges: look for opportunities to showcase your company as a collection of great people.
Want to see some companies doing it well? In Create Lasting Relationships Using Video for a B2B Customer Advocacy Campaign we break down some examples.
A version of this post appeared on the Brightcove Video Marketing Blog, December 22nd, 2016. It was edited for clarity, brand impartiality, and relevance and republished April 1st, 2020. Enjoy!
