3 Ways to Successfully Use Video on your B2B Website

Video and other interactive content isn’t just for consumer products anymore. Whether it’s B2B or B2C, you are ultimately always marketing to a human being with the same inherent social needs and entertainment desires. You want to stand out from the competition, create company loyalty, and ultimately, cultivate brand evangelists who will tell their networks how your product or service was the solution to their greatest professional pain point. Video can help you on that customer experience journey.

A recent study released by Insivia detailed just how critical a comprehensive video strategy is to overall marketing efforts, including statistics like:

• By 2017, online video will account for 74 percent of all online traffic.
• Fifty-five percent of people watch videos online every day.
• Including video in a landing page can increase conversion by 80 percent.
• Almost 50 percent of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store.
• 4x as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it.
• People spend on average 2.6x more time on pages with video than without.

The importance of including video on your B2B website and within your marketing strategy is undeniable. The following are three types of highly effective B2B video formats to consider when deciding the specifics of your video content, scripts, visuals, and goals.

User Interface

Taking something as dry as interactive platforms and software and making it engaging, inviting, and strategic is the goal of a video showcasing your brand’s user interface. Make your two-dimensional product come to life as a live solution that solves your prospect’s greatest three-dimensional pain points with an informative, short clip of your product’s dashboard and top features. Keep this video short, to discourage viewers from navigating away from inherently boring content before they view your suggested next steps. Complete the video by inviting your prospect to take the next step in the buyer’s journey such as scheduling a conversation with sales or a live, interactive, and complete product demo.

Check out this example of a user interface video that really hits the mark from Mendix.

Problem-Solving

There is arguably nothing more effective than a video that connects with a prospect’s greatest challenges and professional needs, and serves them the ideal content for their stage in the buyer’s journey. These types of videos are highly successful conversion tactics if appropriately and simply gated, or give prospects what they need in terms of next steps. Components include connecting with the viewer, outlining their challenges, telling the story of their solution journey, and positioning your product or service as the antidote to their problems.

Check out this example from a SmartBug Media client who recently launched a new brand identity.

Storytelling

The age-old power of storytelling will always compel people to take action. The most memorable Super Bowl commercials are always those that tell a story. Connecting with the viewer and showcasing a situation that is relevant, informative, and emotional—and while providing an ideal solution—not only supports movement through the buyer’s journey, it’s memorable and shareable. Video case studies fall under this umbrella and are essential to creating a memorable user experience. Using interviews, quotes, and live footage is key to making these types of video effective.

You might also wonder how long your video should be for best engagement. More than ever, consumers are digesting information in smaller bits and video engagement follows that same market trend. Wista, internet video hosting and analytics company, studied engagement in over one-half million videos to arrive at this chart plotting engagement in relation to video length. Their consensus? Under two minutes is the ideal length for a video.

As a marketing professional, proving ROI for your efforts is an industry-wide challenge. That’s why it’s important to link video efforts to conversion goals (what do you want the viewer to do next and how can you measure that?), and engagement metrics. Wistia is also an effective tool for analyzing video engagement and learning more about your visitors’ experience on your site, and the preferred video analytics platform for SmartBug Media clients. When creating a video, ensure it’s part of a larger campaign strategy and clearly define its position in the buyer’s journey. Have a plan for next steps for your viewer that make sense in their path to purchase.