With the competition for attention online the hottest it’s ever been right across the board, a solid B2B video marketing campaign needs to be built into every inbound marketing strategy.
The B2C world has, of course, been making great use of video marketing for a long time – for as long as there have been television commercials featuring video content, in fact. But B2B is only just now starting to catch up with its video marketing strategy – and it's about time, too. Incorporating customer testimonial videos into their approach can greatly enhance B2B businesses' marketing efforts.
However, you might think that your services and/or products don’t have enough glitz and glamour to lend themselves well to an entertaining B2B video marketing campaign. And this, indeed, is the inbound marketing challenge that many B2B companies face no matter what content they use to attract new traffic and customers. Finding engaging ways to blog about your “boring” business is often tricky enough, let alone inject enough excitement into the subject to create a video fit to compete with all the cool stuff being thrown up from B2C.
But that’s not to say that it can’t be done. With a little creativity, everything from FinTech to SaaS to IT security can be lifted out of lifelessness with a compelling B2B video marketing campaign.
There are plenty of B2B companies which are doing this already. Below, we’ve picked out four of the very best of them in order to give you some inspiration for how you too can take your B2B video marketing content to new and exciting levels.
Let’s take a look…
Check out the following articles to learn more about video marketing:
On the surface, Slack is a messenger app – and there are hundreds if not thousands of those things knocking about already.
But Slack wants to position itself as the number one communication tool for businesses. What’s more, it wants teams to have a bit of fun while they’re doing so. And so, naturally enough, the B2B video marketing campaign – “So Yeah, We Tried Slack…” – Slack created is filled with plenty of humour and playful moments. Check it out…
The video’s narrative follows Sandwich Video – the video marketing company Slack hired in – as the team falls in love with the very app they’re making a video about. In this sense, “So Yeah, We Tried Slack…” becomes a case study, doubling the impact of the promotion.
Notice, too, how the video marketers have strategically used the marketing video to showcase all the most useful features of the Slack application. This approach maintains an engaging and almost "mockumentary" style. Jokes about the video's script (which, of course, is scripted itself) serve to both amuse and draw attention to all the best aspects of Slack, effectively targeting the intended audience. It's a clever and engaging approach that resonates with viewers.
If there’s one thing that practically all inbound marketing content strategies have in common, it’s that they need to arouse the curiosity of prospects. And that certainly seems to be the primary tactic of this somewhat eccentric piece of B2B video marketing from Risual – “Risual Corporate Video”.
Take a look…
It’s all a bit bonkers, really – and in fact there’s very little actual information delivered about what Risual actually does.
Nonetheless, the bizarreness and vagueness combined create plenty of curiosity, and the picture is painted that this company is full of creative and interesting people who are likely to be fun and agreeable to work with. In this sense, this is a video that sits squarely right at the very top of the sales funnel – designed entirely to create online videos, create videos, and attract potential customers, encouraging them to click around the Risual site to find out more.
A risky strategy, perhaps, but one that can pay off if the production quality is good enough, which it most certainly is in this instance.
Here’s a great animated video from Eloqua (now owned by Oracle) that surfaced a few years ago. It tells the tale of Modern Mark on his quest towards modern marketing.
The video in fact is a trailer for a mini-series of four further videos which feature the valiant Mark as he takes prospects through the marketing solutions Eloqua/Oracle provide for B2B customers – Targeting, Engagement, Conversion, and Analysis.
The key takeaway from this B2B video marketing campaign is that you don’t have to try and squeeze everything you want to say into a single video. A series of videos such as this keeps prospects engaged with your brand for longer, and, if you can create a multi-chaptered story, then you will be able to more adequately address your prospects’ different needs as you coax them down the sales funnel.
This video from stock footage company Dissolve takes a parody approach to bring life to a somewhat scathing poem by Kendra Eash, entitled ‘This Is A Generic Brand Video’.
The video itself takes the same name.
This B2B video marketing piece is intriguing because it both satirizes numerous B2B marketing videos and simultaneously intends to motivate B2B brands to incorporate elements of digital marketing, audio, and visual elements, as well as integrate testimonial videos into their strategies seamlessly.
However, as confusing as that might sound, the message is nonetheless clear – “Stop making generic brand videos and do something different.”
It's candid, sarcastic, and filled with absolutely beautiful stock video footage from Dissolve itself. What makes the vid so hard-hitting is its emotional resonance. It both amuses and annoys viewers through its mockery of the generic brand video, all while leaving them determined to create something better. It's not just a great video; it's a great marketing campaign, utilising social media platforms as a marketing tool and featuring an explainer video to deliver its message effectively.
In today’s world, the simple fact is that no inbound marketing strategy is complete without a strong and engaging video marketing campaign backing it up. This has been true for B2C companies forever, but today, B2B video marketing is just as important. Use the B2B video marketing examples above to take inspiration for how to do it right, and add one of the most engaging and persuasive inbound marketing tactics available today to your arsenal.