Video marketing on a B2B tech website

“Content marketing isn’t just about the written blog anymore. We’re now creating video content to explain ideas and answer questions. Our websites need videos to explain things transparently.” – Tyler Lessard, VP of Marketing and Chief Video Strategist at Vidyard

As we all know, the pandemic has shifted B2B buyer behaviour. Working from home has accelerated the transition to digital-first buying B2B buying experiences. According to Mckinsey’s report, 70-80% of B2B decision-makers prefer remote human action or digital self-service rather than in-person. In response, B2B marketers need to adopt digital marketing with full dedication, to meet B2B buyers where they are.

Recent trends in digital marketing have seen video become one of the best formats to engage with B2B audiences. Even five to 10 years ago, videos were considered elite content media, but now, advances in technology mean video production is accessible to everyone. Nowadays, video content can be produced at a lower cost and at a greater scale, so video marketing has become one of the key marketing strategies for B2B marketers.

What is video marketing?

Video marketing is defined as a digital strategy that leverages the power of video to attract, engage, and convert an audience into prospects or customers. For instance, on a B2B website, this could be brand videos, demo videos, educational videos, and much more, to make up a video marketing strategy. These different kinds of videos increase engagement on a B2B website and enhance interactions with audiences to create a more impressionable and lasting connection.

Why should B2B tech marketers consider video marketing?

As millennials gradually dominate the B2B tech buyer demographic, B2B marketers must cater to their needs and preferences and understand how they want to be talked to.  Even across generations, video has become widely accepted as a media format, with many B2B buyers expecting videos to be a part of their sales journey.

Here are some important statistics highlighting the importance of embedding videos on your B2B website:

• 70% of millennials trust brands with videos about their products more than those without videos
• Over half of Gen Z trust brands with videos more than those brands that don’t use video
• 60% of Gen X prefer to learn new brands via video
• 41% of baby boomers find video helpful to make purchase decisions

By these stats, it’s evident that video plays an important role in influencing B2B buyers’ decisions. Plus, video sends messages through visual and auditory senses, as it creates a multi-sensory that can catch consumers’ eyes and make a long-lasting impression. 

Research found that 90% of information transmitted to the human brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text! It’s no wonder that video provides B2B buyers with a shortcut to grasping messages with ease. 

But what are the different ways to leverage videos on B2B websites? Here are five ways to influence your B2B buyers decision-making process with video marketing.

Brand Videos

Trust is a fundamental element in B2B tech marketing, as high cost and complex solutions mean B2B decision-makers are taking a big risk when it comes to buying on behalf of their companies. Video marketing can aid this trust-building by increasing engagement and delivering a brand message with ease.

Company introduction videos help B2B tech brands stand out and create a good first impression. Kept short and snappy, prospects can quickly overview what service the company offers, while enhancing the brand message

Take a look at EdTech company Learnosity on their about us page. They have a brand video that highlights their purpose and mission. 

The video gives the B2B website a friendly atmosphere, to set the tone for the rest of the B2B buying journey.

Demo Videos

According to the B2B Buying Disconnect Report, 87% of buyers want to self-serve part or all of their buying journeys. 57% of buyers already make purchase decisions without ever talking with sales! 

Switching the conversion CTA on a B2B website from “book a demo” to “watch a demo” could make a huge impact. On the FINITE Podcast with Tyler Lessard, he mentioned that the B2B tech companies whose prospects could view demos were able to better identify qualified leads and the length of their sales cycle was shortened.

As an example, look at FinTech organisation Soldo. Instead of directly arranging meetings with sales, Soldo provides a 10-minute video demo option to help prospects discover how to set up and use Soldo’s spend and expense management platform. 

With video demos, marketers can analyse the curve to pinpoint where the most leads are most engaged throughout the demo, to collect and analyse their prospect’s watching behaviour. With this, they can finetune their video demo and find out which parts are most and least important to viewers.

Testimonial Videos

B2B buyers are companies’ best brand ambassadors due to the psychological phenomenon of social proof. By seeing other similar businesses using a certain product or service, testimonial videos can leverage social proof to reinforce prospects’ confidence in their decision-making. 

For example, look at Enterprise software company Zuken. Zuken invited their customers to talk about the wonderful service that they provided. Testimonial videos can fully convey the emotional side of current clients overcoming their pain points. This reassures prospects that client stories are genuine, which can reduce the anxiety they might experience in the face of a high-stakes purchase decision. 

Case Study Videos

Similar to testimonial videos, case study videos are another way to showcase companies’ success with current clients. The B2B buyers Insight Report 2021 found that case studies are an important resource for B2B buyers since over 70% rely on them during their research process. 

As human eyes are more attracted to movement, case studies in video format are much more intriguing than written ones. Moreover, if potential buyers find that the content in videos relates to their own business challenges, they’ll endeavour to find out more about how the company can solve these.

For instance, look at SaaS organisation Immerse. They delivered their case studies as videos so that potential leads could grasp the message easily and see real-life evidence of other businesses using their solution. The multi-sensory effect makes their product more memorable.

Recorded webinars

Recorded webinars can showcase a company’s perspective on the industry in which they serve while demonstrating expertise and delivering solutions. When prospects are interested in a webinar on a B2B website because it addresses their pain points, they might stay longer on the website and discover more solutions. 

With tracking and analytics in place, B2B marketers can analyse this website behaviour to know which pages are most popular, and of course, from an SEO perspective, longer user visits can boost the domain authority of a B2B website.

Furthermore, recorded webinars could be considered evergreen content that could consistently drive traffic to a website.According to Gartner, B2B buyers who received helpful information from suppliers were 2.8 times more likely to experience a high degree of purchase ease and prospects are three times more likely to buy a bigger deal with less regret. More importantly, it gives the impression that B2B companies don’t want to just sell, but to genuinely help their buyers, which creates a positive impression and adds sincerity to the brand’s image.

Summary

Video marketing derives from sensory marketing, which leverages the human senses to gain attention and help them to store messages longer. It creates engagement with B2B buyers and allows marketers to shorten the sales cycle and identify potential leads. 

The examples mentioned above are the common formats you could implement onto your B2B tech website. To learn more about video marketing, listen to our FINITE Podcast episode with Tyler ​​Lessard, the VP of Marketing and Chief Video Strategist at Vidyard.