How to get started with Video Marketing — B2B Video Marketing Strategy

In 2019 it would probably seem naive on my part to say Video is essential to your marketing strategy. However, I am surprised to see how few B2B marketers in India are using Video as part of their Marketing Mix. With every passing year, we have seen the significance of Video from a marketing standpoint get bigger and bigger. Today, no matter what size your business is or what lifecycle stage it is in, If you are not using video as a tactic to connect with your audience and amplify your brand/product you will be left behind.

Video Marketing is no longer a luxury or privilege of the bigger brands but has become a must-have communication tool for any marketing strategy. Smart Marketers are using Video to promote their products or services, attract prospects and convert them into loyal customers. Whether you’re B2B or B2C, video can help you tackle a range of challenges across your organisation.

The biggest concern with Video has always been how to track performance and measure ROI, but these are all in the past making video one of the most sought-after Marketing tactics.

Just as there is no such thing as a special pasta sauce that appeals to everyone, there exists no magic video that can take care of entire marketing needs of a business. Producing one or two videos and putting it out hoping for customers to line up is asking for trouble. Nowadays, you have to build personalized content and deliver it to your audience at the right time in the right place. To achieve this one requires a clear actionable plan, and to many marketers, how to get started building your Video Marketing Strategy may seem a bit overwhelming. So in this article, we are going to share a few tips on how you can kick off your video marketing strategy.

1. Start by defining the purpose for your Videos

Creating Videos just because you can is not a wise idea. To use Video as a persuasive communication and marketing tool, you have to first think about what you want to achieve. What are the business objectives or marketing objectives that you wish to achieve and is Video an excellent tool to help you achieve them?

E.g., Do you want to increase the conversion rate on your website?
Do you want to increase the engagement rate?
Do you want to spread brand awareness? or
Maybe you want to increase your engaged audience on Social media.

A great way to start would be to create small videos targeted to help you achieve a few final goals.

2. Define realistic goals for your video Strategy

Many Marketers make a common mistake of trying too many things in too few a videos. Just like a blog and a book are two different written formats that serve a different purpose. You can produce different form of videos that serve different purposes or solve problems in different parts of your business. Determine what you want to achieve with a single video and then tackle that objective.

Let me give you a few examples to get started

• The HR department could use a few Videos to make the on-boarding process easier, and You could create a few videos to help in recruitment.
• For Marketing, you could create videos to explain your product or services or release a series of Branded video to increase awareness on social channels and nurture your leads and build trust.
• Your Sales department, could use videos such as client testimonials on the sales page to improve conversion, explain Offers/proposals or even use video as part of their after sales support and service tool.
• Internal Communication is another excellent place for videos in more significant organisation where it can be used by Management to connect with employees, Deliver cost-effective training or even bring everyone together.
• Now that seems like many ideas, but you don’t have to get ambitious and try to tackle all these objectives at the same time. As I mentioned earlier, we don’t have to build everything at the same time. You can always start small and build Smart Goals that bring maximum value to your business.

3. Align with the Inbound Methodology

As a Marketing tactic, the videos you produce should help you move your customer forward in their buying cycle. If you align your video production strategy to the stages of the inbound methodology, it can help you make better content that connects with your audience. No matter what stage your customer is, there is always a video marketing strategy you can build to engage them and help achieve your goals.

You can produce different types of content to engage your customer at a different stage of their buying cycle.

Below we have a few ideas that can get you started :

• At the Attract phase, you can build attention-grabbing videos, Brand Awareness content, Educational content, Company Culture Videos, Product Comparison guides, explainer videos, or even Vlogs.
• At the Engage phase, you could have Webinars, Product Demos, Live streaming content, Customer Stories, FAQ Videos & testimonials
• At Delight phase you could have Tutorials, Educational Content, Customer stories & thank you videos.

When one is building a Video Marketing Strategy, it’s always a good idea to think about how you can build connected content as your target audience moves forward in their buying journey. The More connected your flow, the better the result.
4. Know your Audience and Build Video for them As you start aligning your Videos to your Marketing funnel, ask yourself the following questions

• Where will my audience consume this piece of content? Social media or on my website
• What is the best format to deliver the message?
• What should be the duration of the video?
• What should be the tone & style of my video to engage with my audience?

CONCLUSION

To conclude, Video Marketing is one of the most powerful tools in the hands of a marketer as it has one of the highest conversion rates. It can play an integral role at every stage of your buyer’s journey. Moreover, the more places you include video in your content marketing strategy, the easier you make for your customers to get accelerated on the path to purchase.

If you want to know more about Video marketing tactics, feel free to download our popular ebook on video Marketing Trends