Video does what text can’t: It creates an immediate, real and authentic route of interaction and connectivity with audience members. This presents opportunities for businesses to inspire, evoke emotion and appeal to the needs of their audience in a real and authentic way.
That’s why video marketing is on the rise in B2B marketing. According to the most recent annual survey by Wyzowl, the use of video has grown every year for the past three years. In 2017, 63 percent of marketers were using video to promote their business. In 2018, the percentage jumped to 81. Today, 87 percent of marketers leverage the power of video to transform their marketing programs.
The 2018 State of Video Marketing Report found that 83 percent of B2B and mixed B2B/B2C companies say that video is more important than ever for marketing and sales. Twelve percent say its importance has not changed, which means 95 percent say video is either as important or more important than before.
As video’s growth trajectory rises, many B2B marketers have questions. And we have answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about video marketing including the following.
According to the Wyzowl survey, B2B companies cited the following ways that video is helping improve the result of their marketing programs:
Good news on that front. In the same survey, 83 percent of marketers say video gives them positive ROI (up from 78 percent in 2018).
Yes. Google’s algorithms are increasingly prioritizing websites with video content. When Google robots crawl your site they are looking for several indicators, including page quality, relevance and keyword instances. Multimedia objects add value to all three of these metrics. Adding videos specifically helps increase your search engine results page (SERP) rank in a few key ways:
This is important because creating videos isn’t enough — you need to actually publish your videos everywhere it makes sense. There are a variety of effective ways companies are getting more people to view their videos. Here are some examples.
Yes. In fact, videos are perfect message delivery systems for websites. Their benefits include:
Yes. The power of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, WhatsApp and more are intensified when companies post videos on social media platforms. Video consumption is growing rapidly on media platforms.
Yes. Blog posts with videos perform well. In just one example, blogs with videos will attract almost three times more linking domains than a post with text only. Linking domains are sites that link to your site.
Video marketing does not have to be expensive. Costs can range from low to high. For example, on a minimal budget, you can curate relevant videos into a marketing campaign. On the high end, you can hire professionals to produce high-quality videos with all the bells and whistles. And, of course, there is everything in between. The bottom line is that the cost of video marketing varies from one company to another, depending on many factors.
The first consideration is your target market. Identify the demographics of the people you want to reach. After identifying your target audience, determine their likes and interests. Consider how you can translate their preferences into video content. The best place to start is with your buyer personas. They will tell you what you need to know to get started on the right foot with messages that match your ideal customers. Then begin experimenting with a few different kinds of videos, different lengths and different messages to discover which formats perform best.
Videos work at every stage of the buyer’s journey. Here are some ideas of the types of videos you can incorporate at each step of the sales cycle:
Like any other form of marketing, video marketing improves the more you engage with it. Here are some tips to get better at video marketing:
Video can be a powerful weapon in your marketing strategy. But don’t create video for the sake of creating video. Make sure each one has a message that is true to your brand and valuable to your audience.