Remember when online videos were not enjoyable to watch? They buffered too long, and every now and again they’d freeze, requiring you to refresh the page to continue, and so on. Lucky for us, those days are long gone. The Internet has become much faster, the streaming improved, and now, many people actually enjoy watching online video content. According to Google statistics published in 2015, 70% of B2B buyers watched video content along their path to purchase. That’s a 52% increase from two years prior, signalling a massive shift.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN B2B AND B2C VIDEOS?
It might seem that B2B video marketing is the same as B2C. After all, in both cases your goal is to engage your target audience with the help of video content, and to track the effectiveness of each campaign. Your content marketing needs to be tied to your brand identity and remain consistent—that remains true for both B2B and B2C videos as well. However, there are some differences between the two that are worth noting.
LENGTH
In general, B2C videos are shorter than their B2B counterparts. That’s because the main goal of B2C videos is to raise awareness about a product or service, and to show exactly how it can solve the customer’s problems. Usually, you don’t need much time to convey that. When it comes to B2B videos, however, the goal is to persuade customers to spend some money (often a lot of money) on something. This requires some serious convincing, and that’s why the length of B2B videos usually varies between 90 seconds and 3 minutes.
CONTENT
B2B content has to be useful. You can experiment with it, but most of the time you need to remain professional and offer as much practical information as you can. B2C content, although it still needs to be relevant, can be far less formal. With these videos, the main goal is to make the content memorable and impressive at first glance. In summation, B2B videos are often made to answer customer questions, while B2C content focusses predominantly on raising brand awareness. So, if you’ve been thinking about using B2B videos in your next marketing campaign, the answer is definitely yes! Here are some valuable reasons for integrating this type of content into your marketing strategy.
1: VIDEOS ARE ATTENTION-GRABBING
According to Business 2 Community, a video is one of the most effective tools to reach people with short attention spans or those who are short on time. With so much media saturation these days, individuals inevitably won’t view all the content they come across online. For many, videos are much more easy to consume and often take less time to do so. The stimulating nature of moving images captures our attention quickly and has a better chance of evoking emotion from customers than, say, written content. This video created by Slack is one of the best examples of an effective and attention-grabbing B2B video. It raises curiosity and makes a great case for its product, but does so in a very relaxed and easily relatable manner.
2: B2B VIDEOS ARE GOOD FOR LONG SALES CYCLES
Does video content work when a purchase isn’t quick or spontaneous? Yes. In fact, it could be particularly effective in this case, assuming marketers and content creators play their cards right. The key here is to mix brand videos (that raise awareness) with direct response ones (that drive purchase). When combined, these two types of videos help guide the buyer through the entire purchase journey.
First, videos are created to spark the buyer’s interest. However, it might take 5 or 10 attempts to get the customer to actually make a purchase. This is where supplemental, direct response videos come into play, offering relevant, specific information about the product or service. This, in addition to consistent brand awareness, can help drive larger and longer sales over the finish line.
3: B2B VIDEOS DON’T REQUIRE A BIG BUDGET
Sure, it’s great when you can invest money in crafting high-quality B2B videos. However, even if you don’t have much cash to spare, you can still come up with a successful video. Just take a look at this video created by the Risual company. They didn’t pay for casting and they didn’t invest in staging. Instead, they decided to be creative and humorous, featuring a sarcastic voiceover and images of the office and its employees. The end result is a winning example of using your resources to create something greater than the sum of its parts.
4: VIDEOS CAN NOW BE EASILY UPLOADED TO LINKEDIN
While Facebook and many other social media platforms can help you reach your audience with video content, they aren’t necessarily the best ones for B2B marketing. Social media is, unsurprisingly, associated with various aspects of one’s social life—so work-related videos don’t always perform well in these venues. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is great for uploading B2B videos in an appropriate and still somewhat social environment. Here, it’s more possible to target and reach a specific B2B audience, whether that’s young entrepreneurs or established enterprises. Until recently, uploading videos to LinkedIn was a real challenge. However, last year the platform launched a native video uploading feature, making the process easier than ever.
Therefore, if you do want to boost the potential of your B2B marketing, consider LinkedIn as your primary platform for posting video content. Don’t waste an opportunity to maximise your video marketing efforts!
