Video Marketing Strategies for B2B Marketers Who Want to Nurture Leads & Drive Conversions

Video has always been an effective means of marketing businesses and engaging target audiences because video captures the senses and communicates ideas quickly. Video-sharing platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, and short-form video content platforms like Vine, have provided an outlet for brands to tell their stories, nurture their leads, and drive their conversions.

According to comScore’s “2014 U.S. Digital Future in Focus,” marketers have discovered that online video is particularly effective at driving brand and sales lift metrics, despite CPMs that often surpass that of television.

According to the same comScore report, 84% of Americans watch online video, with Millennials spending 48% more time engaging with online video content than average. But how does this translate into raw numbers? According to comScore’s September 2014 U.S. Desktop Online Video Rankings, 192.2 million Americans watched online videos on desktop in September 2014.

Globally, online video’s reach is nothing short of staggering. YouTube receives more than 1 billion unique visitors each month, and over 6 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube each month. Consequentially, there are now millions of YouTube video content creators, and thousands of channels earn six figures or more each year.

Optimizing Video Content to Nurture Leads and Drive Conversions

Businesses and digital marketers are channeling their resources toward video content production and distribution. In “The Ultimate Video Playbook,” the community platform Visual.ly claims that 70% of B2B marketers turn to video to market products and services for three main reasons:

1. Viewers find videos to be more engaging than whitepapers and briefs.
2. Video introduce ideas in a quick, dynamic, and concise manner.
3. Video addresses a wider and savvier audience.

On the other hand, with millions of videos being uploaded on the Internet through various platforms, it’s important that marketers produce optimized, premium video content to drive their business goals and engage their target audiences.

Fortunately, “The Ultimate Video Playbook,” provides crucial video marketing tactics that B2B marketers can use to optimize their video content. These are:

1. Make Your Video Search-engine Friendly

Never underestimate the power of SEO in improving online visibility; every minute, 100 hours of video are uploaded on YouTube alone. To stand out from the other fish in the sea, B2B marketers need to ensure that their videos are easily found online by using the right keywords/keyword phrases and meta-names.

According to Visual.ly, “it’s critical to think about how YOU search for information, yourself. Increasingly, businesses find other businesses through the same kinds of keyword searches that consumers do.”

2. Create Value for Consumers

As B2B products and services create value for consumers, media targeted at such consumers should create value for them as well. Without value, the process of promotion ends when a consumer finishes watching a video. On the other hand, when a consumer finds value in an online video, chances are it will be shared, talked about, or promoted in other sites or blogs.

For an online video to “sell”, it should not appear to be directly selling. To execute this, the best type of video to use is the explainer video. A separate blog post by Visual.ly states that this type of video primarily focuses on presenting the problem and introducing the solution. Explainer videos use scenarios to effectively convey the benefits of using the provided solution to consumers.

3. Include Closed Captions to Enhance SEO

Creating video transcripts and uploading the captions via services like YouTube will not only benefit hearing-impaired viewers, as it will also enhance SEO. This tactic creates searchable keywords and questions that are likely to be crawled and indexed by search engines.

4. Promote Your Video on Your Existing Channels

Once you have produced a video, the next step is to find a site where you can share your video. Promote your video by placing it on the right site, whether it’s the company blog or a social media channel. Visual.ly suggests B2B Marketers use existing channels that have an established audience.

If your business or brand has a presence on Twitter or Facebook, promote your videos on these channels. Explore online communities or blogs that target viewers who are in need of the products or services you provide.

5. Create an Effective Call-to-action

Aside from sharing or posting your video on your chosen channels, you should also include an effective call-to-action to drive conversions. You should be “clear, concise and active” with your call-to-action message.

Avoid confusing leads and customers with repetitive call-to-action messages. Most importantly, make it easy for viewers to take action by including a link on the same page where the video was posted.

6. Measure Your Video’s Impact on Viewers

Measuring your video’s impact on viewers is a critical step, as it will help you determine the next step for your campaign. While there’s no standard tool that measures the effectiveness of online videos, there are various methods you could use, depending on the campaign. For instance, YouTube Analytics provides video creators with complete statistics on total, paid, and organic views, as well as demographic data and revenues.

7. Use Effective Storytelling

Without effective storytelling, a video is simply a series of moving images. A video has to be a great storyteller to be compelling. So, how do you make a good storytelling video for your brand?

Here are seven tips Visual.ly shared in “The Ultimate Video Playbook”:

• Begin with a script. Before anything else, a script must be made with a help of a professional writer. Generally, a good script contains brief and truthful company details. Some, particularly explainer videos, include a plot, a goal, key characters, and a climax. Also, avoid buzzwords.
• Focus on the main topic. Be concise with the message you want your viewers to grasp. Don’t let your video become crowded with too much information. Focus on the most important data and don’t stray away from the key topic.
• Be concise and direct. The average attention span of a person watching an online video is 90 seconds. Hence, online videos should present relevant and coherent points in one and a half minutes. To achieve this impact, the script must be short and straightforward.
• Use the right music. Don’t use music that would distract viewers. Instead, use music that would stimulate the emotions. This will keep the audience engaged in the visuals of the video.
• Check the flow of the video. Keep the flow of the video smooth. Don’t add too much action, as it could cause viewers to forget the main topic. Make sure the voiceover and the music transition neither too fast nor too slow.
• Set a clear goal. Of course, everything will be nonsense without a clear goal to follow. Before doing all the scripts and storyboards, set your goals and stick to it until the very end of production.
• Choose a professional voiceover. What the audience can hear is as important as the visuals. According to Tasha Hardy, Video Marketplace Manager at Visual.ly, “the quality of your voiceover can make or break [your] video.” Professional voiceover artists know how to engage viewers with the proper voice and timing for each word. For startups that can’t afford costly professionals, it’s recommended not to use any voiceovers—unless you know a professional who can do it for free.

What is your take on Visual.ly’s video marketing tactics for B2B marketers? What other strategies can you recommend?

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