Business-to-business, or B2B buyers today do not contact a supplier directly until 57 percent of the purchase process is complete, research shows. For businesses, this means that much of the decision-making process takes place before a potential B2B purchaser even contacts you to discuss your products or services.
Well-crafted explainer videos can increase your return on investment (ROI) by helping you to engage with and influence buyers during the early stages of the purchasing process so you capture more sales. Read on to learn more about B2B videos and how you can use them to drive sales.
Why B2B Videos Work
Well-produced, quality videos can give business consumers the information they need to evaluate your product or service compared to others. These videos also promote your brand and knowledge, serving as informational and engaging trend pieces. Whether or not a B2B purchaser decides to buy your product after watching the video, they walk away from it with a better understanding of your brand, products, and services, and may decide to buy from you next time around. This is the qualitative explanation of why B2B videos help to increase sales.
B2B videos also increase your search engine optimization and make it more likely that a B2B purchaser searching for an item will come across your product before that offered by your direct competitor. Every service or product you offer is a solution to a problem. A video is the best way to emotionally engage the viewer in a sort of “show and tell” presentation where you talk about the problem, reveal your solution, and make a call to action for them to get it from you.
The more video content, and other online assets, you create the more chances of success you will have. When you regularly create and share engaging video content, you increase your product placement in search results and get more business.
How to Drive Sales With B2B Videos
Hopefully, you understand why videos are an important part of your digital marketing strategy. To ultimately be successful with B2B videos, you must understand how to create high-quality videos that will drive sales.
Before you create content, define your purpose or your message. Are you trying to sell more products or services? That’s a sales video. Do you have a unique, next generation product you need to explain? That’s an explainer video. Your purpose should be as short and succinct as an elevator pitch. Always make sure your video has a purpose in mind and you follow through with it.
When you make a video keep its end result in mind – You will be able to develop a stronger video quickly and with fewer costs when you keep the end purpose in mind. A targeted, purposeful video will also resonate more with users than a general video whose purpose is not clear. Before you even begin on your video project, have what you want the results to be in mind, and make sure you let your audience know what you want them to do once they are done watching.
To connect with your target audience, your video should be in the right format or style. When there is a mismatch between your audience and your video’s format or content, you will not be successful. Will it be in a presentation style? An illustrated animation story? A whiteboard sketch video? It seems simple, but it is such an important step in the design process.
Think about the style and tone of your brand and that of your regular clients. While it would be acceptable for a B2B business brand to have a sleek, designed video, it would not make sense for that same brand to use animation in their videos. When you have your brand in mind, you can make decisions regarding the tone, language, style, and intent of the video that ensures success. What is the emotion you want to trigger?
Once you have your purpose and tone, determine what an appropriate length is for your video. If you’re creating a product demo, your video could be anywhere from 60 seconds to 3 to 5 minutes. (Cisco did research on this and determined the sweet spot for B2B video length is 60 to 90 seconds). Any longer than that and viewers might lose interest. On the other hand, if you wanted to generate thought leadership, 5 minutes would be your minimum video length.
With these tips in mind, you can create targeted videos that meet your purpose and leverage your video assets to grow your business and drive sales. Always know too that if producing video is challenging for you, you can always seek the expertise of those who specialize in it.
Andrea Kalli at www.virtualassist.net has been featured in PRNewsonline, Bulldog Reporter, Lioness Magazine and more and has been supporting businesses with marketing since 2005, and in 2014 dedicated her focus to putting video as the forefront of her services. She enjoys the creative and technical aspects of creating videos and video marketing and being able to bring her clients’ vision to life.
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