John Tackett

B2B Marketing: 3 reasons for adopting video content into your marketing mix

July 29th, 2013

Originally published on B2B LeadBlog

Using online video advertising as another channel to support your lead generation efforts can help you craft a global audience of potential leads.

Digital video can help keep your brand top-of-mind when it’s time for a purchase decision — if you create content designed for sharing versus selling.

Today’s B2B Lead Roundtable Blog post features three reasons why you should adopt video content into your B2B marketing mix.

Reason #1. The digital video audience is growing

In a recent article on what makes streamers abandon video content, an interesting chart was included projecting digital viewer growth in the U.S. from 2010 to 2016.

According to those projections, 61% of the U.S. population alone will have adopted digital video viewing within the next three years, bringing the total to a staggering 77% of all Internet users viewing digital video content online by 2016.

A similar article focused on the online activities of U.S. Internet users by age revealed video sharing was a top Internet activity among U.S. Web users in every age bracket, ranking only beneath shopping and social networking in popularity.

As a result, digital video content production and/or digital video advertising will have the potential to reach what truly constitutes a growing global audience.

Reason #2. It’s no more difficult to produce online video content than it is to produce a white paper

For B2B and/or B2G marketers, concerns about adding video content in terms of difficulty, time, effort and expense are understandable, but considering the findings of previous MarketingSherpa research, where B2B and/or B2G marketers were asked…

Please indicate the DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY (time, effort and expense required) in creating each of the content products your organization is using.

Producing white papers ranked nearly equal across every range of difficulty with online video and phone apps, which leads to one important question…

What are some of the tangible benefits for adding video?

Reason #3. Digital video can improve SEO and drive multichannel traffic to your website

When I asked Gaby Paez, Associate Director of Research, Conversion Group, MECLABS, how companies could benefit overall from adopting video, she explained using video content can improve SEO campaigns.

“Not only is video a great way to share your story, it’s also a great way to build links back to your site. And, if users engage with your video, it helps to increase time on site,” Gaby explained.

Here are some of the additional benefits Gaby mentioned for adopting video:

  • Branding — craft a consistent message for a 24/7 global audience
  • Add human touch to testimonials — increase value and credibility of testimonials by sharing customer stories/case studies in video format
  • Repurpose existing content — creating short videos using slides with the content of existing blog posts
  • Boost awareness, visibility and reach — share product information, training, tips, or instructions with demos or video tutorials

When I asked Gaby how video could be used by B2B marketers to highlight products in the e-commerce space, she used software as a service (SAAS) and traditional e-commerce as two examples of where video content could supplement or even improve the customer experience.

“See video as a natural progression of customers’ expectations. In the past, they expected to see a product picture to make a purchase decision, then a gallery of pictures and now a product video,” Gaby explained.

I asked Gaby if video could also be also used to drive traffic mobile, and she explained video content was a great way to accomplish this.

“Absolutely,” Gaby explained, “You want to spend time developing mobile content that encourages potential customers to spend time on your website,” Gaby explained.

Related Resources:

Lead Gen Summit 2013: September 30 – October 3, San Francisco

Lead Generation: Content among the most difficult tactics, but also quite effective

Human Touch: 8 Questions to Steer Your Marketing Priorities

Lead Qualification: Stop generating leads and start generating revenue

Categories: Lead Generation Tags:



We no longer accept comments on the MarketingSherpa blog, but we'd love to hear what you've learned about customer-first marketing. Send us a Letter to the Editor to share your story.