Back in 2010, many B2B marketers still viewed video as a luxury. However, half a decade later (aided by Instagram’s immense surge in popularity and YouTube’s continued dominance), companies began realizing the game-changing potential of B2B video marketing. Cut to the curtain call of 2020, and virtually every B2B marketing department has at least some form of video marketing strategy.
With 71% of B2B marketers using video, video’s ascension to the very top of the B2B marketing food chain is well underway.
And with good reason:
80% of video marketers say video has directly helped increase sales, while 87% say video has increased traffic to their website.
Most importantly, nearly 90% of B2B marketers are satisfied with their video marketing initiatives’ ROI.
But how did we get here? What tactics and best practices are B2B marketers following that lead to such positive results? What are B2B marketers doing that differs from their B2C peers? Let’s take a deeper look.
What is the difference between B2B and B2C videos?
While both place a heavy premium on video marketing, B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer) marketers differ, quite substantially, in their approach to video.
With significantly different target audiences, each group of marketers goes about creating, presenting, and distributing videos with specific, unique objectives in mind.
By and large, B2C videos have more of a narrow scope. Whether it be an ordinary video ad on YouTube or a multi-million dollar Super Bowl commercial, B2C videos mostly promote a product or service.
Sure, companies may mix things up and showcase satisfied customers during a video campaign. However, outside of hyper-specific business vectors (e.g. auto mechanics and workshops), most B2C videos still lean heavily on the same foundations laid by the likes of Don Draper.
B2B video marketing is a different beast.
With a far more targeted audience base, B2B services and products are more complex by nature and often more costly.
Subsequently, the sales process for B2B products is often longer and more layered than that of most B2C products (except for high-end, hyper-expensive products, such as yachts, luxury cars, homes, etc.)
Unlike their B2C counterparts, B2B marketers are tasked with presenting a compelling case for their product or service to organizations with numerous decision-makers.
Even if they’ve managed to convince a company employee that he or she needs their product, B2B marketers still have many mountains to climb. That employee will typically have to convince his or her boss, who, in turn, will have to lobby the CFO or CEO for the cash to purchase or subscribe to the service in question.
To get the latter on board, simple promos more than likely won’t cut it.
Even once a decision-maker has shown interest, B2B marketers (and sales reps) need to clearly show how their expensive solution fits their potential customer’s specific use case.
As a result, B2B marketers create various videos, each with a specific target audience, to be present at different junctions throughout the sales process.
What are the main types of B2B videos?
So what are the various types of videos B2B marketers create?
Let’s break down each of the five pillars of B2B video marketing. We’ll explain the specific purpose each video serves and provide examples of companies killing it in each video category.
It’s important to note that stock footage and audio are regularly incorporated into B2B videos. In future blogs, we’ll break down the best ways to use stock footage to create explainers and promos.
Explainers
Explainers’ main purpose:
Provide potential customers with an overview of your product or service. Viewers should come away knowing your products’ basic functionalities and primary use cases.
Target audience: Marketing qualified leads and sales qualified leads
Ideal runtime: 3 to 7 minutes
An explainer done right:
A prominent name within the world of B2B, monday.com excels at presenting its complex solution in an enticing, eye-level way. In lesser hands, the task of creating a 7-minute overview of a project management SaaS platform would have probably resulted in some of the most dreary, banal video content out there. Instead, viewers come away with a comprehensive understanding of monday.com’s basic functionalities without reaching the finish line feeling overwhelmed. The stock soundtrack really helps keep viewers engaged and helps create an undeniable sense of excitement. To learn more about explainer videos check out our Complete Guide to B2B Explainer Videos post.
Promos
Promos’ main purpose:
Pique your audience’s interest in your product or service. Hopefully, this will lead to future engagement (e.g., scheduling a product demo). This video category is the most similar to a typical B2C video.
Target audience: Marketing qualified leads
Ideal runtime: 30 to 90 seconds
A B2B promo done right:
This is just a straight-up killer promo. Webflow, a website building platform (think Wix), manages to highlight its value add in a relatable, funny way. They don’t just challenge preconceptions and notions (i.e. web-development is expensive and time-consuming); they completely stomp them out. The piano-heavy soundtrack heard at the beginning and end of the video fits the promo’s overall aesthetic perfectly.
Demos
Demos’ main purpose:
Provide potential customers with an in-depth view of your product and service. Viewers should come away understanding how your product or service can help their unique needs and use case.
Target audience: Sales qualified leads
Ideal runtime: 20 to 90 minutes, depending on the product’s complexity or service being demonstrated
A B2B demo done right:
Walking a potential customer through a platform’s various features and functions is no easy task, especially when the SaaS platform in question is as complex as Pendo.io.
However, this business intelligence solution’s product designer does a great job of covering the necessary bases.
Typically, interested parties will have to fill in a lead form before accessing a product demo (more on this in a minute).
Customer testimonials
Customer testimonials’ main purpose:
Add a level of credibility to your company that will help interested parties make the leap and convert (either from being a marketing qualified lead to a sales qualified lead or, better yet, from a sales qualified lead to a paying customer).
Target audience: Marketing qualified leads and sales qualified leads
Ideal runtime: 1 to 5 minutes
B2B customer testimonials done right:
Zendesk has written the book on creating awesome customer testimonials, and this example is no exception. Choosing a recognizable customer never hurts, either (Acquired by Etsy for $275 million in 2019, Reverb is the e-commerce site for used musical instruments.)
Company culture videos
Customer testimonials’ main purpose:
Present your company as vibrant, inclusive, and cutting edge. Showcase your organization as one that employees (current and potential) can grow in, both personally and professionally.
Target audience: Unlike the other video categories that are clearly aimed towards marketing and sales purposes, company culture videos are meant to entice top talent and potential investors.
Ideal runtime: 1 to 1.5 minutes
B2B company culture videos done right:
Smarp found the winning formula here, managing to be both short but impactful, serious but upbeat.
See how everyone is wearing company shirts?
That, together with the candid interviews, helps viewers come away with an unmistakable feeling that Smarp employees are passionate about their jobs and love working for the company. The stock soundtrack is super modern and is instrumental (no pun intended) in showcasing Smarp as a company at the forefront of tech innovation.
How do you present B2B videos?
Notice how all the examples provided here are YouTube videos?
When you navigate to B2B websites, you’ll probably notice that many of the same videos are presented using a different video player.
That’s not a coincidence.
These videos are hosted by a video hosting and management platform.
B2B marketing facilitates lead generation and qualification.
More so than with B2C products, it’s critical to understand how viewers engaged with each video.
Video hosting platforms provide B2B marketers with in-depth analytics that shed serious light on a given video’s performance. Additionally, these solutions deliver a much-needed security level to videos that deal with sensitive information (i.e., product demos). If needed, access to videos can be limited to those who submit contact information first.
B2B marketers looking to find the recipe for B2B video success typically opt for a dual approach.
To complement their onsite video content (ideally hosted by a video hosting platform), they’ll create a YouTube channel and share videos on social, as well.