Video for video’s sake is not the right approach in using this tool for b-to-b direct marketing efforts. A more strategic plan that has proven to produce good results, explains Brightcove, an on-demand video platform provider, in its whitepaper B2B Marketing With Video, is aligning your video content with stages of buying cycle for strong results. A few ideas on how to do just that:
1. Branding and Awareness
Use video to introduce your company and its products or services in an engaging way, leveraging the storytelling power of this medium to create interest in your offering; consider video treatments for advertising, viral marketing and corporate communications
2. Interest and Consideration
Prospects at this stage desire more information, including features and benefits that can be demonstrated effectively via on-demand product tours plus customer testimonials and product feature shorts distributed throughout your product Web site. An advantage of the on-demand product tour is the ability to incorporate analytics that tell you which parts of the video get viewed the most-or sped through-so you can see what selling aspects are most and least captivating to the audience.
3. Evaluation
To support prospects at the evaluation stage, marketers can provide longer-form videos that showcase more in-depth product information, again using demonstrations to bring the product to life. Brightcove also finds that case studies presented in video form can be more persuasive in moving prospects along in the purchase process, humanizing the examples in a way that emphasizes the real-world applicability of your product.