10 Online Video Marketing Tips every B2B Marketer should know – Part One

Posted by Russ Gallant on 20 April 2011 | 1 Comments

Tags: online video, b2b, strategy, thought-leadership, marketing, storytelling, engagement, tips, viewers, practices, tactics, youtube players, viral presentation

You're probably reading this now because you've decided to extend your B2B marketing and thought-leadership activities into the video arena. Smart move. Online video marketing is a super effective medium for B2B marketing because of the role it can play in educating your audience while simultaneously creating interest in your products and services. Great online video is engaging and persuasive, and brings your benefit-driven stories to life. Part One focuses on the content and strategy choices you need to make to ensure your B2B video marketing efforts are as successful as possible. Part Two will focus on production and post-production considerations that will ensure your videos reach and engage the right audience.

10 Online Video Marketing Tips every B2B Marketer should know - Part One

1. Don't Forget Branding - Besides blogs, YouTube and your own website, video can be embedded and shared almost anywhere. As you plan and produce your video, be sure to incorporate your brand identity and key messaging into the video content so that a clear and consistent brand message shines through regardless of the video platform you use. You can also watermark the video with your brand and website address, or you can go a step further and include intro and exit segments that ensure branding is clearly delivered alongside your website URL and other key messaging. Don't assume the audience will get all the need to know from the info pane or the video description, create branding in both places to ensure important messaging doesn't get lost.

2. Know your Brand Voice - This is really important, are you aiming for the video to be an instructional or educational resource for your audience? Is the video a product demonstration? Are you leveraging video to build thought leadership in your industry? Identifying your marketing and business goals alongside the voice of your brand will help you determine how your brand behavior in the video space. Your brand voice extends beyond just the video production; you'll need to deliver the same tone and manner in the video descriptions, meta tags, titles and in the discussion that happens in the comments area too.

3. Storytelling vs. Telling - People love stories. Oftentimes we learn best through stories. Stories create the opportunity for a human connection; an emotional connection. When you're able to have this sort of impact, your audience is going to be more inclined to do business with you. Your Brand Voice shapes the type of story you tell and how you tell it. Does your video evoke emotion from the viewer? Does it touch and move the audience? This is really important to get right. If you get it right, you'll be successful.

4. Activate your Viewers - as is the case with your other marketing activities, you want the viewer to take make a choice at the end of the video. What is the next step for your viewers? Do you want them to schedule a demo? Do you want them to download content from your website? Build this desired action into your video content planning.

5. Freshness Counts - This is a cluttered marketing environment, there are more than 13 Billion videos on YouTube so you'll have to work hard to stand out amongst the competition. Even when you think your content might be too dry to be exciting, there are always new and creative ways to add life and a "fun factor" to your story and make a really strong impact. See how Hans Rosling used a combination of video techniques to take a presentation about health care statistics and turn it into an engaging, educational and fun video segment.

In Part Two of this series we'll discuss the production and distribution considerations to ensure your video is a success. In the meantime, if you have additional tips to share that will make B2B Marketing with Online Video even more successful, leave a comment in the box below. If you'd like to talk to us about using video for your own B2B marketing purposes, get in touch with us, we'd love to talk to you.