According to visual content marketing statistics shared by HubSpot, 32% of marketers say visual images are the most important form of content for their business, with blogging tailing behind in second (27%). When images play second fiddle to copy you have a recipe for disaster.
87% of marketing professionals use video as a digital marketing tool. And Cisco has predicted that by 2021, more than 80% of internet traffic will be video.
The demand is there, as is the accessibility and affordability. The big question is, where do you start?
Here's an introduction to the 3 most impactful B2B videos your business can create.
Case studies tell the inside story of your business partnership with customers. Typically, they delve into the initial challenges a user grappled with before finding you, and then share an honest, detailed account of how your business helped them to overcome those issues.
Video is just one of the ways you might choose to chronicle your customer’s experience. Here’s a summary of why case studies are an asset that can be folded into your B2B video marketing strategy.
Picture me as an art student half-way through a still life class. I'm focussed on the drawing. I'm frowning and fussing - erasing and redrawing the same area of the page over and over.
I'm totally over-invested in the minutiae.
And, every week, as the tutor paces the room, he invariably pauses behind me and says something along the lines of...
As a creator of online content, it’s important to have a keen awareness of your audience. Not surprisingly, this includes people from all backgrounds. The internet is for everybody - and businesses have a social responsibility to strive for more inclusive design.
People tune in for more than pure sound or image. Videos carry a message, and viewers with hearing or vision loss shouldn’t be made to feel excluded from global communications. Screen readers are making it easier for people with poor vision or hearing to browse the web, and content makers need to step up to the mark.
Marketers strive for healthy organic reach. And when it comes to video marketing campaigns, this is heavily effected by engagement rates.
On social media platforms, like Facebook for example, news feeds are designed to favour content from people or brands that users have previously engaged with.
As a B2B marketer, you already have a strategy in place when it comes to social media - you may even have established a social media policy for your workplace. But the goalposts are always changing.
So what challenges will 2019 bring?
Last year there were several announcements that promised to affect social media marketing in 2019, for example:
And that's not all.
Images are a key component for almost every website - it’s hard to find a page online that doesn’t contain at least one.
For this reason, image optimisation plays a vital role in B2B website housekeeping. The benefits are plentiful. Optimising your images helps them to rank higher on SERPs, makes them more voice search friendly, funnels higher quality traffic to your page and ultimately improves UX.
With that in mind, alt-text is one of the most obvious places to start.
Social media platforms connect businesses with prospects and existing customers. They paint a picture of your audience's needs, spread your brand message and inform future marketing goals.
And, with social media marketing, you can position your product or service right in front of the very people who need it. Sounds great! But how can you gain more reach?
Growing an audience is one of the biggest challenges for businesses on social media.
Think about your channels. What’s really in it for your followers? Unless you are creating content that genuinely delights, people won’t be prepared to follow or subscribe.
The world can be a pretty noisy place. We're constantly bombarded with messages, advertisements and stimuli online. Today, consumers are becoming increasingly hardened against traditional marketing tactics.
However, personalisation can play a key role in making your brand stand out, and advancements in artificial intelligence technology are designed to support this. AI is flourishing across website design, social media, email campaigns, customer segmentation and content optimisation.
Artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning and data analytics are helping businesses to become more responsive to consumer demands in real-time.
Web video is widely used by digital marketers as a way to influence B2B purchase decisions. And, as a leading advocate for your brand, you might on occasion be asked to step into the spotlight to share your thoughts and expertise.
Whether you are comfortable with public speaking or not, the idea of appearing on-camera can seem daunting. But genuine, helpful testimony will greatly enhance your viewers' product understanding - as well as their readiness to buy.
