B2C marketers are not alone in jumping aboard the video marketing bandwagon. If YouTube is any indication, B2B marketers are increasingly utilizing online videos to inform and engage, and to take advantage of the increasing numbers of Internet users with high-speed connection.
It’s no wonder of course that B2B marketers are embracing video given the outsize demand for it. A 2010 survey published by video ad company YuMe, for example, revealed that 49 percent of respondents shared they are watching videos daily. More than 66 percent of respondents said they watched more online video now than they did 12 months ago and 48 % expected they would continue to watch more online videos in the future.
If you’re still on the sidelines, consider this stat from Forrester Research: Video increases the chance of a front page Google result by 53 times. You got that. You are 53 times more likely to land on the front page of Google with a video than basic text. Forrester also reports that adding video in to e-mails increases click-through rates by two to three times,” says Keith Smiley, a freelance B2B copywriter in Indianapolis, Ind.
Smiley says that B2B marketer’s use videos in a variety of ways, including:
* visually demonstrating how a product or service works,
* communicating a specific message or company news
* as a lead generation tool
* case studies
* executive summaries and video versions of white papers
Smiley says other video uses can include:
* Sharing content from webinars
*Interviewing partners at a trade show
* Holding a Q & A session with an expert within your company
* Giving a sneak peek at product releases.
Sean Randles, owner of webVM and U.K. Partner at FLIMP Media in Manchester, United Kingdom, echoes Smiley in some of the uses for video marketing. He shares that his Web video company creates video versions of .PDF case studies, which he says are “very powerful lead generation tools.” Some other ways to use video, according to Randles, include: product visualizations, elevator pitch videos and video brochures. In addition, “B2B videos can also be used for direct video marketing campaigns using www.flimp.net, which enables real time tracking of views and response by e-mail address.”
Read the rest of this blog, written by Wendy Marx, a member of Fast Company’s expert blogging community, here.