4 Ways To Use B2B Video Marketing In Your Funnel

Over the last decade, the number of B2B marketers who use video has exploded.

And it’s no surprise—it’s a hugely effective way to engage B2B prospects and customers.

Stats from Wyzowl’s recent State of Video Marketing Report say it all:

• 91% of B2B marketers say video has helped them increase traffic
• 90% say video marketing has helped them generate leads
• 87% say it has helped them increase sales
• 88% report a positive ROI from their video marketing

B2B video marketing is flexible and can be used to connect with customers across the marketing funnel.

Most companies will have brand videos on their homepage that provide the user with an overview of what they do and the benefits of working with them.

But you can also use it in some more unusual contexts—think onboarding videos or company culture videos.

This article explains how you can use B2B video marketing to connect with customers across your funnel. We’ll also provide you with some examples to show how it can work for your business.

But before we begin, let’s go over a few ground rules for a great B2B video marketing strategy.

What Is the B2B Marketing Funnel

If you work in B2B marketing, you’re probably familiar with a marketing funnel. But for those who aren’t, here is a quick overview.

The B2B marketing funnel maps the different stages of a prospect’s relationship with a brand. It starts with them being unaware of the brand and its products or services. It then progresses through awareness, interest, and consideration before it finally ends with a purchase.

B2B marketers create campaigns that move prospects along this funnel.

3 Tips for Better B2B Video Marketing

Using B2B video marketing across your funnel is a great way to achieve greater sales.

But you need to get it right. Here are some tips to do so:

Budgets don’t have to be huge

Many B2B videos you see online are commissioned by large companies with extensive budgets. They are produced by professional video marketers with lots of expensive equipment.

But your B2B video marketing efforts can still be successful even without a massive budget. Modern mobile devices have incredibly good-quality cameras and microphones built into them.

And design software like Canva only costs around $10 per month and it includes basic video editing packages.

But won’t low-quality video be bad for your brand image? Yes, but amateur equipment is less noticeable than bad editing or filming techniques.

It’s therefore worth training yourself in basic video editing skills. There are plenty of courses available on online learning platforms such as Udemy.

This video produced for law firm Cuddy and Feder LLP was shot with a laptop camera. It uses simple screen graphics and background music. Anyone could produce this with some basic tools and know-how.

Use your audience’s favorite platform

It’s critical that you know your target demographic and the platform they prefer so you can build your presence there.

The table below is based on data from Sprout Social. It shows the largest age group and the percentage of female and male users on popular social media platforms.

This information can be used to choose which platform to tailor your videos to. For example, if your target audience is male and in their 20s, you might choose Twitter.

But if they’re female and in their early 30s, Pinterest is probably a better option.

It’s important to consider how your audience uses each channel, too.

For example, Pinterest and Instagram are focused on images; therefore, they are more suited to businesses that’s services can be communicated visually—think graphic design or landscape gardening.

LinkedIn is designed for networking with other professionals, so it’s a good choice if your business depends on building relationships with key decision-makers.

Of course, social media is only one channel and you should think beyond online platforms. For example, your audience may be more likely to watch your videos on a video billboard at a tradeshow or on traditional TV ads.

Think about what stage of the funnel your prospect is at

We used social media in the example above because it’s a great channel for the awareness stage of the B2B marketing funnel.

However, as you move prospects further down the funnel, you’ll have to produce different types of videos and deliver them over different channels.

For example, social media is good for explainer videos, where you help people with no intention to buy something that you are an expert in. This valuable free video content will help raise awareness of your company and increase your brand value.

But once you get down to the decision stage, your relationship with the customer and the type of information they need, will change. Customer testimonial videos delivered via email may be a better option here.

4 B2B Video Marketing Examples

This section lists the main stages of the B2B marketing funnel and the types of video content you can produce at each one to drive customers toward a buying decision.

Awareness

At this stage you’ll aim to make customers aware of your brand, product, or service.

To do this, you’ll need to think about ways people who fit your ideal customer profile might come across your brand.

One of the best ways to drive awareness is through content marketing. This is when you create videos that solve your customers’ everyday problems for free.

If your content is helpful, potential customers will begin to recognize your brand and see you as an expert in your field.

It’s important to note that you should only aim to solve problems relevant to your business. For example, if you’re an insolvency practitioner, you might produce a guide that explains how business owners could determine whether their company is insolvent.

How to do it

If you have a problem, what’s the first thing you’ll do? For most of us, the answer is “Google it.”

You can use this to your advantage by creating content that people can find on Google, YouTube, or any other platform with a search function.

To do this, you need to know what problems your customers are seeking solutions to online. You can then create content that answers them.

You’ll probably need to use a bit of search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure your content is found by search engines and listed high on their results pages.

SEO is a huge topic, so we won’t go into detail here. However, you can read about the basics in our Inbound Sales Article.

A critical part of content marketing is to include a call to action. This is a short message at the end that compels the reader to engage further with your brand and eventually move down your marketing funnel.

The aim is to capture their contact details so you can track their interactions with you in the future.

This could include:

• Watch a related video
• Sign up for a live webinar video
• Follow you on social media
• Sign up for your email newsletter
• Contact a salesperson to find out more

YouTube has tools to build these calls to action into the end of your videos. For example, the video below features two links: one to subscribe to the channel and a second to watch another video.

By keeping a record of your prospects, you can note which ones fit your ideal customer profile and show high buying intent. These people will become your list of qualified prospects—and this is critical for the next phase of your B2B video marketing strategy.

Example

Here’s a good example from start-up accelerator Y Combinator. It’s a video on how to set pricing—something that is often difficult for businesses to get right—especially start-ups.

This video is incredibly useful for Y Combinator’s potential partners, as shows that it understands the challenges they face and that it would be a good company to work with.

Someone who starts a company will likely be looking for this information long before they consider funding. Based on this video, they are likely to check out Y-Combinator’s other videos, which will make them a trusted source of start-up know-how.

Consideration

At this stage, your aim is to ensure your prospects consider your products or services to solve their problems.

The best way to do this is by using a product overview video. This might cover:

• The problems your customers typically face
• What your product is
• How your product helps overcome the customer’s problems
• Its features and functions
• Some stats or testimonials from satisfied customers

The video content you create at the awareness stage can be used to send your audience to a product overview video.

However, content marketing can also be used at the consideration phase. The main difference is that your contact marketing at this stage should solely focus on how your product or service solves the prospect’s problem.

How to do it

One of the most important things to do in a product video is to frame the problem you solve around your offering.

Let’s say you sell machinery for professional printers. Your competitors might all focus on their speed of printing, so you decide to focus your offering on quality.

Your video could highlight how big a problem quality is for printers. You’d then explain the ways your machinery ensures quality.

It’s also important to create a sense of urgency around solving these problems. For example, you might say “today, printing companies lose thousands of dollars every year to customer complaints due to poor-quality prints.” This encourages the viewer to take action now, rather than put off a buying decision.

Once again, you should end your video with a call to action; however, this time you should guide them toward a buying decision.

This could include:

• A case study webinar about how your product helped a customer
• A customer testimonial
• Contact a salesperson

Example

Here’s an example from property repair and maintenance SaaS provider EVO. It opens by listing a number of issues that it says lie at the heart of the problems faced by the housing industry. Note that these are also the problems that its product is best able to solve.

It then goes on to provide a short, simple explanation of how the product works, how it solves these problems, and the benefits it offers customers.

Decision

At this stage, your customer is considering your product alongside many others. They have also decided that the business problem they have is urgent and they need to purchase a solution to solve it.

Videos at this stage should help prospects envisage what life would be like if they bought from you.

One of the best ways of doing this is by using customer testimonials. This is simply a video that shows your customers talking about their positive experiences with your product.

How to do it

To make a good customer testimonial video is relatively easy but it does take some planning.

• Write questions that will guide the customer to talk about the problems you’ve solved, the benefits of working with you, and why you were the best or only choice for them.
• Get your customer to introduce themselves, their company, and their role
• Get some footage of the customer using your product.
• Use screen text where required.
• Limit it to under 3 minutes to keep people’s attention.
• When interviewing your customer, seat them in a comfortable chair against a neutral background. Frame them so they are visible on one side of the camera shot. Ask them to look at you and position yourself so they are looking across the camera shot. Here’s how it should look:

Example

Here’s a good example of a customer testimonial from Zoom. The customer is Hubspot. It is of a very high quality—but that’s not why it works.

It works because it succinctly explains why Zoom (and Slack) are critical to Hubspot’s everyday operations by solving issues like people working in different time zones and the need to have instant video calls.

It also ties these back to the ultimate benefit—it allows Hubspot to serve its customers better.

Purchase

This is the stage where your client makes the decision to buy. If your funnel has worked effectively, then the prospect should be ready to buy—it’s just a simple case of giving them a nudge and reminding them to do it.

One way you can do this is by sending them a personalized video that asks them to join you on a sales call.

How to do it

Software like Hyperise allows you to quickly and easily add personalized elements to videos. This includes audio and visual elements such as the person’s name, their company, and their website.

You can see how it works by visiting our video personalization page and typing in your email address. You’ll be given instant access to a video made just for you. Or you can take a look at this video we created which explains how to use personalized videos to book more sales meetings.

You can try Hyperise yourself by signing up for a free trial.

Discover Your Own B2B Video Marketing Content

In this article, we’ve covered the four main stages of the B2B marketing funnel and highlighted a type of video content that can help with each.

But there are many more types of videos that you can use and more nuanced stages in the marketing funnel to consider.

The most important thing when planning your B2B marketing video campaign is to focus on your customers. What do they need? Where will they look? What platforms do they use? How will this change as they move down the digital marketing funnel?

If you understand these key elements, then you’ll be able to create an effective B2B marketing video campaign.