4 essential goals for successful B2B video production

Plus 4 examples of videos aligned with business goals

We find that many of our B2B clients have a lack of confidence about their businesses suitability to video (or should that be the other way around?).

They think that in order for a product to work in a video it needs to be entertaining in itself. But that is just not true - there are plenty of stories behind every business that are best communicated using video.

In many cases it is often easier with B2B as the target customer is often more clearly defined and understood. What is more complicated with B2B video is that marketers need to work harder to convince a number of decision makers in an organisation.

Here is an example of how we used 2 short videos to increase a B2B clients website by 10% - it only took 1 month to achieve this and has massively increased their revenue.

Online video is as pertinent to the B2B relationship as it is to the B2C relationship – but the emphasis is different.

Video breathes life into a brand and plays an essential role in defining who you are to potential clients. Video can be used in so many different ways to help businesses connect with each other; they can be hosted on sharing sites, embedded in emails, distributed via social media or shared at conferences and events.

In this article we are going to list the main principles of a B2B video production.

1. Align aims of video with broader business goals

In order to make sense to your audience, it is important that your video accurately represents your business goals. Making it clear what you do and what you can offer will mean that you are able to attract appropriate businesses. If you hire a video production company it is essential that they too understand your business goals and that they have been briefed thoroughly.

2. Produce videos with the target market in mind

From the outset, it is imperative that you remember who you want to watch your videos. Don’t focus on trying to create a ‘viral’ video – you can’t decide what will go viral, only audiences can do that. You should focus on producing a high quality video production that is entirely appropriate to your target audience.

It may be that you have a customer persona for video to use as your focus, or more than one customer persona. The traditional corporate video is no longer relevant and in order to engage audiences, videos need to inform, help and/or entertain. If you can get all three into the mix you are onto a winner. Whilst B2B videos are definitely of a different ilk to B2C videos, your audiences are still human and if you can emotionally engage them on some level, you are more likely to succeed in winning their business.

3. Select the right type of video for your business goals

There are different types of video available to you, depending on your goals and your audience. Here are some of the main examples and their benefits.

Corporate video/product video

This Rolls Royce video is from the point of view of their employees and the information is carried forward in terms of the talent they have to make their business what it is. This is a great approach because without actually using the words, Rolls Royce are saying: “we employee the best people, our processes run like clockwork, our products are the finest in the world”.

Interviews

Interview videos offer a brilliant opportunity to a) introduce your audience to key figures from your business, b) inform and c) entertain.

Marketing specialist and business strategist, Marie Forleo, uses interviews to great effect. Below is an example of her interviewing author Brendon Burchard. The general theme of her videos is business advice and life advice (which is effectively business advice!). By associating with others who are experts in their field, each video adds to her own credibility and status.

Testimonials

Testimonials can be another extremely powerful video type. Don’t blow your own trumpet… let others do it for you! In all seriousness, genuine and authentic testimonials can be useful. Potential clients are going to be concerned about who they can trust and seeing professionals, who are just like them, advocate for a product or service may be what pushes them to take the next step.

Take a look at this conference advertising video and it's use of testimonials:

Presentations and discussions

If you host presentations or discussions that have high value content relating to your industry, record them and share them. Giving businesses the opportunity to benefit from an event that they were unable to attend is not only generous, it also has the effect of placing you as a reliable and current source of industry information – an expert in your field.

• Google+ Hangouts on air are a great way to do this.

4. Emotionally engage the viewer by appealing to their needs

You can only emotionally engage an audience if you understand what is important to them. Being aware of the PAS formula can be useful (pain, agitate, solve). Recognising what your audience’s ‘pain’ is will help you to focus on how you can ease that pain for them.

Epipheo’s introductory video is a great example of a PAS video. They highlight your pain, agitate it a bit by telling you how much hard work the solution is, and then they show how they are the business to solve your problem. To finish off, they name-drop the brands they have helped before:

We are all very aware of the shift in B2C marketing away from sales pitches towards a more engaging and entertaining style. People switch off from the hard sell and the same applies with B2B audiences. Also, it is as important with B2B videos as it is with B2C videos that you a) optimise the video for search engines and b) distribute and market your video as widely as possible. Making the video isn’t enough – you have to do everything within your capabilities to help your audience find the video too.

Thanks to Neil Davidson for sharing his advice and opinions in this post. Neil Davidson is the Founder of MWP Digital Media, a leading Corporate Video Production Company. He also runs My Web Presenters who specialise in creating video spokesperson videos. They work with businesses of all sizes to create and market compelling and emotive videos that get specific and clear results. If you would like to have a conversation about how to create video for the web then please contact Neil here. You can also follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.