Using online video advertising as another channel to support your lead generation efforts can help you craft a global audience of potential leads.
Digital video can help keep your brand top-of-mind when it’s time for a purchase decision – if you create content designed for sharing versus selling.
Today’s B2B Lead Roundtable Blog post features three reasons why you should adopt video content into your B2B marketing mix.
Reason #1. The digital video audience is growing
In a recent article on what makes streamers abandon video content, an interesting chart was included projecting digital viewer growth in the U.S. from 2010 to 2016.
According to those projections, 61% of the U.S. population alone will have adopted digital video viewing within the next three years, bringing the total to a staggering 77% of all Internet users viewing digital video content online by 2016.
A similar article focused on the online activities of U.S. Internet users by age revealed video sharing was a top Internet activity among U.S. Web users in every age bracket, ranking only beneath shopping and social networking in popularity.
As a result, digital video content production and/or digital video advertising will potentially reach what truly constitutes a growing global audience.
Reason #2. It’s no more difficult to produce online video content than it is to produce a white paper
For B2B and/or B2G marketers, concerns about adding video content in terms of difficulty, time, effort, and expense are understandable, but considering the findings of previous MarketingSherpa research, where B2B and/or B2G marketers were asked …
Please indicate the DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY (time, effort, and expense required) in creating each of the content products your organization is using.
Producing white papers ranked nearly equal across every range of difficulty with online video and phone apps, which leads to one important question …
What are some of the tangible benefits of adding video?
Reason #3. Digital video can improve SEO and drive multichannel traffic to your website
When I asked Gaby Paez, Associate Director of Research, Conversion Group, MECLABS, how companies could benefit from adopting video, she explained using video content can improve SEO campaigns.
“Not only is video a great way to share your story, but it’s also a great way to build links back to your site. And, if users engage with your video, it helps to increase time on site,” Gaby explained.
Here are some of the additional benefits Gaby mentioned for adopting video:
- Branding – craft a consistent message for a 24/7 global audience
- Add human touch to testimonials – increase value and credibility of testimonials by sharing customer stories/case studies in video format
- Repurpose existing content – creating short videos using slides with the content of existing blog posts
- Boost awareness, visibility, and reach – share product information, training, tips, or instructions with demos or video tutorials
When I asked Gaby how B2B marketers could use video to highlight products in the e-commerce space, she used software as a service (SAAS) and traditional e-commerce as two examples of where video content could supplement or even improve the customer experience.
“See video as a natural progression of customers’ expectations. In the past, they expected to see a product picture to make a purchase decision, then a gallery of pictures, and now a product video,” Gaby explained.
I asked Gaby if the video could also drive mobile traffic, and she explained video content was a great way to accomplish this.
“Absolutely,” Gaby explained, “You want to spend time developing mobile content that encourages potential customers to spend time on your website,” Gaby explained.
Related Resources:
Lead Gen Summit 2013: September 30 – October 3, San Francisco
Lead Generation: Content among the most difficult tactics but also quite effective
Human Touch: 8 Questions to Steer Your Marketing Priorities
Lead Qualification: Stop generating leads and start generating revenue
Good and interesting remarks, John. It’s true that a lot of entrepreneurs still don’t realize all the benefits arising from video advertising. No doubt nowadays clips are much more effective than text adverts because they can attract the attention for longer and as you wrote – improve the effects of SEO campaign. Thanks for posting that, regards.
Good and interesting remarks, John. It’s true that a lot of entrepreneurs still don’t realize all the benefits arising from video advertising. No doubt nowadays clips are much more effective than text adverts because they can attract the attention for longer and as you wrote – improve the effects of SEO campaign. Thanks for posting that, regards.