4 Key B2B Video Marketing Tips to Beat Your Competitors

While you may have heard this in years past, 2017 really is “The Year of Video Marketing,” and if you haven’t started to build your video marketing strategy, then chances are you’re falling behind your competitors.

The secret sauce that is video marketing isn’t so secret anymore.

In fact:

• 52% of marketing professionals name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
• 76% of marketers plan to use video to boost their brand awareness campaigns.
• 96% of B2B companies are planning to use video in their content marketing over the next year.

If you’re a B2B company, then you can simply no longer avoid having video as a part of your overall marketing mix in order to remain competitive. In fact, odds are your competition is already embracing  video marketing as a game-changing tactic to capture the attention of  target audiences, become more visible in search and social, and convert prospects throughout the funnel.

So, you’ve gotten  the necessary approvals, budget, and executive buy-in to start with video marketing for your brand, but where do you get started?

Here are four essential “must have” elements to craft a winning video marketing strategy for your B2B.

1.Retention/Abandonment Rates

Just as important as the creative, production quality, call-to-action and the message of the video intended for the view is paying attention to drop-off rates! There is a direct correlation between the length of a video and the abandonment rate; the longer the video the higher the drop-off rate. An Adage report indicates that 60% of your audience will drop off at around 60 seconds, so ultimately the shorter the video, the higher retention rate and decreased abandonment rates so they make it to the end of your videos.

2. Setting Goals

Goal setting is an important step in any marketing campaign You could put together a great online video marketing campaign that doesn’t appear to be successful because you’ve set the wrong objectives from the outset. The goals you set should also be driving the content of your online videos as well, as the way in which you promote your videos, so here’s a few questions we’ve put together a few questions to help you with the goal-setting stage of your campaign planning with the hopes that this will lead to better planning, execution, and results.

a) What Message Are You Trying to Send?

b) Who Are You Hoping to Reach?

c) How Will Things Change If the Video Successful?

d) How Will You Measure Success?

3. Proper Optimization and Promotion

You need to optimize your videos so that they are search-engine friendly and can be easily found online. For this purpose, it is important to carefully research keywords related to your industry, niche or value offerings and use them in the title of the video, video description and keyword tags. Promote, promote and promote some more! Promote your videos everywhere from your website, blog to social bookmarking and networking sites, especially the top seven including: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat and Tumblr, and make sure they are easily shareable across these platforms.

4. Map Out a Publishing Schedule

Sure, you can have some videos that may stand alone, but if you want to take video marketing seriously and reap the benefits, then – like any other type of content marketing – consistency is the key to success.

There’s only a few weeks until 2017 begins, and if you haven’t already done so, then now is the time to plan to add video to your online marketing arsenal, and solidify your plan with theses 4 key elements to achieve a solid video marketing strategy.