We all know that video is incredibly popular, more so than ever - it’s generally accepted as an essential aspect of any B2B marketing strategy. Not only does using video give your target audience an alternative and exciting way to engage with your content besides through text, but it also significantly improves their understanding of your business and offering.
In order for your B2B marketing videos to be seen by your target audience, they need to be optimised for YouTube and search engines, as well as needing to be found via social media platforms. In this blog, we’ll talk you through some tried and tested techniques for promoting your video content online so you can increase your lead generation.
Video is one of the most versatile and powerful formats of content you can use as part of your marketing strategy.
Marketers love video marketing because it’s exciting and aids them in modernising their business, which is a great buy-in and an even better ROI (return on investment). Customers love videos because it requires a low level of commitment whilst being engaging, as well as it being one of the easiest ways for them to digest information.
In fact, Forrester Research estimates that just 1 minute of online video equates to approximately 1.8 million written words in the message communicated. This makes the use of video invaluable for marketers, who have as little as 10 seconds to grab user attention. The evidence speaks for itself. Studies have shown that 62% of Google’s universal searches include video - with 8 of 10 of the video results coming from YouTube. Additionally, Cisco predicts that by the end of 2021, over 80% of all traffic will consist of video. This indicates that not only are marketers using more video, but more potential customers are also lapping it up.
If you have (or are planning to create) videos on your site, B2B video marketing and promotion are the most essential strategies to implement. To increase the chances of your video being found via search engines, its content must be optimised for keywords by using software such as video schema markup. This both reads and indexes your video in order to gain higher rankings on search engines, but don’t forget, it is also a must to promote your videos on the right social media platforms that your audience uses.
Here are some of our top tips to improve your video marketing strategy, and ways to make sure your video content reaches your target audience.
The YouTube platform is a cost-effective way to build brand awareness for any business, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Whether your main goal is to build brand awareness or to present your business as a thought leader in your industry then video promotion via YouTube is a great way to do this. Equally, if your immediate business goal is to generate more traffic and increase the rate of conversions, hosting and embedding YouTube videos to your video on your own website pages is an example of best practice.
When hosting or embedding videos on your own site, the implementation of structured data is an important optimisation element to consider. Structured data that consists of the video’s title, description, thumbnail, URL, duration and transcript that can be implemented into the HTML code of your website pages. Doing this can aid your B2B videos in appearing higher up on the search results pages for relevant keywords that your audience searches for.
When you decide it’s time to post your video content, ensure that your video is set up for success and that you’re getting the most out of it. Correct keyword targeting, strong title tags and descriptions, video thumbnail and transcript will help your video be found on both search engines and YouTube.
Keyword research is the cornerstone of any good marketing strategy, but it’s especially important when it comes to ranking with video. As with all other forms of content, you can’t just choose any random keyword and hope for the best - you need to do proper research.
Depending on what you’re trying to achieve, short or long-tail keywords might work best. If your video is answering a specific query, it may be best to choose a longer keyword; whereas if your video is more generic, short keywords may work better.
If you’re hosting video content on YouTube, keyword research tools like Ahrefs give you the option to see the most popular keywords that you should target through your video. You can also try using YouTube Suggest to get ideas for keywords, by typing a term into the search bar. Take this example:
Don’t underestimate the power of suggestions! This is YouTube telling you what people search for in exact terms. If people aren’t looking for it, the chances are it’s not worth making a video about.
Similarly to traditional content marketing, the rules for optimising videos on YouTube and other platforms are the same.
For the best optimisation practice, rich text in your video title and description is a must, with the copy including your targeted keywords and the title of the video matching your thumbnail title. It’s also advisable to include tags in the video for the phrases that match what the video is about, further increasing the chance of your video appearing at the top of the search results.
Regarding video transcripts, most people won’t watch a video if it doesn’t have captions. Not all of your audience might be able to listen to the audio, so it is crucial that it includes captions for accessibility purposes. Not to mention, 91% of viewers are more engaged in the video with subtitles compared with 66% for the videos without them. Captions and transcriptions should always be given where there are voices speaking, or a voiceover within a video. These help your video retain its message even when users can’t, or don’t want to, use sound - such as when they're in a public place.
Providing a text alternative to your visual content is great for SEO. Particularly when hosting on your own website, transcriptions allow both users and search engines to find your content more easily. Transcriptions provide you with an additional opportunity to rank for your chosen keywords, and increases your searchability.
Finally, calls to action (CTAs) within the description of your YouTube videos will help to drive traffic to the relevant page on your website where you want the audience to convert. Categorising your videos that cover a recurring theme or topic into a series is also a great method of keeping your audience engaged and encouraging them to return to your channel for more content.
Tip: If your video is particularly long, be sure to pay extra attention to your transcript. Add in headings, subheadings, and bullet points to structure the content, even add in additional keywords where appropriate. By doing this, you might get multiple pieces of content out of a single video!
The search engines really care about your video thumbnail. This is because the thumbnail is the first thing users will see when viewing your video, which plays a huge part in whether or not people click through to your page.
This means it has to do a huge job for such a small role in your overall video. It needs to tell a story of what users can expect if they click, so it’s best to select a thumbnail image that best summarises the content of your video, or that best represents your business.
When creating thumbnails for YouTube, Google recommends that they:
Whatever you do, don’t let your hosting platform select this image for you. Often, if you don’t manually select your thumbnail, it will be auto-selected - meaning it usually ends up being a random frame, or something completely unrecognisable to what your video is actually about. This will put both users and search engines off, so make sure you choose the best option.
There are several ways you can get your videos watched by the people you want to notice them. Beyond embedding videos into web pages and blog posts, you can promote your videos through various methods, including:
Another incredibly powerful tool, social media is one of the best ways to get any of your content noticed - but especially video. A whopping 93% of brands report that they have gained a new customer because of a video on social media, and it’s suggested that video ads, in particular, are the number 1 way that customers discover a brand they will later make a purchase from.
Beyond YouTube, be sure to share your videos across other social media platforms relevant to your target audience - be it LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or even Pinterest. You’ll find that by sharing your videos in the right places, you’ll get short-term results while you wait for the long-term positive impact of SEO.
Debuting a new product, or have a new company video to promote? Send it out in an email! Not only does this give those on your mailing list exclusive access to video content, but it also helps your video generate views from higher-quality leads.
You can even take this one step further by segmenting your mailing list to those who will be interested in the video. For example, if certain customers are more likely to purchase your new product, use video as a way to upsell. If prospective customers are uncertain about a particular aspect of your service, use video to reassure them. The possibilities are endless.
With video fast becoming the most popular form of content online, you can’t afford to NOT capitalise on the B2B video marketing opportunities that the use of video gives you.
Using the 5 tips above to ensure your videos are best placed to be seen by your target audience, continue to optimise through trial and error. Video marketing is a long game, but it’s worth it.