Video is everywhere, not least in the world of B2B marketing. From corporate videos to promotional videos selling a particular product, businesses are devoting more and more of their time and marketing budgets to visual content. But, is it a cost effective way of doing business? Here we take a look at the ability of B2B video to generate an excellent return on investment (ROI) for your business.
B2B video marketing costs
The average B2B video, if made professionally, costs between $3,000 and $10,000 to produce. Professional video production is always advisable in this area – businesses expect even higher quality than general consumers and a professional video production company will have the equipment to produce a video of the quality you need, as well as the experience to tell your story in the most effective way.
To see a ROI you have to break even. This means you need to work out how many sales your video has to generate to recoup its production costs. After that, any sales it generates are pure profit for your business. Many B2B sales are worth large amounts – it’s not uncommon for a B2B video to recoup its costs in a single sale. This is why worldwide, over half of all marketing professionals (51.9 percent) now report that video has the best ROI of all content marketing strategies.
The below B2B video example is from a set of 3 videos created for the listed company Embelton, the videos were created to work with or without sound for social media pages, the stats on social media videos and audio will need an entire other post.
B2B Promotional Video Example from Rockmans Creative Media on Vimeo.
How well does B2B video marketing actually work?
The fact that a huge 96 percent of B2B marketers now use video as part of their content marketing activity really speaks for itself – if it wasn’t effective, it simply wouldn’t be used. The popularity of video in B2B marketing is largely due to the preferences of business decision makers. Recent research by Forbes reveals that 59 percent of executives would rather watch a video than read written content, and 50 percent will want more information about a product or service after watching a video about it.
Not only that, 70 percent of B2B buyers and researchers use videos to inform their purchase decisions. Using video automatically gives your brand an advantage over those that haven’t embraced it yet. B2B videos are likely to be more effective in generating a ROI than any other type of B2B content marketing – 74 percent of B2B marketers are seeing higher conversion rates from video than all their other marketing activities.
Below is our second B2B promotional video example. This video was created for Dupont, specifically for their Delrin Acetal engineering thermoplastic. The video explains the products benefits and usages and talks directly to their clients, not the end user. For simplicity we animated the video.
Animated Promotional Video Example – DuPont from Rockmans Creative Media on Vimeo.
Uses of video in B2B marketing
Video can be used in a number of ways to market your brand to other businesses. Many B2B marketers are now using video for product demonstrations, as it’s an ideal way of showing how something works without having to be in the room with your audience.
Video testimonials are also becoming increasingly popular, where satisfied business customers are given the opportunity to explain how the product or service has improved their working lives and why other businesses should adopt it. You can read on more on testimonial videos here, as well as view example videos.
In addition, video is the perfect complement to many other B2B marketing activities. Email is a highly effective B2B strategy, but video can make it yield even more impressive results. Research shows that simply using the word “video” in the subject line of a B2B email will increase open rates by 19 percent and click rates by 65 percent, as well as decreasing the number of recipients unsubscribing by 26 percent.
Presenter Rehearsing Script for a B2B Video Shoot
Video is a highly personal medium, which is why it works so well when it comes to building audience engagement and trust in your brand. This is what fosters long-lasting, valuable relationships between you and your business customers – and in B2B marketing, strong relationships are what will keep your business earning a profit long into the future.
For more details on corporate video production visit our home page