While many of us associate YouTube with videos of cats or people falling off their skateboards in new and interesting ways, the reality is that YouTube can be an extremely powerful weapon for a B2B marketer. In a recent study, the top three social networks for online B2B marketing are Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. With more than 800 million unique visitors each month, YouTube is now the world’s second biggest search engine. More than 100 million people take social action (likes, shares, comments, etc.) on YouTube every week.
In addition to providing your prospects with information about your product or service, a YouTube channel is also important from a brand equity perspective. HP, for example, has a large part of their channel devoted to their work in health and education. In a press release or blog format the average prospect may not ever bother looking into this kind of material, as it doesn’t have a direct connection to the buying process. But if a prospect is considering purchasing a new printer for their business and is watching a product demonstration video on YouTube, they are more likely to do so. By establishing an emotional connection, HP is able to position its brand in the prospect’s mind as caring and trustworthy.
Youtube is humungous. Each minute about 400 hour worth of video content is uploaded, but only 5% may elicit more than 10K views. 50% of all YouTube views come via a mobile device and the average time spent on YouTube per mobile is about 40 minutes. YouTube has more than 1 billion active users surfing the site. Importantly, for most companies the promotion is free and always available. Even if your content may not reach top 5% of the post, it could serve as an alternate marketing asset to inform, and influence customers.
As a B2B company, you can gain the most from YouTube marketing if you can stick to some fundamentals listed below.
- Making content stand out: Well we all know the power of viral videos. People will actively share unique content on their social media networks, even if it’s associated with a brand. The key is to include your brand or product in the video in a way that’s not so invasive that it feels like an advertisement. A common technique used to encourage sharing is humour, but it might also be the format that captures the prospect’s attention (e.g. using a unique animation or live action scenario to tell your product’s story). You need to plan out the needs and essence your video is going to fill in your prospect’s mind and heart.
- Make it easy to find and share: After uploading a video to YouTube, make sure to give your videos searchable titles, well described & brief descriptions and lots of tags. Embed videos on your business website as well as its social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+). If the video resonates with the prospects, they will react to it and might share it on their own social media accounts.
- Put faces to your brand: Great thing about YouTube is that it allows you to put a face to your brand; this is extremely important in building trust with your prospect. It’s often better to use real people from business or mascots representing your brand or company. Prospects get attached to these adding a layer of transparency which is often extremely difficult to establish using traditional online marketing such as blogs, whitepapers, online forums etc.
- First few seconds to impress: YouTube is all about small sized (length) video content. Use it to get attention in short span and condense your videos to 2-3 minute on specific areas of interest, e.g. product feature demonstrations or testimonials. According to 8-second rule, research has indicated that if users have to wait longer than 8 seconds without any attention seeking action or interest, they will go elsewhere. Because there is an ocean of information waiting online to get their precious attention. You have only 8 seconds to impress a person & to get him watch your whole content, so make first 8 seconds impactful and rather creative than just showcasing your product or feature. You need to take an innovative route to enter into the mind of the prospect for a sustaining impression. Be creative and sometimes be more natural. Shoot, animate, use info graphics etc. in your video to make it more compelling and informative according to your content.
- One video many use or a particular use: More specific content is also helpful from the perspective that you can utilize the video or the YouTube link to focus on a particular product/service in your target email marketing campaigns & product description pages in your website. Whereas generic informative and rather flexible branding videos can be used in you landing home page to describe what your brand is all about. This will increase the engagement time prospect surfs information about your brand & will generate an impactful visit to your website.
- Take time to create your own brand space with a YouTube channel to make it easier for your users to find all of your video content at same place. Include links to your site, campaign information, conference updates etc. Encourage comments and subscriptions from viewers. Listen and react to what’s being said as feedback or comments. Take positive notes and keep on the light glowing around with more inputs and changes. Treat your prospects comments as advices & necessary recommendations giving your marketing a continuous boost for years to come.
Vikash Prasad