Creating video content for your tech B2B audience can seem daunting, especially if you’ve never made an effective video before. But remember, the first time is always the hardest. It will get easier! Like Mark Twain once said, "The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable ones and starting on the first."
Now you may be asking yourself, “What are the complex, overwhelming tasks you need to break down into manageable tasks to start creating video content?” Don’t worry, we got you covered! Here’s a simple checklist of tips for getting started with your video marketing.
#1 Know your audience & what video format works best for them
Start by defining the persona(s) of your B2B audience very clearly: Imagine the person on the other side of the camera. Who are they? And what do they care about? When it comes to promoting the video on different channels (your website, social media, email, etc.), you want to make sure your content fits with the spirit of the channel as well as how people behave on that particular channel. Sometimes it helps to think of LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media as TV channels—HBO versus ESPN versus History channel. Each has a different vibe and content style.
Start creating powerful videos for your tech B2B audience.
#2 Create goals for each video
Videos can have both softer goals like brand awareness as well as clearly defined, concrete business goals. It helps to create a framework for your goals to keep them top of mind and organised. For example, you can group your goals into these three categories:
- Brand moments: Goals involving company milestones, new product features, a new team member, or other company-related news we’d like our audience to know about.
- Business moments: Goals that address the desired business outcome from the video—and tend to be more tactical in nature.
- Entertainment moment: Goals that have to do with making the content entertaining for your audience.
#3 Find a compelling focus for your video content
Come up with a list of questions that can influence what your video is going to be— very similar to how you approach the content creation process when blogging. The goals are twofold:
The titles of your topics should be written based on what people might actually search for on Google so that people can find your content organically. For example, “how to migrate IBM power to cloud” or “how to strengthen your network security.” You will pair your videos with a blog post for maximum impact on your tech B2B audience—and search rankings.
#4 Stay on top of the video process
The marketing team might ultimately be responsible for video content, but who specifically will own the content calendar and manage the people, goals, and timelines? When it comes to establishing what you’ll need from your team, the “video process” can be broken down into three main categories:
- Project management: Refers to the content plan and schedule as well as the different people involved week to week
- Video making: The actual shooting and editing of footage
- Sharing: Involves video sharing and publishing, tracking analytics, and communicating with viewers as they react and respond
If you’re a bigger company, you might have a couple of people or teams involved, and if you’re a smaller team, don’t worry - these responsibilities can all fall under the same person.
If your team doesn’t have the necessary resources or enough bandwidth, you might want to leverage somebody like Measurable Impact who can support you at every stage of the video process.
Streamline creating high-quality video content with Measurable Impact.
#5 Project-manage video making and sharing
You can have the absolute best and most strategic video strategy in the world, but in our experience, if you don’t have the following pillars—the three “Cs”— in your process, you’ll struggle to get things off the ground:
- Commitment: You absolutely have to commit for a certain amount of time and a certain number of pieces of content - don't worry about the audience size or views; the value is in the video collection as a whole.
- Calendar: Making a video routine and part of the schedule is so important! Block everyone’s calendars for a set amount of time per week to dedicate to the initiative.
- Content: map out key themes and think through how they build on each other and other events or happenings going on in the organisation or industry.
#6 Create a repeatable process
Let’s review the two key categories when it comes to video software and hardware:
- Production: Has to do with all the items needed to create a script and actually shoot the video: a phone or video camera, mic, lighting, people or things to film, a location to shoot in, etc.
- Post-production: Refers to what occurs after the initial shooting or recording. This is where collaboration and review occur as you stitch footage, music, and graphics together to tell a story. Once you have your final, approved version, you can then distribute the video for people to see.
#7 Analyse and measure videos
When it comes to videos, there are three metrics that we care most about: Views, viewing length, and engagement. Try using the 10,10, 10 rule to measure success:
-
Audience Views: Shoot for 10% - out of all the people who could have watched it, how many did? If your video will appear in front of a targeted audience of 500 people, did at least 50 watch it?
-
Viewing Duration: Out of that 10%, did they stick with it? Or did they drop off after 10 seconds? This is important and lets you know whether your target audience is interested in the content itself! And helps you understand what to do/not do in the next one.
-
Engagement: Likes, comments, or shares. Did at least 10% of people who watched the video feel inspired to act and engage with you? You can always nudge people during the video to comment below the video or add overlays to the video with specific calls to action like “start a free trial”.
Video marketing in tech B2B is a lot like other forms of marketing: you must put your audience first and curate video collections that benefit them and also helps you hit your three “moment” goals. More than anything, the one takeaway we’d love for you to have is that video should be a routine part of your life now! Simply commit to a daily or weekly video, embrace the feedback, and just keep iterating.
Our Video Content Program helps tech B2B businesses engage, attract, and delight their clients with compelling video content. Find out how.