b2bvideoVideo has become the most engaging form of communications for marketing purposes and is an increasingly important piece of the online B2B marketing mix.

But what will be the most challenging obstacles to video marketing success in the year ahead and how will B2B marketers overcome them? Demand Metric’s B2B Benchmarks & Best Practices Report on Video Marketing has all the answers.

Video Usage
  • Of the almost 400 B2B professionals participating in this study, more than two-thirds (69%) have used video for B2B marketing purposes.
  • The remaining 31% have not begun using video in their marketing strategies, however, they are planning to in the future.
  • Organizations that have not used video for marketing and are not planning to were disqualified from participating in the remainder of the survey.

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Video Marketing Objectives

The most important objectives for B2B video marketing strategies range from the easily measureable (lead generation) to the less discernible (brand awareness).

Although brand awareness is not easily measured, more than half of respondents (52%) found this objective to be the most important for the upcoming year. Not surprisingly, increasing lead generation and online engagement followed closely behind the leading response.

Interestingly, the objectives for increasing conversion rates and direct sales were chosen the least for this survey question. However, one can infer that, by way of the other objectives on this list, video marketing initiatives will eventually produce more conversions and generate more revenue for the organization.

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Current Video Marketing Success

Presently, 15% of survey participants consider video marketing “Very successful” at achieving important objectives. Another 67% rated video marketing a less enthusiastic, but supportive “somewhat successful”.

Overall, 82% of participants are experiencing some sort of success with current video marketing initiatives. This is an extremely high majority, proving that video marketing has the capacity to improve marketing strategy and campaigns.

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Obstacles to Video Marketing success

As video marketing becomes more imperative to implement, organizations must consider the risks associated with program planning, strategy and system implementation.

Interestingly, nearly half of study participants replied that three obstacles – the lack of budget, resources and compelling content – are almost equally challenging to achieving video marketing success.

Again, as the need for video content increases, these barriers are becoming less and less challenging. Products/services for video marketing are becoming more affordable. Likewise, organizations are finding that there is a necessity for dedicated video marketing professionals on their payroll.

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Video Marketing Budget

For 63% of participating B2B organizations, video marketing spending is on the rise, either slightly or significantly. Another third (32%) responded that their budget for video marketing will remain the same for the upcoming year. Only 5% of organizations are planning to decrease spending in the year ahead.

Usage of Channels for Video Distribution

Expectedly, a great deal of respondents (81%) ranked their own company/brand website as the most used channel for distribution. Following close behind company websites, video sharing websites, such as YouTube and Vimeo, were chosen as the second most used channel for distribution.

Unfortunately, only the most compelling and universally understood videos become viral. Since the vast majority of videos produced for B2B marketing purposes are more informative than compelling, B2B organization should consider relying more heavily on outbound channels, such as email marketing campaigns and e-newsletters to reach prospects and customers

Channel Effectiveness of Videos

Video sharing sites like Youtube and Vimeo are considered the most effective channel for the distribution of B2B videos, but company/brand websites and email/e-newsletters were also considered to be fairly effective distribution channels. All other response options were rated relatively low in terms of effectiveness. As mentioned, B2B marketing videos rarely go viral and as such marketers should be encouraged to consider other alternatives for distributing video content. Fact is that the more a channel is perceived as effective, the more it is used by B2B organizations.

Usage of Video Optimization Tactics

Search engines love videos, therefore it is no surprise that tagging videos with search keywords was the most used optimization tactic by 58% of B2B organizations. As video becomes more popular among B2B organizations, all activities associated with optimizing video content will be important to the success of an organization’s overall video marketing program. Eventually tagging videos with search keywords will become standard practice and we will see an upward shift in the importance of other video optimization tactics. Worth to consider is posting video transcriptions and optimizing videos for sharing sites, as these are two tactics that may seem minor, however, they may give B2B marketers the upper hand when it comes to SEO.

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