When was the last time you came across a video ad, pressed play, and thought, “Wow, this video seems like it was made just for me!”
Whether it’s a short product explainer or a 10-minute case study video, the most effective B2B marketing videos have two things in common — relevancy and personalization.
“It’s no longer OK to give that canned demo or to not know what a person might be interested in based on what they did on the website prior to engaging with a salesperson,” shares Phil Harrell, VP and Group Director Sales Research for Forrester, when asked about what B2B sales success looks like moving forward.
For many B2B companies, getting relevancy and personalization right when developing videos can be an uphill climb. Read on if you want to build a scalable content marketing strategy for your target audience through video.
Three ways to create targeted video content while scaling video production
The more you understand your audience in B2B marketing, the more you’ll connect to the right businesses. Quick wins from targeted video ads can help you get more buy-in from stakeholders and ramp up video production.
Make smarter decisions as a B2B marketer and boost your lead generation efforts with these three ways on how to create targeted video content:
- Define your target audience’s video needs through customer segmentation
- Gain an in-depth understanding of your target audience using the jobs-to-be-done framework
- Develop video for your target audience with the B2B sales funnel in mind
1. Define your target audience’s video needs through customer segmentation
Market Segmentation
Market segmentation is the process of sorting your target audience into smaller segments based on similarities of specific characteristics. Gender, hobbies, company size, industries, and digital platforms of choice are good examples.
Marketing segmentation strategies provide data-rich insights to B2B businesses, empowering them to target different subsets of their target audience.
Narrow down your target audience based on one or more of the following types of market segmentation: demographics, firmographics, geographics, or psychographics.
Demographic segmentation
Segment your target audience by demographic analysis and statistical data.
Examples: Age, gender, profession, family size, income
Firmographic segmentation
Categorize your target businesses by company analysis. Firmographics is the corporate counterpart of demographics. It shifts the focus to the company from the individual.
Examples: Company size, industry, funding status, performance, executive title
Bain and Company’s teaser video for their 2021 Global Private Equity Report is an excellent example of a video campaign using one firmographic segmentation. The video is targeting a specific industry: private equity.
Geographic segmentation
Sort your target audience by geographic divisions such as cities or countries.
Examples: Continent, country, state, city, or suburb
Take it from marketing leader Hubspot who faced the challenge of creating the same quantity and quality of content from their main headquarters in the US for multiple languages, across six international regions.
Fortunately, Hubspot quickly scaled video content for their international markets using Wibbitz, including creating content relevant to specific countries.
“Ultimately, we decided to work with Wibbitz because of the speed, the platform, and the amazing customer support, who is always quick to respond and awesome to work with.”
Charlie Reiff, Social Video Editor & Animator at HubSpot
Case Study: TERRITORY INFLUENCE
A top influencer marketing service company based in Europe, also experienced a similar struggle as Hubspot. With Wibbitz, the TERRITORY INFLUENCE marketing team was able to scale their video content production to support their local teams across the European market.
It didn’t take long for them to get solid returns on investment after using Wibbitz. With 20 videos per month, they cut production times from weeks to 20 minutes or less. As a result, they can drive more sales through their B2B campaigns and get more followers.
“Before Wibbitz, it actually took weeks to create videos. We had to brief the graphic guys, and they had other tasks to do. So now, we have time to actually create our videos ourselves.”
Orsi Bakos-Ladányi, International Marketing Conceptioner for TERRITORY INFLUENCE
Psychographic segmentation
Segment your target customers based on their personalities, interests, beliefs, opinions, and lifestyles.
Examples: Social media and TV habits, food preferences, religious or spiritual beliefs
In a nutshell, marketing segmentation enables you to be more specific than the standard buyer personas. With segmentation, you can define your audiences by more clear-cut traits and create personalized marketing campaigns that better resonate.
2. Gain an in-depth understanding of your target audience using the Jobs-to-be-Done framework
The basic premise of the Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) theory is to focus on understanding the “job” that your target audience is hiring your product or service for.
When you buy a product or use a service, it’s essentially helping you get a job done. You “hire” an audio transcription software because it enables you to convert video and audio files to text quickly. Or you “employ” the services of an IT outsourcing company because you need an IT staff quickly and at a fair price.
Instead of banking on buyer personas, the JTBD framework helps B2B marketers better understand what their audience hopes to accomplish in a given circumstance.
Bamboo HR’s mini videos on putting out HR Fires are fantastic examples. HR folks probably aren’t too interested in an HR software’s many features. However, “putting out fires at work” is one job that they definitely need help with.
3. Develop target audience videos with the B2B sales funnel in mind
B2B companies that do a stellar job with videos recognize the need to meet buyers wherever they are in the buyer’s journey, anticipate their needs, and empower them to take the next step.
Here’s a quick look at how to use targeted video content with the B2B sales funnel in mind.
Awareness
The awareness stage is when the customer has a problem and is looking for a solution.
You may have the solution, but the customer doesn’t know you exist. This is your first point of interaction, and the goal here is to create brand recognition and recall. This is the time for relationship-building, and you need to target more impressions and repeat visits.
At this stage, explainer videos are a good way to help potential consumers understand your product or service better.
Pro tip: Aim to keep the viewer engaged for as long as possible and encourage them to learn more about your business.
An excellent example of a video designed for customers in the awareness stage is Anchor Brewing’s origin story in the video below by strategic marketing firm and publisher MarketScale. With this type of content, brand awareness and discovery is the goal.
Learn how MarketScale creates digestible marketing videos for a portfolio of clients and 15 publications
Consideration
Now that your B2B target audience is already aware of your brand, the next step is to provide them with more information. As a result, they will get to know you better before deciding to buy from you.
During this stage of the buyer’s journey, you are competing for attention with many others offering similar solutions. This is where you need videos that can help you to establish credibility.
Webinars, case study videos, and product demos are good types of videos for this stage.
Pro tip: The goal in creating videos for prospects in the middle of the funnel is to make the association between the potential customer and your brand.
Every time the consumer thinks of the problem, your product or service should come to mind as the solution. Your content should help prospects see your products or service in action.
When making videos for this stage, take a leaf off Bluleadz’s book. In the video below, the company addresses the prospect by name and includes the company/brand name in its video. Personalization is also incorporated at the beginning and end of this video—which piques the prospect’s interest and sustains it until the end.
Here’s another fantastic example from Bain and Company. The teaser video below highlights their survey of more than 2,000 Gen Z consumers. You will know right away that the video is for an audience who wants to learn more about Gen Zers and their expectations when it comes to fashion.
Decision
It’s decision time for your B2B prospects! Evoke emotion and create a more significant association with your product. Targeted video content at this stage can help flip the coin in your favor and clear away any purchase decision barriers. Your sales team will thank you, too.
How? Use video testimonials.
With testimonial videos, seeing other customers talk about their positive experience using your product creates a sense of trust and intimacy that helps the viewer instantly connect with the product and decide.
Pro tip: Add personalization to create the impression of a one-to-one interaction and instill greater confidence.
Our customer story video below for MarketScale hits the mark for a great testimonial video.
Delight
The prospect has finally turned into a customer! Before you relax, keep in mind that you need to sustain the relationship. Your goal is to meet the customer’s expectations which will hopefully lead to more purchases and possibly customer evangelism.
Make the customer feel welcome and make sure that they have a good experience with your brand.
For a start, a personalized onboarding video is worth emulating. This type of video will explain how to get started with your product and creates goodwill at the same time. You can also use these videos to provide tips and tricks for using the product and share them through email marketing.
You can also experiment with thank you messages. Follow in the footsteps of Oxfam, as illustrated in the video below. The NGO thanks its donors with a personalized video and gives them a glimpse of their work. It takes the viewers on a journey that shows them exactly where their donations are going and how they improve people’s lives in various parts of the world.