Using video to make B2B marketing less boring

When I met Justin I quickly realized that he was the type of marketer that like to push the boundaries and use mediums like video to cut through the noise to get his message across. Almost everything that came out of his mouth was about best serving his audience and doing it in a way that isn't boring or well doesn't suck. I've had a blast trading notes with him and enjoying our previous conversation on the 3C Podcast. I hope his contribution to this series sparks some ideas on how to shed some old habits that have come all to customary in B2B marketing.

Using video to make B2B marketing less boring

Justin Simon, Global Content Strategy Manager

TechSmith

The worst part of current B2B marketing is the perceived need to be formal. We assume that because we are selling into businesses that we have to sound “professional.” 

And that leads most B2B companies to end up sounding the exact same way. 

And 99.9% of it boring.

In five years will we still be saying B2B and B2C? Probably.

But I’m not sure we should. I work on both B2B and B2C brands. And strategies/tactics aren't THAT much different. And they're getting closer every single day.

The best B2B marketers today are taking pages out of the B2C playbook. They’re focusing on the actual consumer – the human – and not the organization.

It shouldn’t be B2B or Business to Business.

It really needs to be H2H.

Human to Humans.

One of my favorite ways to make B2B marketing more personal is to use video. And not just videos showing off your product’s new feature.

At TechSmith, we’ve leaned heavily into educational video content. What that ends up looking like is creating video content that helps people before and after they try out our products. 

Our entire goal is to help people learn no matter where they are at. So that might be live streams where interview relevant guests for our audience, product tutorials, or more high-level how-to content. 

Most marketers are familiar with the idea of pillar content.

You take one big piece of content (or one big topic) and slice it up into a bunch of other smaller topics or clusters.

Rather than slicing a video up into different topics, you can also slice it up into different media types.

One TechSmith live stream gets:

• Posted on YouTube
• Added to our podcast feed
• Created into a blog post
• Cut into clips for social media
• Created into social graphics
  

A live stream video is just one example, but you can use this same method for nearly any video you make. 

If creating a video is the first half of the battle, distributing it is the second. Before you even make your first video, you should plan out how you want to get that content in front of people. That way you know you’re going to get the most bang for your buck out of your content. 

Distribution is the backbone of a solid content marketing plan. And the worst thing you can do is create a great video just to let it sit on the shelf because you didn’t properly distribute it. 

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