Why you need a B2B video marketing strategy, and how to make one

In a recent State of Video 2022 report by Wistia, only about half (58.8%) of 600 customers surveyed said they have a video marketing strategy. 

Since Wistia is a video hosting platform, that means that almost half of people actively using video in their marketing have no dedicated video strategy. I expect that number would be even higher in the general B2B marketing population.

At the same time, many of these respondents said they were planning to increase their video budget for 2022, some by 10% or more.

It seems these B2B marketers are investing in video without a set strategy. Here’s why that’s a mistake.

What is a B2B video marketing strategy?

For many B2B marketers, video started as a simple asset in the toolkit. Your company made a brand film for the home page. Then maybe you made a few product videos. Then a testimonial. Then you recorded a few webinars and uploaded them to YouTube. Over time, your website and Youtube channel have amassed a wide range of videos. Some convert for you and some just sit. 

How do you decide what to do with the videos you have, and what to create next? It’s time to create a strategy.

A video marketing strategy defines the role of video throughout your customer journey. It should explain how video enhances and contributes to your wider marketing strategy, and define how success will be measured. 

At the very least, a video marketing strategy should include:

• The messaging and purpose for each video you have or want to create
• How those videos will be used
• Where the videos will be distributed, including both organic and paid channels
• How success will be defined

Why you need a B2B video marketing strategy

A strategy provides a framework for planning, creating, and evaluating the success of your video content. 

Let’s look at why you need a strategy for each step of the video marketing process.

Planning

In the planning stage, a clear strategy defines the purpose of each video you want to create and the key message you want to communicate. Without having a clear purpose and message, you won’t be able to come up with creative ideas for the video. 

The planning stage of your video strategy should include budgets for video creative, production, and distribution. We generally recommend to allocate the highest budgets to top-of-funnel spots and spend less as your prospect moves down the funnel.

Video production

Once you move into producing your videos, a video marketing strategy ensures that all new video content is created with a consistent message and voice. That’s not to say that all videos need to be the same type or the same style, but it should be clear that they were created by the same brand. 

A strategy, especially one for the year, allows you to take advantage of the economies of scale of video production. It’s more efficient to create several videos at the same time, rather than doing each project separately — even if it’s not one campaign. 

Evaluating success

A video marketing strategy needs to define the goals of each video and what metrics will be measured to see if the goal was met. These metrics will need to be different depending on the goal. For example, view count might be a good metric for a brand awareness campaign,  but less important for a customer support series.

If you are tracking metrics for the first time, always benchmark for improvement against yourself, not a competitor. Many publicly available metrics, like view counts, can be inflated by paid campaigns. Record your own starting metrics and focus on a percentage increase against yourself first before you try to beat a competitor.

How to create a B2B video marketing strategy

If you are creating a video marketing strategy for the first time, follow these steps to get started.

1. Take stock of all the video assets you currently have. Organize them by purpose (ex: product videos, webinars, how-tos, etc) and note how each works for you (ex: This product walkthrough drives leads. This how-to supports existing clients.).
2. Decide which videos are working well for you, and which are not. This step will require some hard truths and hard conversations, because you may find some expensive assets have proven to be duds.
3. Clean up your YouTube or website by removing losers and promoting existing winners. Keep those quality assets working for you!
4. Look at what gaps you have in your current video offerings. We like using a customer journey framework, but you can use whatever structure you use for your overall marketing strategy.
5. Once you identify the new forms of content you want to create, define the messaging and set a budget for each one. As a rule of thumb, the farther a prospect gets down your funnel, the less you can spend on production value. Focus the big budgets on awareness and top of funnel assets.
6. Make some videos! Since we know a thing or two about that, feel free to reach out to discuss.