Jeff HiltyWhen you want to build brand recognition, marketing reach, and customer retention for your B2B brand, video marketing a powerful way to do that. B2B video production is valuable for B2B businesses of all sizes. It can help you engage and connect with your audience in ways that are difficult to achieve with text or images.
B2B video production comes in many different formats and can be leveraged on various channels and platforms. Whether you have a marketing budget that is large or limited, there’s a video marketing strategy that will suit your needs.
What Is A B2B Video Production?
B2B video production is an umbrella term including any video content made for a B2B business. B2B videos can be produced for many different purposes. They can, for example, be distributed via your company websites, email marketing, or social media platforms like Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
Different Types of B2B Videos
B2B videos are valuable in several use cases. They can be used to biuild and increase brand awareness, explain products or features, or build trust. They can be standalone projects or part of larger marketing campaigns.
Examples of B2B videos include, but are not limited to:
- Explainer video
- Demo videos
- Customer interviews
- Live stream video
- User-generated videos
- Testimonial videos
- Webinars
- Internal comms videos
- CSR videos
- Staff training and safety videos
- Promotional films
- Product videos
- Investor relations and shareholder videos
- Market updates
Related reading: 5 Reasons To Invest In Brand Video Production
Benefits of Using Video In B2B Marketing
- Video helps you engage and connect with your audience
- People prefer video over text or audio
- Video creates emotional connections
- Video is the most engaging and shared content format on social media
- Video feels more authentic and helps you build trust
- Videos allow you to explain complex concepts and products
How Do You Measure Success In B2B Video Production?
There are different ways to measure success for your B2B video production. What way suits your project will depend on your business goals and objectives and on where in the marketing and sales funnel you will be using the video.
Is your objective to build brand awareness? If so, metrics for engagement and reach can be relevant KPIs. For example, how views, comments, likes, and shares did your video get? But if your video is placed further down the funnel, you could instead opt to track conversion rates. Relevant KPIs could be app downloads, demo bookings, or even actual sales.
There’s not just one way to measure success for your B2B videos. The metrics you choose to track should align with your goals and the channels you’re using for distribution.
Budgeting For B2B Video Production – How Much Does It Cost?
Creating a B2B video is an investment that requires planning and budgeting. Many marketing departments find budgeting for video challenging, partly because many video production agencies fail to communicate transparently around the pricing.
Some of the factors that will affect your final cost:
How long will your shoot be? A full shoot day is +10 hours; a half-day is typically 4-7 hours. Note that half days don’t equate to half of the cost. Planning for each shoot day includes planning gear for video recording, lighting, and sound recording.
How big will the crew need to be? The crew size necessary will depend on the scope of your project. Some projects require big crews; other times, a leaner team can get the job done well. The size of the crew will affect the total cost.
Will there be a need for accommodation and transportation? Some productions require the team to travel to the location. If you work with a production company that is not local, you could ask them if they can subcontract parts of the shoot to a local crew to keep costs down.
Related reading: Budgeting for Video Production – How To Decide On The Size Of Your Production
A Template For B2B Video Production Budgeting
A budget template can help with the financial planning process of your video production project. It’s there to ensure you don’t miss essential aspects and costs and to speed up the budgeting process. A template should contain a brief project plan with the following information:
- your project’s name
- a list of all the cast and crew involved
- filming schedules and a list of tasks involved
- post-production activities
- branding and marketing activities
When you’ve listed everything your project will entail, you and your video agency can start budgeting for it. The template can help you avoid overspending on unforeseen costs. Ensure it entails all the people, tools, tasks, and investments associated with your video production. Depending on the circumstances, you may also want to include information about marketing and distribution costs.
Let’s take a look at some of the most important things to be included in your budget:
- Equipment: Your budget must cover all equipment for shooting your videos, such as cameras, lighting, and microphones.
- Locations: Costs may be associated with renting or accessing some spaces or areas. You may need to build a set on a site that is associated with costs.
- Staff costs: Wages for cast and crew must also be included in your budget.
- Post-production expenses: After the filming is done, there are costs for editing the material.
There is no “right” way to make a video production budget, but there are some standard practices. To save you time and effort, we’ve created this free Video Production Budget Template that you can use to get started.
Related reading: The Definitive Video Production Pricing Sheet For 2022
Convince Your Boss–The Business Case For B2B Video Production
Most B2B marketing teams know that video is the way forward. A good B2B video will set your company apart from your competitors and help you reach your marketing and sales goals. As a marketer, you probably feel this in your gut, and you intuitively understand the potential of video in marketing communication. However, it can be challenging to get management buy-in. If you’re in a conservative company and industry, your plans to invest in video may be met with some skepticism.
The best way to get buy-in from management is by focusing on hard facts and figures and presenting a solid business case. Explain that while producing a blog post may be much cheaper than shooting a video, that’s too simplified a way of thinking about marketing spend. Show your management that video’s value in marketing far surpasses the cost. Focus on the fact that video is the marketing medium that delivers the highest ROI.
Related reading: How To Convince Your Boss To Be Bold With Corporate Video
Common Pitfalls To Avoid In B2B Video Production
Including Too Much Information In Your Video
A common mistake is trying to be everything to everyone or to share every detail about your offering in the same video. Instead, focus on one key point at a time and hone your core message. For your video to be compelling and efficient, it needs to be short and to the point. So, simplify, simplify, and simplify some more. Reduce, reduce, and reduce some more. What is the most tangible pain point your target audience is experiencing? What is your solution? Focus on that – the rest will just be a distraction.
Playing It “Safe” But Ending Up Being Boring
The B2B marketing landscape today is saturated. B2B buyers are constantly bombarded with marketing messages, day in, day out. You need to create something out of the ordinary for your videos to stand out and catch people’s attention. Because if your B2B video feels like just another ad, your audience may not even notice it. The key to standing out is being courageous and creative. You and your video agency need to be bold and think outside the box to create great videos that break through the noise.
Doing What Your Competitors Are Doing
What your competitors are doing might work for them. But that does not mean you should do the same thing. It’s an all too common mistake to look to competitors for inspiration. A better strategy is to look at other industries if you want to borrow creative ideas and concepts. Copying your competition will make you come across as second-best rather than a leader in your industry. Aim to create videos that differentiate your brand rather than videos that blend in.
Related reading: 7 Ways To Get People To Pay Attention To Your Corporate Video
Doing What You’ve Always Done
It’s always easy to get stuck in our old ways and keep doing what we know works. But what worked last year in marketing is usually not the same approach that will work tomorrow. And it could be argued that “playing it “safe” is one of the biggest risks you could take, as it could mean you end up with “meh” content that nobody notices. Being open to new ways of telling your story, you can keep finding fresh new ways to capture your audience’s attention.
Related reading: 3 Key Ingredients of Powerful B2B Video Production
Not Personalizing Your B2B Videos
Another vital component of video marketing is personalization. For your message to resonate with your audience, you need to understand who they are, what they aspire to, and how you can help them get there. In B2B marketing, you often talk to multiple target personas, as there are different members in the buying group. This means you must first create content optimized for your primary target persona and perhaps create a different set of videos for the other personas, talking to their pain points and interests. Personalization in B2B video production is essential and can improve your results dramatically.
Related reading: How To Create Authentic Brand Videos – And Why It Matters
Some of the B2B Videos We’ve Produced For Our Clients
We work with companies within a wide range of industries, and of different sizes, to create visual storytelling that creates engagement and drives results.
Here you can find a wide variety of videos that Covalent have produced for different B2B companies.
One example is this explainer video we made for Pineapple Payments, explaining their integration with Salesforce. We’ve produced many great B2b videos for Pineapple Payments that help explain their unique products to their clients.
Another example is this promotional video that we created for Inner Orange. Inner Orange is a part of PNC, and they needed a b2b sales video to remind PNC of the work they have done and the capabilities they offer.
Partner With An Award-Winning B2B Video Production Agency
Covalent is a creative B2B video production company based in Pittsburgh. We produce commercial videos for B2B, B2C, and D2C companies of all sizes and industries. We’re known for combining experience and creativity with a strong marketing mindset. We can help you plan and produce everything from brand videos and TV commercials to explainer videos and docu-style shoots.
We produce B2B videos at various price points, always focusing on creating the content you need to reach your business goals. And we’re with you from ideation through every step of execution. Combining years of experience with cutting-edge creativity, our productions have received numerous awards and accolades.
Get in touch to discuss how we can help your brand get started with video marketing production and build more exciting and engaging B2B communication!