For many B2B products and services, technology itself is a big differentiator. But vendors of these technology solutions often struggle to differentiate their own solutions. It’s a problem because, according to Gartner research, when technology buyers aren’t sure what makes a solution different, they don’t buy from that vendor. When you use video to differentiate, make sure you don’t cloud the picture with a surrounding claims that your competitors also make. Touting customer benefits can increase confusion Most technology marketers

While most B2B video viewing continues to take place on desktops, B2B companies still need to discuss their solutions in social media. Video generally rules the day in social media, but not in the standard TV formats everyone is used to. Social media platforms, human attention spans, and user preferences demand new “best practices” that may differ from how you’re currently producing and distributing video. 1. Best video format: square Square (or vertical) video looks better on social platforms, and

A notable difference between B2c and B2B buying decisions is that most consumers (75%) say they’ve placed orders immediately after watching a video. That may happen with some B2B products, but not the enterprise technology solution videos my company specializes in. Still, B2B buyers are also consumers. So it’s worth taking a look at the recently-published CMO Council report on video qualities that influence consumer decisions.     Reflecting the B2B buyer’s interest No one will be surprised to learn

Vimeo Enterprise, a SaaS version of the 14-year-old ad-free platform popular with video creators and viewers, is launching soon, in a version aimed at making it easy for big companies to get the most out of their growing video libraries. According to Vimeo’s CEO, Anjali Sud, “while there are a couple of small, niche enterprise video companies in the market, none offer anything close to the scale we have. Our security features and support services are more sophisticated and advanced

Is there an ideal length for a video? The work of crafting a B2B marketing video is always done in hopes that prospects and customers will appreciate the effort enough to watch the whole thing. Some will. But according to 2018 video benchmarks from Vidyard [download page], only two out of three viewers stay tuned, even if the video is really really short. The longer the video, the higher the dropout rate. At any length, leaving the best stuff to

Kurt Vonnegut famously diagrammed the “shapes” of the what he identified as the mere handful of plots that underlie all stories. But the plot of a story — boy-meets-girl, man-gets-out-of-hole, whatever — is not what holds your attention. What keeps you going is the narrative, the tense, interesting moments come at you one-by-one.  So, how do you shape narrative in a video story? A-B-T = And-But-Therefore Randy Olson makes a good case for the three-point formula he calls “A-B-T (And-But-Therefore).

Short videos about technology are great for sales and marketing. But they can be tricky to produce when you’ve got technical subject matter and multiple stakeholders who hold competing views of what customers really want to know. Last month, I wrote about some tech video best practices that help to smooth the upfront work that leads to better productions. The following tips relate to the actual production work 1) Keep stakeholders involved as the production moves along. If you wait

For a lot of people involved in technology solution videos, producing videos is not their main job. Video is just another element in a product launch, a trade show, or a web page. They’re not confident that they know what they’re getting into. If that’s you, here are seven best practices for videos about a technology solution. 1. Read a good video production guide. Here’s a comprehensive guide that comes with 15 templates! You’re probably not going have the time

Two out of three B2B buyers strongly agree that the use of more data and research would improve the quality of the content provided by vendors, according to Demand Gen Report data. There’s plenty of other research to support the common-sense notion that buyers will prefer content the feels authoritative and trustworthy over content that’s sales-y. Case studies are rated the most valuable form of content for the B2B buyer — twice as valuable as blog posts. That doesn’t mean

Marketers say that it’s getting easier to reach target audiences. And that audiences are happy to get good content. But, big challenges remain. The biggest challenges, according to a recent Content Marketing Institute Survey, are Creating content that appeals to multi-level roles Differentiating solutions Communicating complex concepts 64% of the marketers surveyed say they are using more video than in the previous year, so it’s clear that one way to address the top content challenges marketers face is to treat