With an almost-endless choice, today’s prospects have become pickier than ever. This means one thing for marketers: it’s a battle for them to win attention and make more prospects convert into buyers.
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For B2B marketing, all those bulky paragraphs in product descriptions now seem like a reading chore for the prospect. The key to catching more eyeballs and optimizing the sale in this saturated marketplace is to provide potential buyers with something that is straightforward and illustrative. That’s why explainer videos rise above the clutter.
Let’s see how to use explainer videos so you can sell your product or service better.
Why Explainer Videos for Optimizing B2B Sales?
If you’re looking to see conversion rates rise and sales go up, you’ve got to get more prospects to watch your explainer videos. But you have a question: what makes explainer videos so important for increasing sales in the first place?
First, people are more visual than ever, including B2B prospects. Visual content is more likely to be shared and remembered. Explainer videos are well-known for their storytelling visuals that can increase viewers’ retention.
Second, you can use explainer videos to tell a complete story about your brand and product than you can with written content alone.
At their core, these videos are a combination of marketing and storytelling. Marketers use them not only to convey information about their products and services but also to bring those products to life for potential buyers.
How to Use Explainer Videos for Optimizing B2B Sales
Now that we understand why explainer videos are a worth-considering tool when it comes to optimizing sales, let’s break down how you can utilize them right.
Tip #1. Use Story-Driven Narratives
Explainer videos aren’t just good for your SEO but also effective sales tools. However, they also double as storytelling tools. The most successful explainer video campaigns use this narrative structure to help prospects understand the problem, what the product or service is all about, and the benefits they can receive from it.
Planning the storyline of the explainer video begins with the question: “Who is actually the prospect?” It’s crucial to understand the type of person you’re trying to sell to because it will help you determine their pain points, buy decision process, and what they want out of their solution.
Understanding your prospects’ needs and wants is critical to creating a successful product or service. This also enables you to create a successful video by using story-driven narratives to engage viewers and close more sales.
Tip #2. Add Animation
Explainer videos go hand-in-hand with animations. Many viral explainer videos use animation to deliver messages to the prospect. Take the popular Dropbox or Crazy Egg explainer videos, for example.
After all, the animation is a powerful way to illustrate your point in almost any type of sales video. It can help you to illustrate anything– even concepts that you can’t capture with real-life cameras.
Well-produced animations also do a great job at making the whole complex explanations much easier to follow.
Tip #3. Make It Short and Sweet
Long videos are viewed as a nuisance. Online users now expect video content to be short and concise. The shorter your video, the more likely it is to be watched. And explainer videos are well-known for their capability in breaking down a complex topic in a short amount of time.
The sweet spot for an explainer video is 2-minute. But, it actually all depends on the message and platform you use. For instance, if you use Instagram Reels for your social media explainer video, then it’s better to keep it under one minute– as it only takes a second for the user to scroll through it.
There are many cases of short videos actually outperforming long videos. Most importantly, your video should be short and sweet by having a focused message.
Moreover if you want to put it on your marketplace. Beside adding an additional loyalty rewards app, you don’t want to overwhelm your prospects with too much information at once. You can also use it as social proof.
Tip #4. Choose the Right Platform
The right video platform can mean the difference between a video that drives sales and one that languishes in obscurity.
Social media platforms might seem like straightforward platforms for businesses with a tight budget. They’re quick and easy to use, making them more accessible for businesses of all sizes. But, when you’re looking for more exposure and advanced features, you can consider using video-hosting services designed for marketing like Wistia, Vidyard, Basecamp, etc.
Most video-hosting services now allow you to create a professional-looking video without creating it from scratch. Some even offer simplicity in the form of creating a storyboard or a script. You’ll want to research which hosting service is best for your brand and goals.
Tip #5. One Explainer Video for One Goal
There’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all explainer videos. When you cram too many goals into one single explainer video, chances are you’re going to overwhelm the viewer and dilute the core message.
That’s why the last thing you want is to create an explainer video that drags on and talks about a bunch of different things.
So, you don’t want your video to be a sales pitch, and a feature list rolled into one. Your video should be laser-focused on achieving one goal, one message, and one core takeaway. This will ensure that you don’t lose your prospects’ attention. It will also help you stay on track and keep your video relatively brief.
For example, if you’re creating an explainer product video for an eCommerce product, your goal could be to drive more paid conversions. Or, if you’re creating a video for a B2B product, you could focus on increasing the number of qualified leads in your sales funnel.
Over to You
Explainer videos were once a nice-to-have marketing tool. Now they have become a must-have– as today’s potential buyers demand a straightforward medium that can explain complex topics to them in a matter of minutes.
By all means, if you aim to make your B2B business stand out and stay relevant in the sea of the content of the digital world, then you might start creating one today.
Author
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).
Twitter: @breadnbeyond
Email: andre@breadnbeyond.com
LinkedIn: Andre Oentoro