Supercharging ABM with Video

Using video for marketing is a growing trend that is especially important in ABM because it leads to a quantum jump in successfully connecting, engaging and converting prospects. And personalized video takes marketing effectiveness even further. This article shows how the numbers stand and some proven ways to interpret your video marketing strategy for ABM. 

Here are four stats1 shared by Zach Kitschke, Head of Communications at Australian design house Canva, on reading and retaining information: 

Content that has visuals are 104 % more likely to be read than those that don’t 
People remember 80 % of what they see and do, compared with 20 % of what they read, and 10 % of what they hear 

Thinking Video for Marketing 

That’s not all. If a picture’s worth 1,000 words, a video’s worth 1,000 times more, says Academy Award-winning filmmaker Barry Levinson in his essay on Huffpost.2 

Scott MacFarland, well-known digital marketing and brand strategy pro, argues the same point using data.3 Among findings that should excite any marketer, MacFarland reports that video in marketing campaigns raises brand recall by 33 % and message recall by 45 percent. 

Video allows you to send visual-auditory-text messages in one burst. Using video in ABM isn’t a fad, but a growing trend. It’s a known fact that around 70% of marketers are using video for marketing today. 

The power of video could well decide whether or not you genuinely connect with prospects, engage them with their permission4 and convert them when they’re willing. This is especially important for ABM marketers because, in ABM, you go fishing rather than waiting for the fish to swim into your net. The onus is doubly on you to provide content that’s useful to your prospects, rather than, as Plaut says, being “a brand annoying them in their personal space, where they don’t expect to see brands interrupting.”

The Video Leverage in ABM 

Five things, say the go-to guys at Kitchener, Ontario-based video MarTech firm Vidyard5 and San Mateo, California-based marketing automation software maker Marketo6: 

Raise email click-through rates. Email that embedded videos or video thumbnails linked to a web page raise click-through rate by 200-300 %. Personalizing videos (we talk about it under the Going Beyond Plain Vanilla point below) boost click-through rates by between 300 and 1,000 %. 

Make successful initial contact rates rocket. Personalizing video messages at the account targeting phase raises prospect response rates during initial contact by 5-8 times. 

Closely track prospects’ digital behavior. Detailed data on how your video engage prospects can be tracked with CRM/ABM platform-enabled analytics. In the Supercharging guidebook, Vidyard confirms you can track “who watched, what they have watched, how long they watched, and even whether or not they re-watched or skipped parts of each video.” Prospects leave video breadcrumbs pretty much like they do with text or audio content. 

Persuade your prospect team to lobby for you. Direct-mailed custom video marketing cards create a buzz with your prospect team around your offering. Easily shippable, some cards are business card-size, while others are packaged as brochures. Each comes with its built-in screen and play controls (Just Google “Video Marketing Cards” on YouTube.) So, you can imagine how quickly your video card can get passed around like a box of popcorn! 

Get prospects and customers to consume your content. Since video, by its very nature, is compelling, using it to point people to the rest of your content and improving your company’s content ROI can have amazing results. 

 Tailoring the Video 

So, design your video based on where your prospects are on their individual and collective journeys: 

Consideration 

Are they at the initial consideration stage, looking at how different vendors claim they can solve the problem? Then send them a video that shows them the assessment criteria they should be looking for and why. 

Evaluation 

Are they actively evaluating a vendor shortlist? Send them a chalk talk video with a comparative analysis of the pros and cons of typical value propositions vendors make. 

Purchase 

Are they ready to make the buying decision? A video series that captures experts discussing technical performance, technology lock-ins, up-front and recurring costs, after-sales service and warranties, contractual clauses and the fine print could be their moment of truth. 

Live broadcasts 

At any of these stages, you can also use live video broadcasts to share insights, findings and perspectives, and field questions from audiences on the spot. The transparency in live-streaming can be transformational. Several players are on the market in this space – Twitter’s Periscope (for iOS), Meerkat and others. 

Going Beyond Plain Vanilla 

When thinking of video strategies in ABM, avoid the plain vanilla approach. Remember the top two ways your ABM efforts can gain video leverage? Personalization. 

Your Prospect’s Name and Firm 

One easy way to personalize is by introducing your prospect executive’s name and company as you start the narrative, writing or displaying them on a whiteboard. Another is to use screen layouts or branding similar to your prospect’s, in demo or walkthrough videos. That way, you get your prospect’s attention right away. 

Annotations and Pop-Ups 

To keep your prospect engaged, try text annotations or pop-ups over your video. These can be clickable links that allow opt-ins or deeper navigation into related content. Featured at the end of videos as CTAs, these boost initial commitment by 20 percent more, says Marketo, in its How to Use Video Content and Marketing Automation ebook. 

Interactivity 

Interactive videos are a third way to connect, engage and convert. As Boston, Massachusetts-based online video platform solutions company Brightcove says,7 you can use at least eight in-video ways to immerse your prospect in your message: 

Quizzes, Q&A, Polls and Calculators 

• Branching, i.e. selecting one or another option, to listen to the corresponding narrative 

• Hotspots that allow you to mouse over in-video spots for additional content on certain aspects 

• Chapterization, which segments your video into modules that let your prospect return to or skip sections of the narrative 

• What are the stories you’d like to tell, and the video conversations you’d like to spark off? We’ve helped clients create videos, too, that tell all kinds of marketing stories. It’d be fun working with you on some ideas. 

Reference: 

[1] Why Visual Communication Is the Most Important Skill for Journalists in 2015 

[2] If a Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words… 

[3] If a Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words, What Is a Video Worth? 

[4] How to Do ABM Without Selling Your Soul 

[5] 5 Secret Ingredients for Using Video + ABM Together 

[6] How Small Businesses Can Use Video To Increase Email Click-Through Rates 

[7] How to Use Video Content and Marketing Automation to Better Engage, Qualify, and Convert Your Buyers 

[8] Conversations with Video: Marketing Automation, Interactivity, and Personalization 

[9] 5 Ways to Add Interactive Elements to Your Videos