If you’re responsible for demand generation in a B2B marketing team, chances are, some of these challenges here are all too familiar.

You might be under pressure to generate more leads at the top of the funnel, or to produce better, higher quality leads for passing off to your sales team.

Maybe you’re under pressure to improve conversion rates at each stage of the buyer’s journey to help shorten deal cycles and accelerate pipeline.

Or to improve the efficiency of your own marketing programs, as well as that of the sales team, who you are passing your leads off to.

The reality is, you’re probably trying to do some, if not all of these, at the same time, and it’s extremely difficult.

My name is Tyler Lessard, and in this Chalk Talk we’ll explore how you can use video across a myriad of demand gen programs to help address these challenges head on and set yourself up for future success.

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B2B demand generation is a difficult job, and it’s becoming more challenging each and every day.

It’s harder than ever to get people’s attention and to stand out amongst the myriad of messages they’re receiving across their digital channels.

As a result, our current tactics are losing their effectiveness.

Email marketing, display advertising, organic social, content marketing are all seeing diminishing returns for many B2B organizations.

As a result, we’re expected to invest in new channels, new programs, new content types, and things like account-based marketing to help us bridge that gap, and to set ourselves up for future success.

The good news is, video is not just a one-trick pony within demand gen. It can help you address each of these challenges:

to stand out, to breathe new life into your traditional programs, and to set yourselves up for success with the new investments you’re putting in place.

In that regard, I like to think of video more like a unicorn in the demand gen world and let’s talk about exactly why that is, and how you can start using it today to generate more pipeline.

The first area here is using video within your existing tactics and programs.

This is generally a very simple way to get started with using video more strategically, and you may be able to do this with the existing content you’ve already got.

First and foremost, think about your website, a key part to your lead generation strategy I’m sure.

Where are you using video content to help reduce bounce rates, to increase time on page, and to drive higher conversion rates on key pages that drive lead generation performance?

Are you using video on your home page?

Probably, most companies are.

But are you using it on your product and segment pages? Are you using it on your customer pages, key landing pages, your demo request page?

How is video complimenting the other content on your site to drive a more engaging buyer experience, and to increase conversions on those key pages?

Have you tested it to see where video might work, and what kind of videos will be effective?

If not, that’s a great place to start to think about where and how adding simple videos content throughout that buyer’s journey can help you boost conversion rates on those key pages.

Secondly, is using video across the different channel programs that you’re likely investing in today.

First of all, think about your content campaigns and your content marketing programs.

You may be investing in things like ebooks, or research reports, or infographics, or things like that, that you’re trying to push out into the market to drive inbound lead flow.

Video can be a great way to complement those assets and to boost the performance of those campaigns.

The video doesn’t have to be the hero, maybe it’s the research report that’s the hero, but what about creating a short, 30-second animated video to promote the key findings of the report, and to drive that immediate action to download the full report?

Things like that can help attract new audiences; maybe others who aren’t likely to click on a static ad or text-based content, but those who are likely to opt into that more engaging content and drive a conversion downstream.

Secondly, social media: are you using video content strategically in your social media programs to not only build your audience but to drive the conversions you’re looking for?

Reports continue to suggest that social media content with video helps it stand out, it disrupts the status quo of somebody’s social feed and is more likely to generate engagement and a resulting conversion.

So, think about not only places where you can repurpose your existing videos on social media, but how you can create quick, simple video content designed for your social media sites to drive quick conversions.

Again, if you’ve got great performing content assets, create a short, fun video for social that can help promote that asset and drive an immediate action to come to that landing page and get the report.

Simple ways to leverage your existing content, but to drive net new lead flow through different channels.

And think about events. You may be sponsoring third-party industry events and, prior to the event, are you doing campaigns to help make sure you’re setting up as many meetings as possible at the event itself?

Again, video can be a great way to introduce people from your company to those prospective audience members.

Perhaps a personalized video to really stand out and show that individual what you’re offer is at the event, and to drive greater awareness prior to the conference.

What about after the event?

All those great leads you scanned at your booth? Well, you know as well as I do that 20 other vendors scanned that same lead, and everybody’s going to be going after that person within the following one or two weeks, to try to get a conversation.

Be that one or two company that actually stands out and gets the meeting booked by using video to follow up in a more engaging way.

It could be as simple as sharing a customer story video, or something like that, or you can create a net new video that’s specifically targeted to post-event follow up.

Again, it could be something simple that you shoot on the show floor, or within your office, like this one, or it could be a one-to-one message from a sales rep in your team introducing themselves and recapping the conversation you had at the booth and their interest in following up on that conversation.

Don’t let all of those leads from your events squander away.

Maximize your conversion rates on those to make sure you generate the most possible pipeline from that event.

Next, near and dear to my heart is email marketing and nurture programs.

Email marketing is not dead, it’s just changing. It’s becoming a channel to deliver richer and more engaging content for your audiences to get them to get involved in a conversation.

Video continues to be proven to increase response rates and engagement rates on email marketing programs, and things like personalized video, where you’re sending out a video that’s automatically personalized for that individual, bringing in their name, company name, or things like that, right into the thumbnail, are proven to boost conversion rates by more than 300%.

That can be killer for a major email marketing campaign you’re doing throughout the year, perhaps for a holiday video you want to send to your prospects, things like that, that can breathe new life into your email marketing.

So think about how video can play a part in that, as well as in your nurture programs: things like customer stories in your nurtures; things like Chalk Talks, or whiteboard videos like we’re doing here, can be great how-to and informational content to warm up your leads, and pushing those out through email nurtures can be super successful in today’s market.

Now secondly, video can also be a new source of leads, not just to accelerate what you’re already doing, but be a net new lead source for your team.

First of all, think about one or two really strategic videos you could do for your website to drive net new conversions that you’re not getting today.

For example, what if you added a watch a demo call to action on your main website page to compliment the “request a demo” or “free trial” opportunity that you’re putting out to your audience?

More and more we’re seeing people do this because it’s a much lower ask for the audience to watch a demo as opposed to request a live demo, and we see more and more people engaging in that and offering up their email address and information to watch a five to ten-minute product demo.

But what’s great about this is with tools like Vidyard you could track exactly which parts of that video that individual watched.

Which parts did they skip? Which parts did they replay? And that information can go right into your marketing automation and CRM, to help your sales team have immediate follow up with those leads.

The next is webinars. You may be using webinars today as a net new lead source, but what are you doing with them after that live webinar time?

Are you using them the rest of the year to continue to generate new leads as a evergreen source of leads throughout the year?

Think about using webinars on your resource center, different places on your webpage, put them in your nurture programs, write a blog post three months later and highlight that webinar as the call to action.

They can be great ways to generate new leads throughout the year if they remain on your website as a gated asset and something integrated with your demand gen strategy.

And finally, adding interactive events to any of your existing videos.

Think about all this content you’ve got that you’re investing in different channels.

What if you were to add a simple call-to-action to the end of each video that drove somebody to a key landing page, to a content asset?

Or maybe you embed an interactive form right inside that video to enable somebody to subscribe to your blog, or to request a demo, or to take some other kind of action that’s going to get them into your funnel.

It’s a missed opportunity if you’re using video throughout your different content channels and you’re not leveraging interactive events to drive net new leads directly from that content.

Finally, the net new programs you may be investing in.

Account-Based Marketing is something a lot of teams are starting to do, and video can be a great way to help you stand out because this is largely an outbound marketing program targeting accounts who may or may not be familiar with your brand.

Things like video content and personalized video can drive higher engagement when you’re reaching out in a cold manner.

As well as leveraging video in your sales team, who’s doing outreach at the same time, with personal video messages, they can boost their response rates and really stand out with targeted accounts.

And if you’re investing in personalization, in interactive content experiences, all of these types of programs can be fueled by great video content to better engage today’s audiences and make sure they’re going to be successful.

The last piece here is how you could also use video, not only to generate these new leads and make them more sales ready but to help your sales team improve their conversion rates as they’re engaging with those audience members.

The first, as mentioned earlier, is with tools like Vidyard, you can track who’s watching these videos, how long they’re engaging in each, and what that means about their intent and interests.

For example, if a lead comes to your website and watches a product video, two customer testimonials, and 30 minutes of a webinar, you could track all of that data, and get it over to your sales team, qualify that lead faster, cause you know that individual is a hot lead, and make sure your sales team has all of that information so they can personalize their outreach.

Next, they can follow up not just with the same old email message, but with a personal video where they can get on camera, maybe hold up a whiteboard and have the person’s name on it to show it’s a one-to-one outreach, and quickly explain to them, you know, it’s great to see you, you know, check down our latest customer story, would love to have a chat to follow up, to see if we could make you just as successful as them.

So, lots of great ways in which video can help you not only generate more leads at the top of the funnel, but to better educate your buyers, to breathe new life into your email marketing, your content and social programs, your events, and others, and to ultimately fuel the success of your programs for years to come.

My name is Tyler Lessard, and this has been a Vidyard Chalk Talk.