If you’ve kept up with marketing trends in recent years, you’ve probably heard that more and more companies are turning to video—and for good reason. Videos are highly engaging, convenient to consume, and visually compelling. Plus, videos are everywhere; they plaster our social media feeds, pop up on our most visited websites, and play on a loop in our favorite businesses. Consumers like videos, and marketers are responding to their enthusiasm.

If you’re new to the world of video marketing, one of the best places to start is integrating video into your marketing collateral strategy. By breathing new life into your sales materials and converting some of your written documents into video, you can boost your lead generation efforts and support your overall sales strategy.

Keep reading to learn how you can leverage video as collateral in your B2B lead generation program.

What Is Marketing Collateral?

Marketing collateral is any piece of media used to support your sales or marketing strategy. Traditionally, this included paper brochures and sell sheets that salespeople distributed during in-person meetings. Now, marketing collateral is often digital, making it easily distributable and accessible to a much larger audience. Additionally, marketing collateral has expanded beyond static documents with words and graphics to include one of the most powerful forms of content: video.

No matter what B2B lead generation method you use, marketing collateral can provide extra support. You can weave marketing collateral into your website to increase conversions or use it when nurturing outbound leads. Though collateral may not play the starring role in lead generation, it’s still an integral element of your sales strategy. With an expansive collection of marketing collateral options at your disposal, you can customize your lead generation efforts and give your business a competitive edge.

4 Ways To Use Video as Marketing Collateral

Whether you’re building a marketing collateral toolkit from scratch or looking to improve what you already have, video is an excellent investment. Here are four ways you can use video to enhance your marketing collateral strategy.

1. Use a Company Profile Video To Introduce Yourself

Businesses don’t want to enter into a contract with another business they know nothing about. Before you can sell your products or services to your ideal customers, you need to introduce your company and explain why you’re the right choice for their project. If your first impression leaves something to be desired, you risk losing potential customers after your first conversation.

While company brochures are an excellent way to introduce your business, a company profile video can be even more effective. Instead of spending a few minutes reading through written information about your company, your leads can watch a short, impactful video. Plus, videos aren’t just convenient for your leads—they benefit your sales team as well. Viewers retain 95% of the information they learn from videos, which means that you can get your point across without spending ten minutes on the phone trying to summarize your company history. If you want to make a memorable impression, video is the way to go.

In addition to sending your company profile video to new outbound leads, you can embed the video in your website’s “About Us” page, add it to your YouTube channel, or share it on various social media platforms. The more you share your video, the more opportunities you’ll have to increase awareness of your company. When people know and recognize your company, they’re more likely to seek out your services.

When creating a new company profile video, you can include a wide range of information, including:

  • Important dates, such as when you opened your doors or accomplished a memorable milestone
  • Your mission and values
  • A brief explanation of your products and services
  • What sets you apart from competitors

With a professionally produced company profile video, you can reel leads into your sales pipeline and pique their interest in your business. From there, you can use product and service videos to guide them through the buyer’s journey.

2. Highlight Your Products and Services

During the first steps of your B2B lead generation program, you want to convince leads that your company is a reputable, trustworthy partner. Once you draw their attention, it’s time to start sharing information about specific products or services they might need. If you can convince them that your products are worth purchasing, you increase your chances of signing a contract in the future.

Many marketers use one-page sell sheets to highlight their top products or services. Sell sheets are ideal when you can easily describe your offerings using words and visuals. However, video is a better alternative if you want to bring extra attention to a product and add visual context to your claims.

For example, let’s say you just released a new cutting-edge software system for accounting automation. You can describe the process of opening your application, signing in, and entering data points into your system, but potential customers won’t truly understand how your software works until they see it in action. With a software highlight video, you can demonstrate how innovative and user-friendly your new product is.

3. Turn Your Written Case Study Into a Visual Experience

Before you buy an expensive new product, what do you do? If you’re like most buyers, you spend time scrolling through product reviews to learn how other customers feel about the product. With so much information at our fingertips, it doesn’t make sense to buy a product or service without at least a little preliminary research.

Your B2B buyers are no different from other consumers; they also want to hear from current customers before they choose to purchase from your business. By sending them a case study, you can show leads that you have experience serving companies similar to theirs and position yourself as a credible business.

Like sell sheets and company brochures, you can take your case studies to the next level by turning them into videos. Testimonial videos allow satisfied customers to share their firsthand experience with your business, which shows future customers that you produce real, noticeable results. Additionally, a good testimonial video tells a compelling story and appeals to viewers’ emotions.

No matter how great your products or services are, your leads need to feel like they can trust your business before making a large purchase. When leads see that other customers trust you and appreciate your services enough to share their experience in a testimonial video, they feel more comfortable buying from your business.

If you want to create the best testimonial video for your business, you should include the following elements:

  • A clear problem and solution: Hearing someone say “X company helped my business” is far less impactful than hearing, “I was spending thousands on energy bills before X company installed LED lighting in my facilities, and now my monthly bill is now half of what it used to be.” Clearly outline a relatable problem and demonstrate how your services addressed it.
  • Authenticity: If you want to build trust with future customers, your testimonial videos must be believable. Testimonial videos that seem overproduced and disingenuous won’t get you the results you’re looking for.
  • An emotional appeal: Your leads will connect more with your testimonial video if they can relate emotionally. You’re not trying to sell a product with your testimonial video; you’re trying to forge a relationship and tell a story.

With a few professionally produced testimonials in your marketing collateral toolbox, you can appeal to a broad audience and captivate your audience.

4. Demonstrate Key Differentiators With a “Why Us?” Video

Your company profile video may briefly touch on your surface-level differentiators, but if you want future clients to see what really makes you stand out, you need a “Why Us?” video. These videos are especially helpful if you’re in a saturated industry and offer the same products and services as your direct competitors.

You can use a “Why Us?” video during various points in your B2B lead generation program. If a lead wants to learn more about your company after viewing your company profile video, your video can provide the extra information they need. You can also play your footage during a sales meeting with a potential customer to provide the extra push they need to sign a contract. Additionally, just like company brochures, you can share your “Why Us?” video on your website and various social media platforms to attract inbound leads.

Having a professional “Why Us?” video is a differentiator in and of itself. Investing in video collateral shows future customers that you care about your business and reputation. If you have a video and your top competitor doesn’t, you have a good chance of coming out ahead.

Step Up Your Collateral Game With Video

Marketing collateral is an essential component of any successful B2B lead generation program, and many marketers believe that video is the future of content marketing. Why not combine the two and develop captivating videos that help turn leads into customers for your business?

If you need some outside help adding videos to your marketing collateral strategy, you’re in the right place. At Abstrakt Studios, we use our strategic approach to create consistent, high-quality video collateral for every client partner. From writing an engaging script to filming and editing your one-of-a-kind collateral video, we handle it all.

Want more from your marketing collateral? Schedule a discovery meeting today to get the custom video collateral process started.