25. Using YouTube for B2B Marketing

Throughout most of this book, we’ve focused on using YouTube for traditional consumer marketing—business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, in the lingo. But whenever I do a seminar about using YouTube for business, I inevitably get asked about whether YouTube can be used for business-to-business (B2B) marketing. It’s obviously something that businesses are interested in.

To be honest, I didn’t initially have a good answer for this question. It’s easy to see how YouTube can be used to attract new customers from among the millions of consumers using the site each day. But are businesses also trolling YouTube in search of more information about suppliers they could be using? I wasn’t sure.

Over time, however, I’ve developed an appreciation of how YouTube can be used as a B2B marketing tool. It’s not quite the same as using YouTube to market directly to consumers, but it’s worth considering, nonetheless.

Why Use YouTube for B2B Marketing

B2C marketing involves pitching a marketing message directly at the end consumer—the average folks who purchase products and services at the retail level. B2B marketing, on the other hand, pitches a marketing message not at consumers, but at other businesses. And marketing to businesses is a much different business than marketing to consumers.

First off, businesses are less influenced by promotional messages than are consumers; there’s less impulse buying in the B2B market. Businesses tend to be more measured in their purchasing habits, and they certainly don’t roam the retail aisles alongside individual consumers. Businesses are more likely to order direct from suppliers, from catalogs and websites and salespeople. They’re also more likely to stay with a supplier once the purchasing process has been set up; routine is important.

As such, you’re unlikely to attract new business customers via YouTube. Not only are businesses less apt to be looking for information about new suppliers on YouTube, they’re also less apt to be viewing YouTube, period. In fact, many companies prohibit employees from accessing the YouTube site on company time—and that includes employees in the purchasing department.

That said, many businesses do access YouTube, and for business purposes. Globally, YouTube reports that there are 1.5 million business searches of its site every day, which makes it the second-most visited destination for business-related searches. (Google is number-one, of course.) YouTube says it reaches half of all online small business owners; if that’s who you’re trying to reach, YouTube might be the way to do it.

Different Ways B2B Companies Can Use YouTube

Now that we know that more businesses than you might think are accessing YouTube, there’s the issue of how exactly you can serve these potential customers via the YouTube platform. YouTube is primarily a consumer site, after all, and the types of videos that consumers flock to probably won’t do much for the typical business customer.

First things first. What do you expect to achieve with your B2B YouTube videos?

Where most B2C marketers use YouTube to attract new customers, I think that’s probably an unrealistic goal for B2B marketers. Few businesses will be looking at YouTube as a place to find new suppliers. Oh, a few might, but most B2B marketers trolling YouTube for new contacts are likely to be disappointed.

Instead, YouTube is best used to provide more information for potential customers, reinforce existing B2B relationships, and provide after-the-sale support. I’ll elaborate on each of these points.

Using YouTube for Additional Information

You probably won’t pick up a lot of new contacts from YouTube. However, you can direct contacts you acquire elsewhere to YouTube to provide additional information about your company, products, and services.

In this regard, think of YouTube as a giant brochure or presentation. In fact, you can create video brochures and video versions of your presentations for distribution on YouTube. Many purchasers prefer to watch rather than read, which makes YouTube ideal for putting more information in their hands.

Consider creating at least one video that introduces potential customers to your company, that creates the authority you need to present. Use other videos to provide more details about the various products and services you offer, including hands-on demonstrations, case studies, and the like. Use YouTube videos to help sell your company to prospective clients, and then let your salespeople follow through for the order.

Using YouTube to Reinforce Existing Relationships

B2B marketing is all about establishing and maintaining relationships. After you have a solid relationship with a client, future orders are likely to continue on a regular basis.

On this note, you can use YouTube to help make an otherwise impersonal relationship more personal. A video is great for putting a human face on your company. Let your company management speak directly to customers in videos, show products in use in the field, provide customer testimonials... you get the idea. Use YouTube to provide an ongoing conversation with your customer base.

Using YouTube for After-the-Sale Support

Many B2B products and services require a high level of after-the-sale support. You can minimize your support burden by providing a series of how-to videos that address the most common problems or issues.

For example, if you sell equipment that needs to be installed, you can produce a series of videos that walk customers through the installation process. If you sell a service that some find difficult to understand, you can produce videos that proactively address the most frequent questions. Talk to your technical or customer support people and find out what issues result in the most customer calls, and then deal with those issues upfront via your YouTube videos. Done right, you’ll end up with happier customers and lower support costs.

Different Types of B2B Videos

In support of these various goals, there are a number of different B2B videos that you can produce and distribute via YouTube. Let’s look at the most popular.

Product Demonstrations and Walk-Throughs

A good product demo or walk-through serves several purposes. First, it lets potential customers learn more about your offerings during the crucial decision-making process. In addition, it introduces existing customers to new products and services. In either case, a product demo provides much-needed information in a useful video format, and should be used to supplement the efforts of your salespeople.

How-To Videos

There are many uses for step-by-step videos in the B2B market. A good how-to video can aid in the decision-making process for potential customers. It can help new customers install and configure your products. It can even show existing customers how to get better use of the products and services they’re already using. Be creative here; you can provide a lot of good ideas to help your customer base become more productive with what you offer.

Case Studies and Testimonials

It’s always good promotion to showcase your success stories. Customers like to see how other customers are doing things; a video is a great forum for this information. Show your products and services at work in the real world, and let your customers tell each other how much they love what you’re doing.

Conferences and Events

If your company sponsors or produces any conferences, seminars, or similar special events, you can use YouTube to both promote and distribute information about these events. Put together a teaser trailer to attract attendees for a future event, or record the event itself and put it (or selected highlights) online. You’d be surprised how many viewers you might attract—potential new customers among them—especially if you have well-known or interesting presenters.

Similarly, you can use YouTube to distribute videos of your internal sales conferences. Some customers might find these interesting in and of themselves, or perhaps you might want to limit access to your internal staff only. In either case, you can get more mileage out of these events by keeping them online for future viewing.

Management Messages and Video Blogs

Finally, don’t forget the good old management message video—a talking head video of your company’s president or CEO talking directly to the customer base. These are never my favorite videos, but if your CEO has a good presence, authority in the industry, or simply an established relationship with your customer base, this approach can work to reinforce existing connections—or make new ones.

This type of talking head video doesn’t have to be limited to upper management. People at any level of your organization can help create an interesting video blog (vlog), talking about your company’s latest product developments, industry trends, and the like. When marketing to other businesses, it’s good to assume that you’re dealing with people who are innately interested in their industry and other business-related topics. Feed that hunger with a vlog filled with information, advice, and even opinion. You might be surprised how many potential customers will take two to three minutes out of their week to hear what you’re talking about.

Best Practices for B2B Marketing on YouTube

When utilizing YouTube for B2B marketing, there are some best practices to consider. Many of these practices are the same as for B2C marketers, but they bear repeating here.

Upload All Existing Video Assets

When it comes to B2B marketing, it’s all useful. Take any existing videos you have—sales videos, how-to videos, you name it—and adapt them for viewing on YouTube. That might mean chopping up a single long video into a series of shorter ones, or pasting together several short related videos into a more cohesive longer one. If you think existing or potential customers might be interested in or find value from a video, make sure it’s uploaded and available for viewing.

Publicize Your Videos

How will your existing customers find out about your videos? You have to tell them! Instruct your sales force to take advantage of this new resource and pass the URLs for appropriate videos to their customers. Include your YouTube channel URL in all promotional materials, catalogs, and the like. Link to your YouTube channel and videos from your company website. You have to make sure that your customers know what’s available, and how to get there.

Optimize Your Videos for Search

YouTube can also be useful in informing potential customers about your offerings. As such, you need to optimize your videos for search. That includes using appropriate keywords in your videos’ titles, descriptions, and tags. It also means crediting notable speakers, partners, and customers in those descriptions and tags; someone well-known in a video can attract lots of new viewers.

Embed Your YouTube Videos on Your Own Website

Your video presence shouldn’t be limited to the YouTube site. If your videos are truly useful to your customer base, you should also dedicate a portion of your company website for their viewing. Create a videos page and embed your YouTube videos there.

Optimize Your Channel Page

For B2B businesses, just like B2C businesses, your home base on YouTube is your channel page. Customize this page to best reflect your company’s visual image, and use the page as a gateway to all your videos on the site.

Keep Your Content Fresh

With a B2B business, you probably don’t need to upload quite as many videos quite as often as with a B2C business, but you still need to keep your content fresh. Even business viewers expect fresh and timely content, so make sure you upload new videos on a regular schedule—and delete old ones that become outdated. If you’re going to do the YouTube thing, you need to do it right.

Include a Call to Action

Finally, make sure you’re getting the best use out of YouTube by including a call to action in all the videos you upload. This is probably a different call to action than in a B2C video (which is typically “Buy! Buy! Buy!”), but a call to action nonetheless. If what you want is the contact information for potential clients, then ask for that information—and then make sure you follow up with a call from a salesperson shortly after.

The Bottom Line

B2B companies can use YouTube just as B2C companies can—it’s just a slightly different type of use. Instead of trying to create new customers from within the massive YouTube community, you use YouTube to reinforce the relationship with your existing customers—or provide reinforcing information to potential customers. There are a lot of different ways to do this, but the end goal is the same—to keep and grow your customer base. YouTube can be a great tool for achieving this goal.