Why Personalized Videos Are Dominating Content Marketing [Interview]

Earlier this year, Vidyard published research that showed how customers respond to personalized marketing videos vs. non-personalized videos.

The “2017 Video in Business Benchmark Report” showed that customized videos were viewed 35 percent more frequently than their counterparts.

For more insight into the results and how marketers are personalizing their content, we spoke to Vidyard content marketing manager Kimbe MacMaster on the report.

How can B2B marketers further optimize their video content? Should they be focusing on a particular type of video (e.g., how-to, product)?

“The best way to optimize your video content is the same as any other content – look at the analytics and make small improvements! If you’re tracking the proper metrics in a video platform, you’ll be able to see more than view counts.

Things like how long people watched, what parts they re-watched or skipped, and where they dropped off. If you’re seeing a large portion of your audience drop off at a certain point, that might be an indication that your video is too long or you’re speaking about a certain point for more than viewers care to hear about it.

It allows the B2B marketer to re-cut their video to optimize that video’s content and try again.”

Do audiences seem to be more willing to watch longer or shorter videos from B2B marketers (compared to B2C marketers)?

“I don’t think the attention span really differs in B2C vs. B2B content. At the end of the day, we all have short attention spans, so the shorter the better.

As anyone moves closer to their purchase decision, though – whether that’s in a B2B or B2C setting – they’ll be more open to spending more time engaging with a brand.

This means that lower funnel videos can be longer. We recommend no more than 90 seconds for a top-of-funnel video.”

In your opinion, what is the best channel for B2B marketers to distribute their videos (e.g., website, social media)?

“There are so many different channels for video distribution and a good video strategy will take advantage of multiple platforms.

But the number one platform is definitely a B2B marketer’s website.

This is because most video content is used to encourage further action and the best way to get viewers to continue to engage with your brand is to already have them on your branded website.

If, for example, you’re hosting all of your videos on YouTube (which should definitely be a secondary distribution channel, don’t get me wrong), you risk losing your audience to cat videos, competitor videos, and the general black hole of video content on YouTube.”

Have you seen any difference in the ROI that B2B marketers receive when they create videos in-house vs. through a third party?

“We’ve seen both in-house and external production used really effectively. I don’t think there is a strong argument for better ROI in either case, although I would argue that the best situation is to have both.

We often recommend that simpler productions are better kept in-house and larger, top-level brand videos that require great production value, professional actors, and a rented location work well when outsourced to a great production house.”

What did you find to be the most interesting/surprising statistic in the report?

“As simple as it is, the stat on mobile versus desktop consumption was the most surprising to me.

Our research showed that, in a B2B setting, 86% of views occur on desktop and only 14% on mobile. That’s drastically different than a lot of stats we hear today, and likely differs from B2C content.

It also opens up a great array of opportunities for B2B marketers since they can take advantage of desktop features like larger screens and more advanced browsers to build more compelling experiences like interactive video or in-video forms.

If you’re looking for a quick hit to really boost your video content right away, I’d say that optimization tactic is using video events. This allows a marketer to add email gates, full in-video forms, or CTAs within the video.

This means you can start to capture leads from your high-quality, engaging video content (a hugely untapped opportunity) or encourage additional content consumption.”

For your copy of the report, please visit the Vidyard website for a free download.

About Kimbe MacMaster

Kimbe is Leader of the Content Marketing team at Vidyard. She loves all aspects of content marketing and has a special place in her heart for using video to drive real business results.

She is also moderately (okay extremely) obsessed with her fluffy chow chow, Noah.

Catch her on Twitter at @Kimbe_Mac.