Marketers Use Stories for Successful Digital Video

As clients and prospects spend more time with video, marketers shift their attention digital video, long an amusement for consumers and a tool for business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers, is pushing its way into the business-to-business (B2B) marketing mainstream, according to a new eMarketer report, “B2B Video Marketing: Best Practices for 2014.”

B2B marketers are investing in video marketing because, like most internet users, B2B clients and prospects are devoting more time to watching digital video. Businesspeople are drawn to video for pretty much the same reason consumers watch video—it’s entertaining.

In many of eMarketer’s interviews with market leaders over the past year, we asked about video best practices. One of the key themes? Spin a good tale.

“People in general gravitate toward visual storytelling,” explained Liya Sharif, senior director of global marketing at Qualcomm. “Video is an incredible way to tell a story for either a B2B or B2C brand.”

Jennifer Anaya, vice president of marketing for North America at Ingram Micro, added, “Even though this is B2B, everyone likes a good story, and everybody likes to laugh.”

It’s easy to imagine how a video could present a laundry list of product features. But that won’t work. According to Michael Peachey, senior director of solutions marketing at Salesforce.com, “Any time the story isn’t the main priority in a film, you’re not really making a connection with the people you’re marketing to in trying to help them understand the real value of the situation.”

Likewise, Neda Stoll, senior marketing manager at Intel, emphasized: “The most important thing is, ‘Are you telling an interesting story?’”

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B2B Marketers Increase Online Video Budgets

Roughly 1 in 2 (52.5% of) B2B marketers expect to increase their marketing budgets this year, per results from Advertising Age’s 2014 BtoB Outlook: Marketing Priorities and Plans survey. That’s a slightly larger proportion than last year (48.7%), although budget increases are forecast to be relatively minor: only 36.4% of respondents plan an increase greater than 10%. The B2B sector appears to be following the broad shift in marketing spending from traditional to digital: this year, 38.7% of B2B marketers will devote at least 30% of their budgets on digital, up from 30% last year.

Indeed, about 8 in 10 respondents plan to increase their digital spending, an increase of 13% points from last year’s survey.

B2B marketers also seem to be following the returns: roughly half half will increase their event budgets (a 7.2% point increase in respondents from last year), as trade shows and events are increasingly celebrated for their strong ROI.

Interestingly, a greater proportion of respondents this year will increase their telemarketing budgets, although fewer than one-quarter will do so. Otherwise, there hasn’t been much of a change in the share of marketers expecting to increase their traditional media budgets.

When it comes to online spending, a larger share of respondents this year plan increases almost across the board, with websites the only exception. One of the big movers appears to be video, with more than 6 in 10 planning an increase in spending, a 7.9% point increase in respondents from last year. Roughly half also expect to spend more on webcasts and webinars, up 9.4% points from the 2013 survey.

The shift towards digital also shows up in respondents’ content marketing efforts, which 3 in 4 marketers are planning to invest more in. This year’s survey registered a 12% point increase in the proportion of respondents planning to deploy content marketing on social platforms and a 9% point increase in the share who will use mobile for content marketing. By contrast, there’s been a 10% point drop in the share of respondents this year plan to use print strategies for their content marketing efforts.

Although fewer than 4 in 10 B2B marketers currently use mobile as part of their marketing strategy, almost half said that it is extremely important for their organizations to advertise on mobile this year.

About the Data: The data is based on a survey conducted during November and December among 364 B2B marketers.

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Most Online Video Views - Less Than 5 Minutes in Length

Most consumers are keeping it short and sweet when it comes to their online video viewing habits, but that may be limiting the industry’s ability to monetize its inventory, according to FreeWheel’s Q1 Video Monetization Report. During the first quarter, 86.7% of video views on “Linear + Digital” networks were less than 5 minutes in length, as were 86.2% of video views on “Digital Pure-Play” networks. But ad loads (ads per video viewed) for short-form content averaged out at just 0.9 for the Linear + Digital model and 0.5 for the Digital Pure-Play model.

By contrast, ad loads were a healthy 9.5 in Q1 for long-form content served up by FreeWheel’s Linear + Digital clients, although they were much smaller (1.3) for Digital Pure-Plays. Long-form content (20+ minutes) accounted for 6% of views for Linear + Digital, and only 1.9% for Digital Pure-Plays.

The researchers describe the “Linear + Digital” model as generating the “majority of… revenue from linear TV services and also offering content on IP-based environment,” as well as “being “focused on diverse mix of short, mid, and long-form content, with an emphasis on driving high ad loads.” The “Digital Pure-Play” model, by contrast, is characterized by its exclusive operation in IP-based environments, “either by aggregating third-party premium content and/or developing original premium content.” In this case, the “business models [are] focused on video view growth through syndicated distribution of largely short-form content.”

When all of that is boiled down, the result is that the Linear + Digital model is seeing a slight decline in total video views (down 8% year-over-year), but that its much higher ad loads result in somewhat equal ad views as the Digital Pure-Play model, which has generated scale (+47% year-over-year) in video views, but lacks the ad loads of its counterpart. Those results may not change in the near future: most of the Digital Pure-Play’s growth has been in short-form video (+54% year-over-year), while the Linear + Digital model only managed 4% growth in long-form video views.

The researchers note that a combination of these models is necessary in order to bring online video to TV’s scale and to address the increasing demand from traditional TV ad buyers. That includes optimizing the mix of short, mid, and long-form content, increasing ad loads, and building audience size.

Other Findings:

• On a net basis across both business models, total video views increased by 30% year-over-year in Q1.
• The Digital Pure-Play model is heavily dependent on syndication, which accounted for 84% of video views in Q1, compared to 25% for the Linear + Digital model.
• 96% of ad views for Digital Pure-Play networks were pre-rolls in Q1, while for Linear + Digital, mid-rolls accounted for 41% of ad views, up from 36% a year earlier.

About the Data: The data in the report is one of the largest available on the usage and monetization of professional, rights-managed video content, and in 2012 comprised over 53 billion video views.-MarketingCharts

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