Show Me Your Viral Video And I’ll Show You Mine

Forrester encourages B2B marketers to use online video, recorded Web seminars, and other rich media to educate, train, and persuade buyers. Through testimonials and case studies, video creates a lasting impression and emotional bond that is important in business marketing. It’s also less risky to experiment with this medium with the cost of recording decreasing.

But how far can B2B marketers push video from traditional interview or demonstration formats into non-traditional word-of-mouth? Clients see consumer-oriented video ads on YouTube and ask if we see viral video work in business marketing. The answer? We don’t see much.

Exceptions do arise: Scalent VP of Marketing and friend, Kevin Epstein, sent me an April Fool’s joke video his team put together, and – on a whim – decided to post on YouTube.  Kevin wrote about this decision on his blog and I asked Forrester’s marketing research team to look and weigh in. Our take: video may become the digital tchotchke: logo-emblazoned pens, toys, and other useless items companies give to prospects or hand out at tradeshows.

Kevin spent about $500 making the video, which is similar in cost to a run of booth bric-a-brac. After about a month, the video received over 8000 views with only WOM publicity from Scalent engineers and employees. Compared to tchotchke junk – which most people toss into a corner of their office or give to their kids – his return on investment shows more promise. Scalent has seen a measurable increase in investigative visits to their site (killyourserver.com) after the video debuted.

As a team, we liked Scalent’s use of humor and how they caricatured the problem they solve. The video might improve if they put the advertising at the end. Or solicited viewers to send other inventive ideas on ways to kill servers. We also thought an alternative video shot in a humorous, exaggerated way could show lab-coated Scalent engineers – posing as their software – take one of the unfortunate machines and resurrect it. But for a video that started out as a prank, we think it’s got unique potential in the category of awareness-raising giveaways.

I’d be interested to hear about your experiences with B2B WOM video – or to get your pointers to creative videos you’ve seen for business-specific products or services. Show me what you’ve seen and, if interesting, I’ll look into researching this trend further.

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Comments

[Jim Kukral]

I put this fun video together this week. It's 2 minutes of our staff saying the word "Google" really fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPQBvCbDfmE

Nothing fancy, just a fun idea with a team approach. Only up a few days and already about 180 views on it with no promotion.

[Nick Brown]

Developing a brand image using low budget video is a sticky wicket. A youtube viral video can be an inexpensive tactic to spread a message. But, and there's always a but, how does this affect your strategic goals. Will you message be perceived as "we are a bunch of really funny people with a cheap looking production looking for a chuckle" and ignored? Wouldn't you prefer a prefer a well crafted message that positions your company as an leader? A message that clearly identifies what you offer to a client and has a call to action message might be worth considering.

[sagerock]

My focus in putting out content is always: "Perfect is the enemy of good enough." I believe it's more important to get content out than it is to perfect the message. To that end, I put out a daily web marketing video geared towards the traditional marketer here:
http://www.Webmarketingwatch.com
I can't tell you how much positive response I've gotten from this show. It has led to many things including other venues wanting me to contribute content as an expert in the web marketing field.
I, too, try to spread the good word of viral video marketing.

[kate]

Maybe there are many free btob platforms, but business video included is few, occasionally, a friend told me a new website which is a free btob platform, business video included, that is www.cycbiz.com, google it you'll have more information. Hope it can help you!