5 Creative Ways B2B Brands Can Use Visual Content Marketing

Do you know the biggest challenge B2B marketers face?

Creating engaging content; according to a study by Content Marketing Institute

With so much content being published on blogs, social media platforms, and different forums, marketers are in a never-ending fight with their competitors to produce more content. Yet, they’re unable to engage their audiences.

The solution to this problem lies in diversifying your strategy and investing more resources in the best performing content types.

A recent study by HubSpot found that visual content, in general, and video, in particular, has become the most engaging form of online content.

It not only outperforms written articles and blog content but also does significantly better than any other content type on social media.

So how exactly can B2B brands use visual content in their content marketing strategy?

Here are a few ideas to get you thinking

1. Whiteboard Animation Videos

For describing highly technical B2B products, there’s nothing more effective than a well thought out whiteboard animation video.

You can use whiteboard animations to create long videos about the technical specifications and functions of your product without boring your customers or losing their attention.

Here’s a good example of how a whiteboard animation video looks

You can use them on your website, embed them into your blog articles, or share them on your company’s social media accounts.

One of the reasons why whiteboard videos work so well is that they can communicate a lot of information in a short time by visually representing your product through a powerful storyline

This is probably why whiteboard animations are among the most frequently used video types by B2B marketers across all stages of the marketing funnel.

2. Video Testimonials

Is there anything more powerful in driving B2B sales than a video testimonial from a satisfied client?

A 2016 research study found that 89%of B2B marketers considered video testimonials a key part of their marketing strategy

According to WordStream, a video testimonial can increase the conversion rate of a product landing page by 81%.

Video testimonials are also shared on social media much more frequently than other types of B2B videos.

Testimonial videos probably work so well because they help you build instant credibility and increase the perceived value of your brand.

Because shooting a high quality video testimonial takes a lot of time and resources. If a customer is willing to shoot it for you, you must’ve provided them great service.

3. Screencasts for Product Tutorials

Thanks to WordPress and other user-friendly tools, it’s easy to start a blog or a business website. But it doesn’t mean content creation is also a simple task, especially in the case of B2B businesses.

For example, brands often publish How To posts, tutorials, and problem-solving content. But they’re disappointed when no one reads it.

The reason is simple.

Their content only tells people what to do but doesn’t actually show them how to do it.

Showing, instead of telling, is the secret to creating better content than your competitors.

By adding screencast videos to your content you can make your tutorials much more actionable, engaging, and useful.

All it takes is a simple screen recording where you show your customers how to perform a certain action.

Screencasts are perfect for brands that do not have the resources to create high-quality videos or just want to experiment with video content. It’s also an easy solution if no one on your team is willing to face the camera.

4. Animated GIFs for Blog Content

An even cheaper and faster way to add engaging visuals to your content is by creating animated GIFs instead of screencasts

GIFs are much smaller in size and easier to create. But B2B marketers can use them for the same job as a screencast by showing users how to perform a task.

Here’s a sample GIF that I created to show you what I mean.

There are several tools to create animated GIFs or screencasts that you can find with just a few searches on Google.

5. Screenshots of Infographics

Look at that animated GIF I shared in the last point.

That’s me grabbing a section of a publicly available infographic, published by someone else, to use in one of my blog posts.

Doing so is perfectly fine as long as you link back to the original source (which I did)

If you can’t think of any other way to use visuals in your blog content then this method is a life-saver because it gives you high-quality images for your articles without creating them yourself.

The best way to find them is to look for infographics related to your topic. Take the topic “B2B content marketing as an example.

The results show several top-performing infographics on this topic. Open all of them and grab the relevant sections to use in your content.

This practice will not only make your content more engaging for the readers but also help you get more backlinks and social shares (as proved by several studies)

Wrapping Up

Many B2B businesses invest money in content marketing but fail to engage their target audience. By adding visuals to the mix, brands can turn their boring content into highly engaging resources that would not only help their customers but also give them a much higher ROI on their marketing efforts.