5 SaaS video marketing tips to get more customers

I doubt I need to make a very strong case for video marketing in the SaaS (software-as-a-service) industry. Video conversion powerhouse Vidyard reports that 59% of decision-makers say video is their preferred learning format.

The video tutorials I create take just a few short minutes to produce, which is quick relative to the time it would take to write a detailed explanation. Sure, that’s a casual example. But you get the point about video. Most people in the world have a camera in their pocket and an internet connection to upload content. So video is here to stay play.

Whether or not to leverage video for SaaS content marketing is up to you, but here’s some quick advice if you plan to use this medium.

1. Define the purpose

First, there are a few methods for implementing SaaS or B2B video marketing on your landing pages:

• In place of the hero image, which I personally don’t recommend—more on that later… keep reading 🙂
• As a company overview.
• For a product demo.
• To showcase customer testimonials.

2. Keep it short and sweet

Lowe’s famously managed to impart nuggets of home improvement advice in only six seconds of video, affectionately referred to as the “Fix in Six” series.

Lowe’s Vine Fix in Six Campaign from ADC Awards on Vimeo.

That’s probably a little short for SaaS or B2B video advertising. That said, resist the temptation to make anything over 60–90 seconds. If you sell something that takes longer than that to explain, make your own video series with several videos highlighting a specific benefit or solution. Then, you can choose what’s best to use on individual pages.

3. Smile for the camera!

Only about 10% of human-to-human communication relates to the words you say. The other 90% or so is in your tone and body language, stuff that gets completely lost in translation on every webpage ever—unless there’s a video 😉

People buy from people… unless they’re buying from cute animals. So it’s probably wise to put a face or few in your product videos (cute animals won’t hurt either).

4. Show and prove

Software can be confusing to explain with just words, and prospects can get the wrong idea when they picture your interface in their mind. A video demo of the product in action can solve this issue immediately.

Additionally, many software product pages have no indication that other humans have benefitted from the software. Prospects may perceive product pages that lack information from real customers as elusive or unsafe. That’s because they can perceive the experience as the company having trouble finding satisfied customers.

Create video testimonials to have social proof. It conveys the perception that your business is established and has proven to consistently delight its customers.

5. Optimize watch duration and engagement

Even if you’re in the B2B industry, chances are that you’re probably going to use some form of social media to optimize your digital marketing. And if you want to do so successfully, you must understand the fundamental factors that determine which videos float to the top of people’s social media feeds or search results.

For B2B, LinkedIn and YouTube are your big watering holes. YouTube cares about keywords in your content and watch time, so make sure the keywords that people search for are in your title, description, and captions. Additionally, use jump cuts and interesting stories to hook the viewers and keep them watching the video for as long as possible.

On LinkedIn, engagement and hashtags are how people find your videos and how LinkedIn decides what to show users in their feed. Ask questions in your video to evoke a response in the comments and to get likes. Make sure you’re adding popular, relevant hashtags to the end of your posts to increase your visibility.

Broadcast Away

Now, we want to hear from you. How developed is your current video marketing SaaS strategy? What do you plan on adding to it? Let us know in the comments, and we’ll try to reply with a good answer.