Being in the B2B finance industry, sometimes marketing ideas can feel limited. However, social media allows you to market to an audience creatively. With social media and mobile users increasing each year across all industries, it’s important for B2B companies, particularly those in the factoring world, to jump in and engage prospects.
One way to reach a new audience, or keep in touch with your current one, is by creating videos. In fact, many marketers consider video as a leading form of lead generation.
Even with all the numbers standing for video marketing, it can be hard to get started, especially for factoring companies. Here are some of the best video marketing practices to get your factoring business going.
Step 1: Topic Generation
Congratulations! You’ve decided to start down the video marketing path, or you’re at least thinking about it.
Now comes one of the hardest parts of video creation. What should you make a video about? We know factoring inside and out, but what does our audience want to know? Or what should they know about factoring that they don’t?
This is a good place to start when you’re brainstorming video ideas. Get together with your sales manager or main employees who take leads and discuss what common questions they repeatedly hear from prospects.
Do they always ask about rates? How often do sales representatives have to explain what factoring is? What are concepts they have to frequently explain when they talk to leads?
Whatever the answers to these questions are, that’s what you should make a video about. A video should always answer a question.
Step 2: Creating the Video
There are many different platforms out there that allow you to create custom videos or use templates. Before you start creating the video though, you need to decide how you want to portray the message.
Do you want to record yourself talking about the topic? Do you want to use cartoons to depict the problem and solution? What about using a white board to draw a diagram?
There are two important points to consider before you decide which type of video you want to make:
- What will make the most sense for the message of the video
- What resources do you have or willing to purchase to create the video
For instance, say you want to make a video about the differences between recourse and non-recourse factoring. You think that you’ll be able to explain it in front of a camera to make the most sense for viewers. However, you might not have the lighting, camera or space to take a good looking video and you’ll be left looking like an amateur when you’re far from that.
That’s where it might make more sense for you to use a platform or template from an outside source that would be animated.
Make sure if you’re putting text on the video that you give the viewer enough time to not only read, but read and comprehend the text. Since factoring concepts make sense for you, it might feel like the video is moving too slow, but for a person who isn’t familiar with the topic it might be a perfect speed.
Some other best practices factoring companies should remember if they’re creating a video are:
- Keep it simple
- Stay focused on one topic
- Duration should be around two minutes
- Don’t sound too salesy
This last point is essential to successful video marketing for all B2B and B2C companies, including factoring businesses. Unless the video is titled “work with my factoring company,” you should be focusing on the main point of the video, not just selling your services.
Although you don’t want to be salesy, take advantage of having a potential lead’s attention. At the end of the video you should have a call-to-action (CTA) to take the viewer to the next step of the buying process. It should include you website URL and phone number, as well as where they can learn more about factoring if they’re interested.
Step 3: Promote and Share Your Video
After you craft and develop the perfect video, export it to a platform like YouTube for viewers to find and watch it.
This will also give you links to easily embed your video on a landing page on your website. Keep in mind; video slows down a load time for pages, so you don’t want to have more than one on a page.
In addition to possibly posting the video on your website, you should be sharing it on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Many people who are on social media are there to watch videos (we’re all guilty of it) so get your message out there and it should get some traction.
You can also share the link to your email subscribers in newsletters. It’s a different way to get various audiences to think of your brand, and probably learn something new.
Even if your video gets you one lead every six months, that could be the biggest lead of the year! You never know. So get out there in the video world and give it a shot. *…and cut.*
About the Author: Factor Finders specializes in finding factoring companies that can fund difficult-to-place deals. Our services help other factoring brokers capitalize on commissions that might otherwise be lost.
If you have prospective transactions that you cannot find a funder for, then contact us at FactorFinders.com. We’ll find the factor for you and split commissions 50-50.