11 Examples of Videos for Every Stage of the B2B Marketing Funnel

Until recently, B2C marketing was seen as more creative, playful, and interesting than B2B. Marketers working in the B2B space often felt they had to play it safe or they’d risk alienating their audience, which at times left little room to think outside the box. As a result, many of these marketing initiatives felt familiar, repetitive, and somewhat stale.

Thankfully, those dark days are behind us and B2B marketers now have the space to experiment with different types of marketing content, which is great news! One of the easiest ways to do this? Start incorporating more variety into the videos you use throughout your marketing strategy. This is a solid approach, as research shows that B2B buyers consistently use video to help them make decisions. In fact, Google found that 70% of B2B buyers watched video throughout the purchase path.

Because your potential buyers have different needs as they move along the marketing funnel, you’ll want to use different types of videos for every stage of your lead nurturing. Here’s a look at different examples of B2B videos and how they can fit into the different stages of your marketing funnel.

Top of funnel (ToFu)

At the initial awareness stage, videos should be all about establishing a foundational connection with your audience. Instead of pushing your product, your video content should position your brand as a reliable resource for entertaining, informative content about your field.

“At the initial awareness stage, videos should be all about establishing a foundational connection with your audience.”

Educational content: SpyFu and MOZ

Educational videos teach viewers about interesting topics or aspects within your industry. These videos can help people become better at their jobs or learn more about their field. They create real value for viewers and help them foster a relationship with your brand.

The SEO and PPC research company SpyFu strengthened their blog post on advanced Google Search Operators by adding a video that breaks down the complex topic. The blog post delivers a lot of information and resources at once; it covers 50+ Google advanced search operators.

The video simplifies this information by zooming in on five practical ways businesses can use search operators. The combination of written and video content delivers the most value and establishes SpyFu as a go-to resource for all things Google Search.

Another famous example of successful educational videos is SEO software company Moz’s Whiteboard Friday series.

Using only a whiteboard, Moz started these videos when the company was still small. Since then, they’ve kept the same simple format and concept. Each video teaches new concepts and helps viewers become more proficient at SEO, covering topics like how to select meaningful B2B SEO keywords and tips on how to reduce bounce rate. The series has collected millions of views and helped establish Moz as go-to SEO experts — all without needing to mention Moz’s products.

Documentaries: 360Learning and Wistia

B2B documentaries blend entertainment and education. They cover real-life events that B2B companies experience, often related to their industries. They’re fun and interesting for audiences to watch.

Collaborative learning platform 360Learning’s docuseries Onboarding Joei (now in season 2) covers its marketing director Joei’s first year on the job, which was unexpectedly derailed by COVID-19.

Along with showing the ups and downs of starting a new job, the series also highlights how a growing company shifted to the challenges of the pandemic. It provides a close-up view of the startup adjusting to remote work, canceled conferences, and more.

The docuseries is relatable for 360Learning’s audience, whose own workplaces also had to adjust to the pandemic on short notice. It helped raise awareness of their brand just as their product — an online collaborative learning platform — became more useful than ever for decentralized teams that were no longer sharing office space.

Another documentary example is our pre-pandemic B2B documentary series, One, Ten, One Hundred. In it, we looked at what it takes to make an advertisement with three different budgets: $1,000, $10,000, and $100,000.

The video series explores how the creative process changes as budgets increase. It’s fun and lighthearted, but it’s also a great resource for leads who are interested in creating more videos but worried they might not have the budget to make it happen.

Interviews with experts: Nacelle

Interviews with experts offer viewers tangible advice from trustworthy sources. They help position your brand in the industry. If you have high-profile experts willing to appear on your show, you build your own credibility, offer valuable insights, and have the potential to reach that person’s audience as well.

In headless commerce platform Nacelle’s Head-to-Head series, the company interviews eCommerce experts like engineers, senior sales executives, and CTOs about headless commerce.

This series looks at headless commerce from different perspectives (sales, engineering, etc.), with each one offering its own insights and advice on the topic. Taken together, the videos give a 360-view of the topic with lots of actionable advice for viewers, no matter their individual positions.

Middle of funnel (MoFu)

In the middle of the funnel, the purpose of B2B videos is to help prospects learn more about your product. Videos are a great tool for showing what a product can do and how other customers are using it and seeing beneficial results.

“In the middle of the funnel, the purpose of B2B videos is to help prospects learn more about your product.”

Explainer videos: BambooHR

An explainer video breaks down your product’s functions for prospects. It should provide enough information so that potential customers understand the value of your product without diving too deep into the details.

HR software company BambooHR includes an explainer video at the top of their homepage to showcase their product to site visitors.

The video includes screenshots of the product in use, so leads can get a sense of how it works and how they might be able to use it to solve their own problems.

Case studies: Slack and FreshBooks

Case study and testimonial videos help leads understand how your product solved another customer’s problem. After seeing real-life examples of your product in action, viewers are better able to visualize how your product would help them solve their own pain points.

To make these videos engaging, focus on the positive impact your product has rather than the product itself. In bookkeeping software FreshBooks’ testimonial video, interior designer Sarah McGovern talks about the accounting issues she faced when she started her business and how FreshBooks made bookkeeping easy for her.

The video does a great job of showing the problems FreshBooks can solve through a human lens. Sarah describes how she needed a flexible schedule after she had children; starting her own business allowed her to have that. When she talks about the impractical systems she had in place for bookkeeping before FreshBooks, she comes across as both relatable and likable. Potential customers can easily imagine themselves in her place.

Office collaboration platform Slack’s So Yeah, We Tried Slack …  ad from 2014 is a fun, off-beat take on the customer testimonial video. For this one, the video production team at Sandwich Co. used their own office as a humorous case study of the kinds of problems Slack can solve.

The ad is a great mix of Slack’s key selling points (“You can Slack from anywhere,” or “I like that Slack saves my place,”) with lots of jokes mixed in (“I held my meetings in the supply closet”). The result is a dynamic video that keeps the viewer engaged.

It’s quirky, but it works. The video focuses on people and how the product helped improve their work-life balance while promoting the benefits of Slack in a fun, natural way.

Bottom of Funnel (BoFu)

Once leads have reached the bottom of your funnel, a B2B video can seal the deal and convince them to commit to your product. In these videos, explain in detail how your product works and why it’s valuable with instructional demos to build trust.

“Once leads have reached the bottom of your funnel, a B2B video can seal the deal and convince them to commit to your product.”

If you offer a free trial, use onboarding videos to help people who take advantage of that offer get the most value during their trial. This will hopefully lead to more conversions in the long run.

Instructional demos: Intercom and ActiveCollab

Instructional videos alleviate quality concerns by teaching prospects in detail how your product works. Unlike an explainer video that provides a general overview, demos offer a lot of instructional information about actually using your product.

Customer communication tool Intercom uses video demos to give users and prospective users a detailed look into how their conversational relationship platform works and how it can help users communicate with their customers. Demo topics range from how to use Intercom for your business’s COVID-19 response to spotlights on specific features.

Project management software ActiveCollab created a video demo that explains how to handle online payments with their product. They even used actors to make the demos a bit more fun and human.

This simple support video explains how to make online payments in ActiveCollab. At only 45-seconds long, the video is short and to the point but still manages to include a touch of humor without detracting from its main purpose. It shows the steps for online payments within the ActiveCollab platform, which helps viewers understand exactly how the process works. It also helps them imagine themselves using the product.

Onboarding Videos: HubSpot

It’s important for B2B marketers to engage their product’s free users and make sure they get the most value possible out of their product. This encourages those users to move onto the paid version — either after their free trial ends or by upgrading sooner to a paid plan.

CRM platform HubSpot offers customers in-depth onboarding with a dedicated rep for each account. To drive home the value of this offer, they created a video that explains what onboarding with HubSpot looks like and how it can benefit the viewer’s business.

The video is a great example of B2B BoFu content. It does a great job of breaking down exactly what customers can expect from their onboarding service. Content like this helps HubSpot’s free tool users see the added value of moving to a paid subscription by showing exactly the kind of support they can get with their membership.

Don’t forget to use video in your sales outreach, too

Video is an effective tool to guide prospects through your B2B marketing funnel, but why stop there? B2B videos are a great tool for sales, too.

Coordinate with your sales team to incorporate video in their email outreach. They can create personalized videos to follow up with warm leads or send tailored screen-sharing videos to answer specific questions about your product. Using video across your sales and marketing teams will help you connect with — and convince — more people in your target audience.