By now, video marketing has certainly earned its place as a marketing toolkit essential. Most (if not all) companies have some semblance of a video marketing strategy in place. But there are still echoes of trepidation for some companies, especially B2B companies, that keep them from putting more than a toe intermittently into the video marketing waters.
Perhaps one of the reasons that companies drag their feet is the fear that they lack the foundation on which to build their video content. The “I know I need video, but what kind?” barrier.
That’s where the ol’ industry tried-and-true framework for developing video content comes in: the Hero, Help, Hub approach.
Hero, Help, Hub
A few years ago, Google introduced this video content framework. They recommended building a YouTube channel and supporting it with these 3 types of content: Hero, Hub and Help. Embracing this format helped YouTube creators accrue views and watchtime, two of the most important metrics that YouTube takes in consideration when promoting video channels and their content.
It's a handy framework that extends off the platform, too. It applies wherever video is relevant. (So, everywhere, really.)
Basically, it amounts to creating videos that do one (or more) of the following:
Get the attention of your audience
Offer them a solution to a problem or question they have
Encourage them to return
For a truly successful and scalable video marketing approach, you’re going to want to have a mix of all 3. Let’s take a quick look at what makes each of these 3 types of video content unique.
Hero Content: The Showboat
Hero is the flashy stuff, made to get the attention of your audience by advertising a new product, the company as a whole, or both.
Hero videos tend to be on the pricier side of the video production spectrum. And they are most likely to be used like a “commercial”—broadcast as an ad in its full form or chopped up for social media.
But Hero videos can also come with a sort of deceiving halo effect if you’re not careful. For many B2B companies, it’s easy to fall victim to picking a bold statement, putting it against some pretty visuals, and throwing it into the wild, often in a flashy (and expensive) location as a way to “brute force” itself into the limelight and conversation. It can be a wrong move for many types campaigns.
Caption: Ah, yes. Time Square. Famous for its slow-moving, long-attention-spanned spectators in the market for SaaS B2B solutions. /s
That said, used right, Hero videos can be exceptionally effective. And they can provide an important North Star for other campaigns, exemplifying guidelines to adhere to for copy, concept, and design. Generally, though, it’s a good idea to back them up with other types of content as soon as they’re launched.
Help: The Beacon of Hope
Help videos, for B2B video marketing in particular, are the big flame to which your beloved moths will flock. There’s a running internet joke that will come up online from time to time: “To the one person who made a random YouTube video about my very specific problem 4 years ago, thank you.” Your company can be that one person!
Developing a library of easy-to-find, easy-to-understand content will not only be helpful to your users, but it can help you stake a claim in a whole lexicon worth of keywords that are likely valuable to your brand.
Caption: CNET’s YouTube page features an entire playlist dedicated to How To content, covering a wide breadth of platforms, gadgets, and concepts that offer value to a very diverse audience.
The best part of these Help videos is that they don’t have to be high-budget, glamorous productions. As long as you stick to your branding and make sure to adhere to at least a certain bar of quality, most users are willing to stick around if they get answers they can use in a timely fashion.
A great resource to work with on this variety of video? Your technical marketing or customer support teams. They’ll be a great source of common questions and problems your users have, which turns into a veritable gold mine of potential how-to and help content.
Hub: The Repeat Befriender
Creating Hub video content is where things get fun. Audience members tend to find your content through Help and Hero videos. Hub videos are the unexpected surprise that keep them coming back.
If you utilize YouTube as a source of entertainment, Hub videos are likely familiar to you. They’re usually episodic and released at a regular cadence, they feature familiar faces, and they tend to stick to a particular format, like a top-10 list. They’re easy to consume, they encourage binge watching, and—with the sheer variety of topics they can cover—they can make content planning easier.
In B2B video marketing, Hub and Help videos often overlap in a significant way. Using YouTube or other video hosting platforms to help users find answers to specific questions is one of the best ways for your potential audience to find your content. Riffing off this concept and producing content based on questions they didn’t even know they had (or things they didn’t know they wanted to learn) in the form of episodic video content can be an excellent way to keep users returning.
Each of these video formats come with their own sets of best practices that you’ll need to consider before diving in. And the specific mix of all three will differ between companies based on their goals.
And while B2B video marketing campaigns may not seem to have the inherent “fun” vibe that some consumer brands do, there are still stories to tell, people to help, and audiences to grow if you embrace the 3H philosophy.
The Hero, Help, Hub trinity is only the tip of the video marketing iceberg. Curious about other tricks that can help you make marketing that moves (both literally and figuratively)? Check out the Video Marketing Webinar from Wheels Up Collective.
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