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8 Inspiring B2B Video Marketing Campaigns That Played Beautifully

Editor’s Note: This is a special encore post. It attracted the sixth-most traffic in the first half of the year of any LinkedIn Marketing Blog post that first appeared in 2018.

In early March, the 90th Academy Awards will recognize the top achievements in film from the past year. This annual celebration showcases excellence across a variety of categories and disciplines, serving as inspiration for the rest of the industry.

Of course, with nearly a century’s worth of Oscars in the books, we all have a pretty good idea of what constitutes greatness in the world of cinema. However, this isn’t exactly true for B2B video, which remains uncharted territory for many organizations. Creating video content that attracts, engages, and moves a professional audience is by no means easy, and plenty of marketers are still finding their way.

To help establish a baseline for effective B2B video marketing, we’ve picked out some of our favorite campaigns from brands that have really nailed this tactic and driven outstanding results.

8 of the Best B2B Video Marketing Campaigns

What does it take to produce an award-worthy B2B video? Well, we can take some cues from Hollywood. Movies that earn Oscar nominations tend to form a distinct connection with viewers. They often evoke emotion — through drama, humor, relatability — and compel an audience to think differently about the topics they explore.

The same is true for B2B video. And while creating this kind of immersive viewing experience around business-related content may feel like a tall task (especially with some of the drier verticals in the field), all it takes is a bit of creativity and know-how.

As you consider ways to make your mark with B2B video on LinkedIn, perhaps these stellar examples will help inspire you.

Maersk Line

This video from the world’s largest container shipping company grabs our attention immediately, with a series of gorgeous shots depicting its majestic ships cutting through ocean waters with riveting musical accompaniment. We then meet several of the organization’s employees, who discuss elements of working for Maersk Line that give them fulfillment in their careers. With a runtime of just over one minute, the message is delivered concisely and powerfully.

HubSpot

Testimonials are among the most effective forms of B2B video, because seeing professionals talk about their experiences makes a much stronger impression than simply reading about it. This customer success story from HubSpot hits the mark by drawing us into a narrative complete with setup, conflict, and resolution. By letting a satisfied customer do all the talking, citing specific examples of how the solution makes his job easier, benefits are credibly reinforced. 

Squarespace

This is an ambitious campaign, featuring participation from Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges (also known as The Dude, if you’re into the whole brevity thing). But it’s not just the inclusion of a famous face and voice that made this production remarkable. The video is entrancing, with incredible sound design that plays up the sounds of nocturnal nature amid the conspicuous absence of music. By exhibiting how Bridges used Squarespace to host his Sleeping Tapes project, it’s a great showcase of the solution in action. And when the video concludes, we get a CTA inviting us to further explore the album, or “Build it Beautiful” ourselves. 

Fifth Story

The Canadian content marketing agency introduces itself and demonstrates its capabilities with this tightly edited overview of competencies and specialties. The video tells us about Fifth Story’s ability to create high-quality media for clients, but, more importantly, it shows us. The slick transitions and animations keep the viewer’s eyes locked in, while the shots of actual employees in their workplace keep the content grounded and relatable.

Slack

“So Yeah, We Tried Slack…” And then what?? It’s a title that piques our curiosity and urges us to learn more. Offering a different twist on the traditional testimonial style, the video incorporates plenty of humor and sharp visual effects to engage and entertain the viewer, highlighting practical uses for the company’s team collaboration tools. Empathy, courtesy, playfulness, craftsmanship, and solidarity are the leading values on Slack’s LinkedIn Company Page, and they’re all present in this fun package.

HootSuite

Promoting your brand without coming off as boastful can be a challenge, but HootSuite found a very clever way to do so. Borrowing a very popular bit from  Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show, the social media management platform provider takes a self-deprecating angle here by asking members of its product design team to read mean tweets about the look of its dashboard. It’s bold, but ultimately this B2B video shows that HootSuite’s team listens to customer feedback and does something about it (as the before-and-after view of the solution’s dashboard illustrates).

Lenovo

Presenting the issues that its computer hardware products can help solve in an amusing way, Lenovo introduces us to Jane (below) and Chad, two fictional archetypes that won’t seem unrealistic to anyone who’s spent time working in an office. This campaign exemplifies how B2B video can fit into an overarching strategy, with both of the related clips playing off one another and concluding with links to the same dedicated URL. Lenovo also does an awesome job taking us on a vibrant visual product tour

VERISIGN

Content marketing is all about subtlety. At its best, it shouldn’t feel like marketing or advertising. VERISIGN expertly executes on that premise. At no point while watching the hilarious movie-trailer-style “Shopping Cart Whisperer” would you have any idea it’s advocating for any kind of product or service. This is true even at the end when the viewer is encouraged to visit NoMoreAbandonedCarts.com (sadly now defunct), which was a content hub that stayed on-brand by resembling a shoddily designed website from lead character Liberty Fillmore. Once there, visitors could find their way to VERISIGN’s EV SSL certificate solutions designed to reduce ecommerce cart abandonment. 

Creating Your Own B2B Video Magic

As you peruse the videos above, you’ll probably notice that many of them feature high-end production value, which might feel a little intimidating if you’re working around a limited budget or resources. But don’t let this slow you down.

Although you’ll clearly want to convey your brand in a professional manner, advanced editing skills and expensive equipment aren’t prerequisites for B2B video marketing. Even if your campaign is smaller in scope, you can still implement the principles encapsulated in the videos above – emotion, demonstration, creativity – for a final result deserving of recognition.

Subscribe to the LinkedIn Marketing blog for plenty more examples and practical tips to inform your B2B video marketing strategy.