Davang Shah, VP Marketing at LinkedIn
Video’s role in B2B marketing has historically been fairly limited by the fact that target audiences for B2B campaigns tend to be very niche. You’re not just looking for people with certain interests or who fit into broad demographics. You’re after a narrow range of individuals working in specific roles at specific companies. Targeting those audiences via video-based media channels has generally been difficult.
But in many ways video is a natural fit for B2B marketing, says Davang Shah, LinkedIn’s VP of Marketing. The B2B world is rarely concerned with driving immediate outcomes. Purchases are big, expensive decisions which are made over a long period of time. So building trust is key.
“If you look at how long it takes for someone to go through the B2B purchase process, it’s about 272 days,” Shah told VideoWeek. “Then there are 22 different people who are part of the buying group, and that 22 is made up of people within your own company, but it’s also made up of people outside of your company, people who may be in the same sphere, influencers, people in your network. And then you couple that with the fact that you’ve got really long purchasing cycles, where only 5 percent of people are in market at any given time.”
So marketers have to showcase expertise and gain the trust of their prospective customers, while ensuring they stay front-of-mind over an extended period of time. “If you’re only there some of the time, you might capture some of the 5 percent who are in market, but you’re missing out on the other 95 percent,” said Shah. “The way I think about it is for the 5 percent, it’s about capturing demand, while for the other 95 percent, it’s about nurturing demand.”
In other words, they have to build brands, which is where video shines.
On LinkedIn, Shah says video’s time has come. From an advertising perspective, a big part of LinkedIn’s pitch is the ability to target specific industries and job titles. Video, meanwhile, has been part of the platform since 2017, while video advertising arrived one year later, allowing brands to effectively target B2B video campaigns.
And while B2B marketing in some ways naturally plays into video’s strengths, Shah says this effect is being amplified by a generational shift in the marketing world. Seventy-one percent of B2B buyers are now either Gen Z or Millennial — age groups which consume a lot of video content online. “So you have this perfect storm for how video needs to become the format of choice to help start driving B2B outcomes,” he said.
“Say the damn thing!”
As LinkedIn has fleshed out its video marketing offering, it’s put a big focus on connecting advertisers up with quality video content, bringing marketers into the discussions and debates which occur on the platform.
“We are the destination where industry conversations happen,” said Shah. “People show up with their authentic perspectives, and there’s genuine agreement and disagreement on the platform. So how do you leverage all of that to come to a place where you can help businesses grow?”
LinkedIn’s BrandLink solution is designed to cater to this. The programme enables marketers to run pre-roll ads in front of videos from a select group of premium publishers and creators. Major media companies including BBC Studios and The Economist are included, as are business influencers Steven Bartlett, Allie K. Miller, and Gary Vaynerchuk.
LinkedIn of course isn’t alone in seeing video grow in prominence on its platform. But as a professional network, Shah says the rules around what content does and doesn’t perform well are different to other platforms. The business has looked across all of the video on the platform, and picked out trends in terms of what performs well.
To start, it’s actually useful, and backed by an authoritative voice. “It answers a question, it puts forth a perspective, it helps people learn,” said Shah. “And then it’s expert-led, by someone who’s been talking about the topic for an extended period of time; they’ve demonstrated expertise. Perhaps they’re bringing data, or a new perspective.”
Successful video also generally has a clear point of view. “It really is about saying the damn thing!” said Shah. “Most often, the content that does well actually chooses a side. It’s content that has a perspective, it’s grounded in something that matters from your perspective, and it’s backed by data, facts, insight and experience.”
Lastly, video which performs well usually isn’t overly produced. “There isn’t a need for someone to have extensive video production capability that leads to their content standing out from a visual perspective. It’s really the substance that matters more than anything else,” said Shah.
For marketers working with video on LinkedIn, these same rules apply to their own messaging. “People don’t buy from logos. People buy from people,” said Shah. “The more brands lean into that, the more successful they are.”
As an example, marketers would do well to make use of the expertise they naturally have access to within their company. “How are you using your CEO, your C-suite, or that person who is the deep product expert on something very specific, but is relevant to an audience who would be so grateful for that perspective?” said Shah.
A full-funnel approach
On the media side, part of the picture is aligning B2B marketers with creators who talk about the same area they themselves work in. Shah added that it’s also important, given how the B2B sales process typically looks, to use video throughout the funnel, rather than using it solely at one end or the other.
“We see video as a bridge which helps build credibility and connection, and it doesn’t just happen at the top of the funnel or the bottom,” said Shah. “So marketers should think about video in a way which doesn’t just drive awareness, but also drives pipeline velocity and ultimately revenue for the company.”
Part of LinkedIn’s full-funnel strategy has been the launch of its CTV offering, which uses the platform’s data to target ads in streaming environments. “I think CTV represents an important part of that 272-day journey where you can communicate with people through those premium environments to help build awareness,” said Shah. “But we also know you can use video and CTV specifically to help drive lower-funnel outcomes […] It’s an important component for brands, once they know who their ideal customer profile is, to engage with them across various moments and move them through the purchase funnel.”
CTV in many ways exemplifies how video has opened up to B2B marketing. TV in the past has been far too blunt of a tool for many B2B brands, for whom its reach proposition would be largely irrelevant. But with data-based targeting, it becomes an option.
“We see that LinkedIn CTV ads are 1.4x more cost efficient at reaching a B2B target audience versus linear TV, because that specificity of targeting is powerful,” said Shah. “And we’re 4.3x more effective at reaching that audience through LinkedIn in combination with CTV, versus linear TV.”
Measuring real business results
The length and complexity of the B2B funnel means that B2B marketers have a natural understanding of the benefits of brand, and top-of-funnel activity. But that’s not to say that measurement and attribution aren’t important. In fact, they’re big priorities for LinkedIn at the moment, particularly when it comes to real business outcomes.
“We need to show whether or not video is driving those bottom-line results, such as pipeline deals closed, pipeline velocity, and revenue,” said Shah. “So we’re building systems and marketing technologies to help us do that, whether that’s through something like a conversions API, which helps us share information to understand where someone is in the funnel, and what we’ve done to help move them down the funnel. Or it might be through company intelligence, where we try to help show how we’re impacting those buyer groups made up of 22 different buyers, rather than just individuals.”
Outside of measurement, LinkedIn is focusing on expanding its targeting capabilities and releasing new formats, while also working to make the buying process as simple as possible. On this latter point, Shah says the company’s moves in the CTV space are designed with simplicity in mind, as it’s partnered with both The Trade Desk and Amazon DSP. “You’ll see us continue to invest in this space, and make it easier for buyers to leverage our platform in the ways they traditionally buy and plan media,” he said.
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