Farbrat – Rebranding

Ein Rebranding, das Handwerkskunst neu definiert. 1998 gegründet versammelt sich unter dem farbrat eine exklusive Wertgemeinschaft an Malermeistern und Wohnraum-Gestaltern, im DACH-Raum sind es aktuell 25 Betriebe. Die farbräte verbindet die Leidenschaft für gutes Handwerk, Tradition, fortschrittliche Ideen und verbinden neueste Materialien mit alter Handwerkskunst. Der farbrat ist ein echtes Gütesiegel, wenn Wände, Oberflächen und […]

Source:: designmadeingermany.de

Fairkickt

Fair kickt! Die Fußballeuropameisterschaft in Deutschland hat ein spannendes und vielfältiges Rahmenprogramm aufblühen lassen: Mit dem Bildungscamp Fairkickt zeigt die Stadt Frankfurt am Main gemeinsam mit Lust auf besser leben gGmbH, wie Sport, Klimaschutz und Nachhaltigkeit zusammengehören, wie die globale Gerechtigkeit im Sport gefördert werden kann und was sich verändern muss. Das Ziel: Jugendliche auf Probleme und Chancen […]

Source:: designmadeingermany.de

How to Build a B2B Video Marketing Strategy

B2B video marketing has emerged as a powerful strategy for engaging with business decision makers and driving business growth. By incorporating video into your B2B marketing strategy, you can effectively communicate your brand message, nurture leads, and establish your company as an industry expert.

Let’s explore how video marketing helps B2B marketers and how to develop your own B2B video marketing strategy.

What is B2B video marketing?

B2B video marketing is the use of promotional video content to capture the attention of business decision makers. This type of marketing content is most often found on social media platforms, but it can be used in a wide variety of contexts, from streaming services to digital out-of-home (DOOH) platforms. LinkedIn recently launched a dedicated CTV advertising product, signaling a bellwether moment in the growth of video marketing for B2B.

Unlike B2C video marketing, B2B video marketing is not confined to short, flashy advertisements. While TV-style ads do have a role in B2B marketing, the unique nature of the business buying process means that there is room for a much wider variety of video content.

Some examples of B2B video marketing content includes:

  • Thought leadership
  • Product demos
  • Tutorials
  • Live-streams
  • Webinars
  • Short-form social videos

LinkedIn’s 2024 B2B Marketing Benchmark report found that video is both the top content type currently used by B2B organizations, and also the leader in planned usage going forward.

How does B2B video marketing add value for your brand?

Video marketing is generally more time and resource intensive than other approaches, so it’s fair to ask: what value does video add? And the answer is clear: video adds a lot of value in a lot of ways. Respondents in CMI’s B2B content marketing trends research found that video was in a two-way tie with case studies for most effective content format. Here are some benefits that make B2B video marketing indispensable.

Enhanced brand awareness and recognition

Compelling video content is among the most effective ways to capture attention and leave a lasting impression on potential customers. By showcasing your company’s expertise, thought leadership, and customer success stories, B2B video marketing can elevate your brand’s visibility and make it more recognizable in the competitive B2B landscape.

Strengthened brand reputation and credibility

High-quality video production and engaging storytelling can foster trust and credibility among business decision makers. By demonstrating your company’s understanding of industry challenges and its ability to provide solutions in a polished video format, you can establish your brand as a reliable and trustworthy partner.

Improved lead generation and nurturing

Engaging video content can effectively attract potential customers and nurture them through the sales funnel. According to research from LinkedIn, video content is shared 20x more on their platform than any other content type. Combined with video’s ability to stick in viewers‘ minds and integrated lead capture tools, B2B video marketing can generate qualified leads and move them closer to making a purchasing decision.

Enhanced customer education and support

Video can be a powerful tool for educating customers about your products or services, providing clear instructions, and resolving common issues. By creating comprehensive video tutorials and FAQs, B2B video marketing can improve customer satisfaction, reduce support costs, and open the door for upselling to your most well qualified audience.

Effective thought leadership and positioning

Thought leadership is one of the best ways to establish your brand as an authority in your industry. B2B video marketing provides an excellent platform to establish your brand’s thought leaders in a format that instantly humanizes them. By sharing thought leadership through videos, you can more efficiently position your brand as a trusted source of information and attract potential customers who value your expertise.

91% of businesses used video as a marketing tool in 2023. (Wyzowl)

Why create a B2B video marketing strategy?

As with any marketing approach, establishing a strategy is the only way to ensure your success is measurable. But beyond that, there are a few compelling reasons why a video strategy in particular is worth your time.

Go into deeper detail

Video allows you to go into deeper detail about your products or services than you can with text or images alone. This is especially important for complex B2B solutions that require more explanation. With video, you can demonstrate how your product works, show its benefits, and address any potential concerns that your audience may have — all within a media format that holds your audience’s attention.

Offer content for a wider range of learning styles

Text is one of the easiest ways to convey your message, but it is far from the only way people consume information. Consider the online acronym TL;DR: too long, didn’t read. Many people are visual learners, and they prefer to learn by watching videos. Others are auditory learners, and they prefer to learn by listening to audio or podcasts. Still others are kinesthetic learners, and they prefer to learn by observing or doing. Video can accommodate all of these learning styles, making it an effective tool for reaching a wider audience.

Richer analytics

Analytics for tactics like content marketing, PPC, and email all tend to be rather binary: either the user took an action or they didn’t. Video, on the other hand, provides analytics data about all the standard binary metrics, but it also provides details about view-through rates.

This metric in particular lets you know whether your viewers are actually watching your content, and at what point they are dropping off. These are invaluable insights for fine tuning your video marketing content, which will ultimately help it perform even better.

96% of video marketers say video marketing has increased user understanding of their product or service. (Wyzowl)

6 key steps in building an effective B2B video marketing strategy

Define your objectives

Before you start creating videos, you need to clearly outline your goals for your B2B video marketing efforts. Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or educating your audience, having clear goals will help guide your strategy and determine how to measure your success.

Conduct audience research

To make video content that is relevant and engaging to your target audience means you need to understand who they are, what their pain points are, and how their buying decisions are made. These insights will help you tailor your videos to address their specific interests and needs.

Develop a content calendar

Consistency is key to building any aspect of brand identity, and video marketing content is no different. Create a content calendar to plan your video production schedule and ensure a consistent flow of content. Map out the types of videos you’ll create, their target audience, and the planned release dates. This will help you stay organized and ensure you’re producing videos that align with your overall marketing goals.

Choose the right platforms

Whether it’s LinkedIn, YouTube, or other industry-specific platforms, you need to identify the platforms where your target audience is most active. This will help you tailor your video strategy to the platforms your audience frequents, which means they are more likely to see and engage with your videos.

The top three video distribution channels for marketers in order are social media, websites, and YouTube. (Vidyard)

Optimize for search and sharing

Video content is increasingly featured among the top results on Google. Optimizing the titles and descriptions of your videos can positively impact your website’s ranking. Optimize your video titles, descriptions, and tags with relevant keywords to improve their search engine visibility. Encourage sharing by including social media buttons and calls to action within the videos and on your website. Learn more on our blog about optimizing YouTube content for SEO.

Establish and track KPIs

Regularly analyze the performance of your B2B videos using analytics tools. Determine which metrics will define success for your video marketing campaign and track them regularly to assess the effectiveness of your strategy. Metrics typically tracked for B2B video include total views, view through rate, engagement, and conversion rates.

Lay the groundwork for sustainable success with video marketing as part of an integrated marketing approach: learn more about Strategy and Planning services from TopRank.

The post How to Build a B2B Video Marketing Strategy appeared first on TopRank® Marketing.

Source:: toprankblog.com

Shaping the past

Die 2023 erschienene Publikation »Shaping the Past“, die Leitwerk für die Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung gestaltet hat, zeigt als vielschichtiger Schnappschuss Möglichkeiten eines kreativen und zivilgesellschaftlich orientierten Umgangs mit umstrittenen Denkmälern und damit verbundenen Geschichtsbildern. Der vorliegende dreisprachige Band reflektiert die langjährige Zusammenarbeit und das Austauschprogramm zwischen dem Monument Lab, der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung […]

Source:: designmadeingermany.de

Age of SGE: How Will AI Affect Search Traffic in the Next Decade?

Google’s bold new foray into generative AI – dubbed AI Overviews or Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) – has elicited big reactions, and not many of them positive. A few high-profile slip-ups aren’t helping boost confidence in AI to provide useful, accurate results.

Despite these hiccups, AI in search is likely here to stay. With search engines and SEO being such a core aspect of digital marketing, there’s understandably a lot of attention being paid to the ripple effects of this evolution in search.

As a marketer, here’s what you need to know about Google SGE and the broader impact of AI on search.

What is Google SGE?

Google Search Generative Experience is Google’s new approach to incorporating generative AI into their search algorithm. When in use, SGE will provide an “AI-powered snapshot” of information requested in a query at the top of the resulting search engine results page (SERP). These snapshots will provide a quick overview of the topic, with information collected, composited, and arranged from top results by the generative AI.

The screenshot below from Google’s overview of SGE provides an example of what one of these AI-powered snapshots looks like:

Reactions to Google SGE

Google SGE has received significant attention and criticism, primarily focused on how the tool will disincentivize users from actually clicking through to the websites surfaced in search results. The Atlantic, which says it gets up to 40% of its current traffic from Google, published an analysis on the subject and concluded: “75% of the time, the AI-powered search would likely provide a full answer to a user’s query.” As a result, Wall Street Journal reported that publishers expect to lose “between 20% and 40% of their Google-generated traffic” in a post-SGE landscape.

Other publishers and SEO experts are less concerned. While Forrester Research Senior Analyst Nikhil Lai was quoted by Reuters saying SGE is “definitely going to decrease publishers‘ organic traffic, and they’re going to have to think about a different way to measure the value of that content if not click-through rate,” he also said he believes appearing in the new SGE-provided summaries will help protect and enhance publisher reputation.

Some SEO experts even believe that Google SGE could represent a new opportunity to rank for brands and publishers that may have previously lacked the authority to appear in the top 10.

How generative AI will affect search traffic in the next decade

There are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to Google SGE. As one publisher interviewed by Reuters shared: “The new AI section is a black box for us. We don’t know how to make sure we’re a part of it or the algorithm behind it.”

The overarching reality is that in the coming years, brands will likely see a collective decrease in traffic sourced to search engines. This owes in part to AI and changes to the makeup of SERPs, but it also relates to evolving habits of users (e.g. using TikTok for search, or running video searches on YouTube).

Even if overall search volume decreases to some degree in the coming years, however, that doesn’t mean SEO’s strategic role in digital marketing will be diminished. Google will remain a powerhouse driver and director of web traffic. Staying aligned with its guidelines and priorities will help you continue to grow your authority and attract high-quality visitors.

By referencing the history of Google algorithm updates, along with the ultimate goals and purpose of the search engine, we can start to chart a path forward for SEO in the age of AI.

Ranking highly in SERPs will become even more important

As the screenshot above indicates, SGE summaries take top billing on SERPs, above even sponsored content. With less space to list organic rankings after sponsored content, some results that would have previously been on page one will slip to page two.

Given how few people navigate to page two of any SERP result, this means Google SGE will likely have a somewhat counterintuitive effect: it will make SEO even more important.

While SERP organic results may be receiving fewer clicks overall, the pages that are getting clicks will be on page one… and competition to appear there will be fiercer than ever.

Meanwhile, Google SGE summary results are primarily useful for informational queries: users just looking to have a question answered may be able to get what they need from the AI-generated summary. For users with commercial intent, however — such as individuals searching for complex information about B2B challenges and solutions — organic results will still be the place to look.

“With AI Overviews, people are visiting a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions. And we see that the links included in AI Overviews get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query. As we expand this experience, we’ll continue to focus on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators. As always, ads will continue to appear in dedicated slots throughout the page, with clear labeling to distinguish between organic and sponsored results.” – Liz Reid, VP, Head of Google Search (Source)

Authoritative, in-depth content will gain demand

Google became the search engine juggernaut it is today precisely because it was able to provide the most relevant content for users. Each of its updates over the years has focused on refining the search engine’s algorithm to serve results in accordance with Google’s “E-E-A-T” rating guidelines: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

As Google assured in their overview of SGE, the search engine remains committed to these guidelines when providing all information on their SERPs — including and especially the information their generative AI model produces. However Google updates Google SGE in the future, you can bet they’ll be focused on making sure it provides authoritative best answer information; their reputation hinges on it.

Embodying E-E-A-T principles in your content will become all the more important as AI-driven search ramps up. SEO techniques like link-building and utilizing semantically related keywords will be key to demonstrating authority and winning placements within AI summaries.

Helpful, expert-sourced content will rise above the rest

Google SGE presents a unique opportunity for B2B creators. Compared to most B2C content, B2B content is more complex, niche, and difficult to summarize. AI will have a limited ability to offer adequate information to informed B2B audiences, especially if those audiences include buyers looking to make critical purchasing decisions.

As a result, there is reason to expect substantial, renewed demand for content that explores B2B topics in-depth from an expert point of view. As Google’s SGE provides only top-level summaries, audiences will crave deeper insights and guidance on topics that matter to them. They’ll likely spend more time using SGE’s new features to refine their searches while they look for information curated for them specifically.

If you can provide this information, you can form stronger relationships with your audience faster, establishing yourself as a go-to source for reliable information in your business category. At TopRank Marketing, we often say that increased direct traffic is a great long-term outcome from successful SEO, because it can mean your audience starts bypassing searches (and AI results) to visit your website directly.

Know your audience and what they need

As the search landscape evolves with the rapid expansion of generative AI, we continue to believe that understanding and harnessing search intent holds the key to driving valuable organic traffic going forward. While Google SGE may be able to synthesize and summarize results on higher-level topics, your organization can differentiate with expert, in-depth content that speaks to your audience and their unique needs.

Additionally, make sure you’re continually exploring alternative channels as part of your marketing strategy. As search habits evolve, staying innovative will ensure your audience can continue to discover your content, whether that’s through Google, social media, email, trade publications, or paid media.

Download our guide, Marketing with Intent, to learn more about creating a future-proof SEO strategy within this framework.

The post Age of SGE: How Will AI Affect Search Traffic in the Next Decade? appeared first on TopRank® Marketing.

Source:: toprankblog.com