I was surprised to learn from a Foundry (IDG) white paper on customer engagement [download link] that the average technology decision-maker spent 14.3 minutes watching each How-to video they viewed in 2022, up from 12.2 minutes in 2016. Apparently, if you really want a technology buyer to spend time with your video, you should probably be showing them a How-to video.
Taking a Page from YouTube Creators
We watch How-to videos when we’re in a hurry to learn something we need to know. This is especially true of the person evaluating a new technology solution. Being on the buying team is not their actual job.
Tech solution providers are like YouTube content creators inasmuch as they want people with even a passing interest in the product offering to keep coming back for more content. If their channel is about software, many successful YouTube creators publish lots of free YouTube “shorts” that will show up in search results for queries like “How do I do such-and-such in Adobe Photoshop 2024?” The short videos promote the channel and are almost sure to gain a new subscriber when they answer the viewer’s question in a minute or two.
Buyers researching a technology solution want quick answers to specific questions, too. The more specific the question, the more likely a search engine can deliver a relevant answer, the faster the learner can learn, and the more likely they are to seek out for more information about the solution.
Reframing Content as “How-to” Videos
Consider this chart from the customer engagement white paper cited above.
Lots of technology marketing videos address the top four topics listed above in some form. But do they do it in a way that will rank high in search results? For example, “what is the business value of the XYZ solution?” More important, do they deliver a credible answer that someone will want to share with colleagues?
In same Foundry report, 75% of IT decision-makers said they take a dim view of the IT vendor who fails to educate them through each stage of the decision process. How-to videos framed around the topics in the chart may turn out to get the the most engagement on your “channel.”
Creating new “How-to” videos can be one of the most cost-effective ways to expand your video library. Your existing videos probably contain lots of nuggets that can be reframed to captivate buyers — for a minute, or 15 minutes.
