How to get started with B2B video marketing for SMBs

B2B video marketing is a powerful tool for influencing business buying decisions. For small business owners, video is a smart way to educate customers, showcase their expertise and build trust with B2B stakeholders.

In this article, you’ll discover how to use B2B video marketing to promote your small business and win new customers. You’ll also learn to develop an effective B2B video marketing strategy for maximum impact.

What is B2B video marketing?

B2B video marketing uses video content to attract, engage and convert other businesses into customers.

The power of video lies in its ability to both “show” and “tell”, allowing companies to speak directly to business decision-makers.

B2B video marketing includes content like:

• Product demos that explain how your software works

• Webinars that showcase your company’s expertise

• Customer success stories that establish trust with prospects

• How-to videos or tutorials that educate and support customers

For small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) with a subtle value proposition to communicate or a complex product to bring to life, video can support and enrich a creative content marketing strategy.

Video helps your company stand out in a crowded market by putting a face to your brand. It also allows you to build trust with customers by demonstrating your company’s expertise in a dynamic and engaging format.

B2B video marketing supports a wide range of marketing and sales objectives, including:

• Telling your brand story effectively

• Educating or informing customers about your product or service

• Building trust with decision-makers

• Moving buyers through the sales funnel

• Closing sales deals successfully

Here’s an example of a B2B brand using video as part of its small business marketing strategy:

In the video, SaaS (software-as-a-service) company WalkMe uses animation to introduce viewers to its digital adoption platform.

Before creating impactful B2B videos, it’s important to understand how B2B video marketing differs from its B2C counterpart.

The difference between B2B and B2C video marketing

As with B2B and B2C sales jobs, there are several significant distinctions between B2B and B2C video marketing.

Here’s a breakdown of the key characteristics of video marketing across B2B and B2C contexts.

B2B video marketing supports broader B2B content marketing objectives, helping B2B buyers to:

• Understand value propositions – what differentiates you from competitors

• See how your solutions address their specific business challenges

• Justify their purchasing decisions to business stakeholders

As a result, video marketing can influence key business decisions and drive B2B sales.

Different types of videos in B2B video marketing

Here’s a detailed look at the most effective formats for creating B2B video marketing that resonates with your business audience.

Explainer videos

Explainer videos are short, engaging clips that break down what a company does or how a product works.

These videos are ideal for the top of the marketing funnel as they help buyers grasp value propositions quickly. Tutorial-style explainer videos also help simplify complex services or technical solutions.

Here’s an example of a video that helps buyers understand how to set up a sales pipeline in Pipedrive:

The combination of screenshots and commentary brings the product feature to life for viewers.

Explainer videos are a popular choice among video marketers. According to B2B video marketing statistics from video production company WyzOwl, 73% of video marketers created explainer videos in 2025.

Use cases for videos

Explainer videos emerged as the most widely used format, suggesting their effectiveness in engaging buyers early.

Case studies

Case study videos showcase real-world success stories from existing customers. In the videos, customers talk about their experience with a company, often describing how it helped solve a problem.

For B2B audiences, seeing and hearing a real customer share their story can be convincing. Customer testimonials usually include data-driven results to build even greater credibility.

In this video, a business owner explains how Pipedrive supports the growth of her cloud accountancy SMB:

In B2B marketing, case studies drive lead generation and conversion rates. The videos help buyers see how a product or service could fix their business pain points.

Webinars

Webinars are live or recorded videos that offer in-depth insights on:

• Industry topics

• Product features

• Customer challenges

Webinars allow B2B companies to engage directly with potential customers. Webinar presenters can answer customer questions in real time, demonstrating the company’s expertise.

Audiences can either participate live or watch a recording of the content.

In this webinar, the Pipedream team explains the software’s AI functionality for quicker sales wins:

Webinars provide valuable, educational content to qualified audiences, supporting B2B decision-making.

Product demos

Product demo videos provide a visual walkthrough of a product in action, sometimes to support the launch of new products and features.

In B2B marketing, product demos are especially helpful for explaining complex tools and showing how users can get started.

Here’s an example of a product demo from Slack, a B2B SaaS company:

The video provides new Slack users with a clear guide for getting started.

Product demos provide evidence of a product or feature’s usability. This knowledge can help buyers evaluate solutions and gain buy-in from other decision-makers.

Brand videos

Brand videos focus on telling a brand’s story. They also communicate a company’s mission and values.

Here’s an example of a brand video from Pipedrive:

Companies can share brand videos across multiple channels, including:

• Company websites

• Social media

• Email marketing campaigns

Brand videos build an emotional connection with consumers and support your brand positioning. Rather than driving sales, they aim to strengthen awareness and long-term recognition.

Thought leadership videos

In thought leadership videos, industry experts offer insight and guidance on topics B2B audiences care about. The purpose is to provide value and reinforce a brand’s credibility.

In B2B videos, thought leaders are often company founders and executives. Sometimes, they’re internal subject-matter experts.

Thought leadership videos can also feature guest experts from a relevant industry or discipline.

Here’s an example of a thought leadership video from B2B accounting and invoice software brand FreeAgent:

In the video, two accountants – including FreeAgent’s in-house expert – answer common business bookkeeping questions.

The video offers significant value to FreeAgent’s audience by featuring industry leaders with deep expertise in the field.

B2B video marketing spans a wide range of formats, each tailored to specific goals. By leveraging different video types, businesses can reach buyers at every stage of the decision-making process.

What is the value of B2B video marketing for SMBs?

Video marketing isn’t just for large or enterprise B2B companies. It’s also a cost-effective tool for SMBs to stand out in a competitive market.

Here’s how B2B video marketing delivers value across the SMB customer journey.

Growing brand awareness

Raising awareness is a core objective of SMB marketing, particularly for new brands and startups. Brand awareness can increase website traffic and support SEO-driven lead generation.

According to WyzOwl’s 2025 research, 96% of video marketers said video helped them increase brand awareness.

The most effective videos for growing awareness introduce B2B audiences to the company. The frequent appearance of CEOs and founders gives the brand a face and voice to the name.

Leaders usually explain what their company does and how it helps customers, humanizing their brand and engaging decision-makers more directly.

Boosting engagement

Many audiences find watching a video a quick and enjoyable way to take in information.

In the same WyzOwl study, 78% said they’d most like to watch a short video to learn about a product or service. By contrast, only 9% prefer a text-based article.

How would you like to learn about a product or service?

By investing in B2B video marketing, companies can engage with a larger target audience and reach a wider group of B2B decision-makers, potentially shortening the sales cycle.

Building trust, authority and credibility

Video marketing can help SMBs nurture trust with their B2B customers. Video can also demonstrate a company’s credibility in a market or industry.

Case studies and thought leadership videos are especially effective for achieving these objectives.

Testimonial videos create a strong sense of authenticity by showing a real person talking about real results. Customer stories also provide strong social proof – an essential part of social selling.

Thought leadership videos allow companies to showcase the human expertise behind their product or services. They boost trust and credibility further by offering educational value to customers.

Simplifying complex products or services

For SMBs with a complex value proposition, video simplifies complex products or services. Short demos and animated explainers break down complicated systems or software in minutes.

Video brings products and services to life for B2B audiences. This clarity helps decision-makers see how the product could overcome their business challenges.

The explainer video format is one that audiences understand and may even expect from B2B brands. According to WyzOwl, 98% of people watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service in 2025.

Supporting SMB sales

In many SMBs, sales teams use video to boost sales. Reps use video to nurture their sales pipeline and move prospects to the next stage of the funnel.

B2B video marketing also gives salespeople content to use in follow-up emails with leads and to overcome sales objections.

Sales video software allows companies to personalize videos and send them at scale. Many platforms integrate with customer relationship management systems (CRMs) like Pipedrive to automate video outreach through existing sales and marketing funnels.

For example, Pipedrive’s integration with Bonjoro sends videos automatically at key points in the sales cycle.

5 best practices for an effective B2B video marketing strategy

With a clear content strategy in place, video can be a go-to marketing tool for B2B companies.

Here are five best practices for an effective B2B video marketing strategy, particularly for SMBs.

1. Understand your audience and their video needs

A deep understanding of your target audience is fundamental to the success of a video marketing strategy. Knowing your customers’ goals, challenges and pain points helps you create videos that drive value at different stages of their journey.

For example, videos telling positive customer stories might be most effective if buyers are unsure about partnering with a new or smaller business.

To improve your understanding of your target audience and their needs:

• Study customer behavior using customer observation techniques, e.g., watching how users interact with your SaaS product during usability testing

• Analyze customer interactions in your CRM, such as tracking the highest-converting content or where deals stall

• Seek feedback through customer surveys, including CSAT and NPS, to gauge buyer sentiment

Here’s an example of how LinkedIn uses surveys to research audience needs and preferences:

Once you know what kind of video content your customers want, connect your plans to your sales and marketing goals.

2. Align your efforts with marketing and sales objectives

Video needs to be more than just “content” to be an effective tool for B2B marketing. It must support your sales and marketing objectives alongside clear business goals.

For example, if a startup wants to raise brand awareness, a brand video will have a greater strategic impact than a detailed product demo.

Here are some types of video you can align with common B2B marketing objectives:

Ensure every video you plan serves a strategic purpose, ultimately moving your audience closer to a decision.

3. Decide how to execute your video strategy

Deciding how to create your video is as important as identifying which type of video to make. The format and production method both impact the message you want to communicate.

Short video content with a “homespun” feel can show a brand’s human side, which may appeal to prospective B2B customers and future employees. Companies can create these videos relatively easily using smartphones and editing apps.

In this example, enterprise software company SAP uses a casual type of video to showcase its corporate culture. The video also sheds light on the company’s purpose:

This “lo-fi” video production approach in B2B marketing works in specific contexts.

Depending on the topic or brand positioning, a company might not need to show its “human” side in every video. Certain content, like brand videos and thought leadership, may benefit from high-quality production.

As a result, some small businesses hire a B2B video marketing agency to create some of their videos.

With a few basic investments, you can save on budget by making videos in-house. A tripod, light ring and lapel microphone will help you generate professional-looking videos independently.

4. Have a distribution plan for each video

Content distribution is about ensuring your videos reach your audience. A clear distribution plan maximizes the impact of video across the buyer’s journey.

With proactive and strategic planning, you can reach buyers in a timely and relevant way. It can make all the difference in determining whether buyers watch your video and take the next step.

Most B2B brands publish video content on a dedicated YouTube channel as a starting point. While this is good practice, getting your videos in front of the right audience is unlikely.

To ensure B2B decision-makers see your videos, identify where your audience spends time.

B2B buyers are typically active on professional networks like LinkedIn. Depending on your small business’s target audience, your customers may also spend time on trend-driven platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

Grammarly uses TikTok to share relevant hints and tips with its audience.

You likely already have a good sense of which social media platforms best fit your brand and audience. To further strengthen your understanding, consider asking customers about their platform preferences when conducting audience research.

Video distribution isn’t just about social media. Sales reps and other teams interacting with prospective buyers also play a significant role.

Let these team members know when new video content is live and help them share it with their professional networks. Provide information such as:

• The purpose of the video and the target audience

• Some suggested wording they can use to share the video among their networks

• The video URL, ideally with web visitor tracking for measurement purposes

Email campaigns and your company website are also essential distribution channels for video. Including videos in your emails can support video email objectives like open rate and click-through rate – alongside email marketing engagement metrics.

In addition to video email, you can publish videos in your blog posts or content hub to encourage visitors to stay on your site.

For example, Pipedrive has a video tutorials section with helpful tool walkthroughs:

Video content also supports the buyer’s learning journey as they browse the site.

5. Have a plan for measuring the success of each video

Measuring video performance helps refine your marketing strategy. By tracking metrics like views, engagement and conversions, you can evaluate what’s working and what needs to improve.

For example, you could monitor the click-through rate of a video CTA (call to action) to gauge how well your video prompts viewers to take the next step.

You could also measure how frequently viewers take other actions, such as:

• Visiting a campaign landing page

• Downloading a resource

• Scheduling a sales demo

The video performance data will be available in your online video hosting platform or via web visitor tracking in Google Analytics. The insights you gain will help you optimize your video marketing over time.

How your CRM can support B2B video marketing

As a small business owner, you’re likely already using a CRM system to stay on top of your sales performance. Some platforms – like Pipedrive – also work well for tracking marketing activities.

Here are three ways Pipedrive can support your B2B video marketing efforts.

1. Capture leads directly from video pages

Pipedrive’s Web Forms feature lets you source and qualify leads from your video landing pages.

Sales reps can contact leads after they watch a video and move them through the sales funnel. They can also home in on the best-fit buyers using Pipedrive’s custom fields and lead scoring functionality.

You can create eye-catching forms that match your company’s branding, such as this example in action on a Pipedrive video page:

Web Forms help you navigate the challenges of collecting data from video viewers. By securely storing customer data and communicating directly with your CRM, the feature removes the need for third-party apps – reducing the risk of data breaches.

2. Boost personalized follow-up emails with video

Pipedrive supports video distribution through both individual emails and wider email marketing campaigns.

Sales reps can quickly and easily embed video links in their follow-up emails to prospects. Adding video content can bring extra value to recipients, maximizing sales opportunities.

Here’s an example of what this kind of personalized email could look like in Pipedrive:

Pipedrive also supports another critical form of video distribution: email campaigns.

3. Add video to targeted email campaigns

With Campaigns, Pipedrive’s email marketing software, companies can create video-led email marketing campaigns.

Marketers can add video content blocks quickly and easily using the drag-and-drop editor in Campaigns:

They can also segment email audiences based on size, industry and sector. In video-led email marketing, customer segmentation helps ensure audiences see the videos that offer them the most value.

Final thoughts

Video can be an effective marketing tool for supporting your overall strategy and growing your B2B small business.

B2B video marketing showcases your company’s value and grows trust between you and potential customers. These are key steps in nurturing leads and guiding prospects toward a purchase.

Pipedrive gives small business owners the tools to get the most from their B2B video marketing efforts. Sign up for a free 14-day trial to see how the CRM can support your B2B video marketing strategy alongside streamlining your sales efforts.