Creating the Right Type of Video Content for Enterprise Fintech

Just making "a video" is no longer an option for marketers. It is particularly challenging in industries that are not visual and where expertise — not entertainment — is what customers value. Meanwhile, on YouTube, Creators are reaching huge audiences on technical topics such as finance, economy, computer science. The difference lies in the Format, the structure of the content. It is a crucial but often neglected question to ask before producing any branded video. Defining what formats work for you will help the creative process. It will also transform the impact of your content. Ultimately this is about ROI.

This challenge for corporate videos is multiplied in the enterprise fintech space: dealing with technical topics; targeting only a niche of decision-makers. The default video Format is a classic interview with a company executive, similar to what you could see on TV. The resulting impact is typically as dull as the video itself.

The Format can matter more than the content itself. We will see how, through a few examples. Then a "YouTube taxonomy" will help to define what are the right Formats for B2B fintech video content.

If that doesn't sound inspiring, you will find at the end ready-to-use examples from the financial world that you can tap into if you are seriously considering video as a medium in 2020.

Why Format matters

A few examples from ancient fables to business videos will help to remind ourselves how Format has a dramatic impact on content performance.

The most fabled Format

“Turn your ideas into animals and they will achieve immortality.” — John Lewis Gaddis

This quote refers to the Fox and Hedgehog, by Isiah Berlin. An essay that went viral in the mid-twentieth century, using a Format established by Aesop's fables twenty-seven centuries earlier: animal narratives.

A 2019 comic book-related introduction to finance

Closer to us, a finance book is breaking sales records in France: Largo Winch — Introduction à la Finance. According to the author, HEC Professor Olivier Bossard (whom we interviewed on the Blockchain) it owes its success mainly to its Format: a mix of text and frames from a popular comic book hero "Largo Winch", a billionaire adventurer.

Business-related video examples

Finally, below are two examples of YouTube videos gathering millions of views on a business topic, by delivering relatively ordinary content in new formats (and good storytelling).

Why Apple needs Samsung

How Rockefeller made his trillions

The content can perform well organically. Or it can join the glut of corporate content that's rarely watched and not engaging. The Format will make a dramatic difference in the video's fate.

Choosing the right Formats for B2B Fintech

Let's start from a handy (unofficial) YouTube taxonomy by audience consultancy Little Monster Media.

All the YouTube formats

For Creators, it pays to think "inside the box". Every piece of video content should fit in one box or many. Stay out of it, and you risk being in limbo and of missing out an opportunity to connect with your audience.

This taxonomy is for media or creators. Building a list that is useful for niche corporate content where the assets are expertise, reliability, robustness, i.e. not fun stuff requires a more focused approach.

B2B video taxonomy

We can reduce it to a list of 4 core formats that are the most useful for B2B fintech (and across B2B verticals).

1. Explainer
2. Commentary
3. Narrative
4. List

Let's examine first what is missing. Three don't require music explanation: Music videos, Challenges, Reactions (I mean, you can use them if you think they fit your brand). An Interview is about celebrities where the subject is the person, his/her life, a marginal type of content in the fintech space. You are most likely to interview an expert for his insights, and that would fall under Explainer.

Here is an overview of each of them applied to B2B companies in the finance/fintech industry

• Explainer: Includes insights, tutorials, any content that provides valuable information to the viewer (and showcases your expertise).
• Commentary: Providing an opinion or an analysis on a timely topic.
• Narrative: is traditionally fiction or fictionalized, but it can be delivering the content using storytelling, like in the examples above (Rockfeller, Apple and Samsung).
• List: Ranking and providing comments as to why. The Format is as old as the Ten Commandments and every January we are bound to see itis customary to use it for yearly predictions.

How to make it work for your brand

Let's see how fintech marketing can use the formats with four common business cases:

Below you will find examples that can work in the Fintech space, although some come from other B2B industries.

Educate & Inform: Mix it up

A good base for your video strategy is to use an Explainer format. The production can be simple, even using do-it-yourself methods for walk-throughs. We use a differentiated approach for thought leadership pieces and tutorials (plainer).

But you don't have to stick to Explainers or a single format. Mixing formats is a great way to stand out:

• Commentary x List: Winners & Losers (by one of my personal favourite's Scott Galloway)

A dynamic way of reviewing the key events of the week and placing it in a strategy framework

• Commentary x Interview: What are your thoughts (by the Ritholtz Wealth team who are killing it with their content across platforms)

By merely interviewing each other, the team at Ritholtz offers a dynamic perspective on current events that looks very different than the traditional financial market commentary.

Pitch: add Narrative

The opportunity to pitch with video is to convince the prospects that you have identified with something more engaging but also potentially attract others. On the web, nobody is actively seeking to know why "you are the best". Adding narrative elements will significantly help to make your pitch palatable. When working on video "pitches", we start by transforming the pitch deck (bullet point, PowerPoint, or variants) to find and add narrative elements.

A couple of client examples below:

Alpima brand video

Digital Investment Fund pitch by Digital Investment Partners

Both remain a pitch but one that also brings the viewer to a journey.

Testimonial: is not a format

Just like for a pitch, it is tempting to go straight into what you want to say, but that would be missing the opportunity to make your content shareable.

• Narrative: Google goes to great efforts to find personal, relatable stories of businesses that have "gone Google".
• Educational: How to get more traffic to your website, from Ahrefs. You may ask "where is the testimonial?". Well, Ahrefs use their achievements as case studies for their set of SEO tools (= a testimonial). They also use a variety of hybrid formats across their channel.

Recruit: have fun with it

Here you can explore more personal ways of talking shop. A couple of examples about CTO jobs from the French recruitment/media platform Welcome To The Jungle:

• Oh My Job (Explainer)
• Job Battle (List)

Make video work for you in 2020

• Use Formats: as you are preparing to roll out your content plan think about formats that correspond
• Mix them up: if you want to publish a weekly or monthly Commentary can you make it a List? If it's a list of predictions, can you add Narrative elements to it?
• Experiment: if you start with a few formats you will soon be able to find out what your audience prefers

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PS: If you want to see examples of Formats, I am putting theory into practice on my Fintech YouTube channel. Until recently, it's been Explainers and Narratives. I have started using lists as a way to produce regular content quickly and efficiently.