4 Ingenious Ways to Use GIFs to Make Your B2B Content Marketing Pop

By December 31, 2019ISDose

Using GIFs as part of content marketing is now an exciting trend, even though GIFs have been around for a while. When brevity is the most desired form of creativity, GIFs find a place in both B2C and B2B marketing. Here’s how some companies have cleverly used GIFs for marketing their products and ideas.

GIF or Graphics Interchange Format is a short, animated visual that can capture user attention and convey a crisp message in less than two seconds. The short duration and no requirement of a sound output make them ideal for consumption anytime, anywhere.

Can GIFs in Marketing be Impactful for B2B Content?

via GIPHY

Users on social media and other digital platforms use popular GIFs as conversation and reaction tools. B2C marketers, also started to capitalize on the GIF trend; but B2B marketers find it tough to include GIFs in their content marketing because B2B communication is considered to be formal and niche.

Occasionally using GIFs for marketing to B2B customers can prove to be a good idea for the following reasons:

  1. GIFs being visual tools can capture users’ attention better than long-form content.
  2. GIFs can add a dash of humor or fun to seemingly dull content.
  3. Since GIFs consume less time than videos and are more engaging than images, they can be a great tool in communicating your marketing message.
  4. A marketing message sent using GIFs can be viewed anytime, anywhere since it doesn’t require the use of audio or a large file to be downloaded.

Let’s look at four innovative ways B2B brands used GIFs in their marketing campaigns.

4 Ingenious Ways to Use GIFs for B2B Marketing

It is more important than ever to engage your audiences and get your message across in a limited time to keep up with increasing competition and shorter attention spans. GIFs can serve as an effective tool to keep your prospects engaged, showcase product features, and create a fun persona for your brand.

Here’s how some companies have used GIFs for marketing:

1. Demonstrate Product Features in Your Email Marketing

B2B marketing is incomplete without an email marketing strategy. But your B2B emails don’t need to be dry. You can use GIFs to spice up your email content.

GIFs can effectively demonstrate how your product works. It is a quick and engaging way to educate your customers on how your product can solve their problems.

For examples, the following GIF from SproutSocial demonstrates how users can use their Brand Keywords and Smart Search features to make their social media campaigns better and smarter.

SproutSocial’s GIF for Email Marketing

2. Use Social Media Platforms to Guide Users

Most B2B marketers use social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter to make announcements and to connect with prospects. Using these platforms to showcase what you do in innovative ways can also help increase engagement and drive brand awareness.

For example, Typeform, a tool to easily create and design forms with no coding, has been very using GIFs on Twitter to guide users to get started.

Example of How Easy It Is to Use Typeform

3. Capture Attention to Make a Statement

GIFs can be powerful visual tools that can convey ideas (or strong messages) without the use of many words.

For example, for their webinar, What If Consumers Don’t Want Personalized Experiences?, AdWeek used the following GIF to convey that some customers may seek privacy instead of personalization to attract audience attention.


Adweek’s Personalization GIF

4. Express Gratitude

Thanksgiving and the holiday season are the best time to express your gratitude to your clients and employees who have collaborated with you all year round and through the years. GIFs are a fun, spirited way to say ‘Thank You’ and let them know that you value them.

Greetabl, a gifting and personalized cards company encouraged their corporate clients to send personalized greetings to their partners. They used GIFs to inform them about the numerous customizable designs they could pick and even book large orders.


Greetabl’s GIF for Customized Corporate Orders

How to Use GIF for Marketing to Your B2B Customers

As you saw, GIFs in marketing can be an excellent tool to capture the interest B2B audiences’ who are generally tight on schedule and prefer to skim through content online. Here are some tips to help you design GIFs for your B2B marketing:

  1. Use a small section of existing video clips to capture the essence of your message.
  2. Use GIFs in email marketing to drive better click-throughs.
  3. Create educational GIFs by combining screenshots to demonstrate an idea, steps, or a process.
  4. Use GIFs to showcase product features.
  5. Design GIFs to address users’ FAQs or how-tos.
  6. Occasionally use GIFs on social media as a conversation and reaction tool to drive engagement.

Using GIFs in your marketing communication can convey your brand message in an engaging and fun tone, while being cost effective and concise. You can use GIFs for email marketing and social media to craft a compelling brand image.

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This article first appeared in www.martechadvisor.com

Guest Author: Vandita is a passionate writer and IT enthusiast. She is a Computer Lecturer by profession at the University of Delhi. She has previously worked as a Software Engineer with Aricent Technologies. Vandita writes for MarTech Advisor as a freelance contributor.