The 5 secrets of video marketing that Braze used to grow and dominate

When you’re a leading customer engagement platform, how do you engage your own customers? No prizes for guessing if you said ‘Videos’.

Yes, Braze is banking on videos to attract, engage, and win customers. It’s not just simply uploading videos on third-party platforms like Facebook; their strategy is a lot deeper. Braze uses video for nearly everything, from starting off on the homepage with a powerfully designed video in order to impress first-time visitors to carry out conversations with customers while subtly promoting the Braze brand.

In this article, we examine how Braze is achieving some amazing results with the help of video. They use a strong video hosting platform that lets Braze completely control and understand the video experience of its viewers. But before that, a quick introduction about Braze to set the context.

Most marketers know Braze. But some details will help. 

Hopefully, the video marketing strategy that Braze uses will inspire you further once you know how big Braze is and what kind of impact it is creating.

• Braze is a cloud-based customer engagement platform, founded in 2011.
• It is a publicly traded and listed company. Headquartered in New York City, Braze has over 1,200 employees spread over three continents and five countries. 
• Crunchbase reports Braze has successfully attracted funding of over $175MN.

• Braze has earned a revenue figure in excess of $200 MN in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
• They have a 4.5-star rating (out of 5) on G2 and a 4.5-star rating (out of 5) on Capterra.

As an organization that helps other businesses excel at customer engagement, it’s no surprise that Braze engages its own customers in an outstanding manner. And using video is central to that.

Here are the five secrets that show how Braze leverages video first marketing to take engagement, lead gen, and growth to the next level:

Efficient marketers know that any event that captures leads once is good enough to capture leads repeatedly. The people at Braze understand this very well.

They use webinars to keep collecting leads, long after the webinar has ended.

To begin with, they announce these webinars well in advance. So people submit their details and register for the webinar. That’s the first point they collect leads.  

Naturally, not everyone interested could have attended the webinar. In order to not miss out on those audiences, the webinar recording is made available on their site, as an on-demand webinar. And the on-demand webinar also requires registrations. 

What’s important is that these webinar recordings, as natively hosted videos, remain on the site for as long as the topic of the webinar is relevant (you’ll find webinars from 2019 on their site). As a result, a single webinar keeps generating new leads months and years after it was wrapped up. 

With events, Braze uses the same idea but the engagement tool is different. First, they cover marketing for different businesses and discuss everything marketing and customer engagement. Next, they package these recordings into conversations of great value. Anytime you feel like watching the video of the conversation on-demand, just register for free!

Key benefit: Braze uses video recording assets to keep collecting prospect information even after the actual event ends.

No matter what space you’re in, you want to establish yourself as an industry leader eventually. An industry leader is generous and willing to share stuff that carries lots of value. At the end of the day, even if you don’t become the industry leader with the largest revenue, you create an unbeatable brand that’s more than willing to share whatever it has learned.

Braze has created a huge learning center, interestingly labeled LAB (Learning At Braze). LAB not only provides you with e-learning but also with certifications. 

To further facilitate your learning, Braze has classified its courses under various titles. That means you get to choose what field you’d like to specialize in and obtain a certificate. Spreading awareness, raising the level of skills, and disseminating information are easily one of the most effective ways of leveraging video marketing.

Key benefits: These videos help promote how various Braze features can be used. But more importantly, it firmly establishes the brand equity of the organization. 

A number of visitors to your website are what we call the ‘edge visitors’. They’re on the edge; if you are able to provide them with the right experience they’d convert into a prospect. Otherwise, they’d simply browse for a few seconds and leave - never to return again. 

For a major customer engagement platform like Braze, this challenge is a double-edged sword: how strongly they can arrest the attention of visitors is not only about getting business but also about their expertise in doing so.

As part of its video marketing strategy, Braze has placed a powerful video right on the homepage. The video begins as a slice-of-life and continues for about half a minute before you see the Braze CEO on the screen. The imagery is too interesting for you to skip the video.

A video is like meeting your visitor halfway. If the visitor is here it means you should not be wasting an opportunity to tell them about your solution. And what better way than video to do that?

But the real power of the video lies behind the scenes. By natively hosting the video, Braze not only remains in control of the platform but also gets unusually in-depth video analytics and insights for every single visitor. Did the visitor watch the video? Did they stop at any point? Were there any parts in the video they watched more than once? At what point did they pause the video?

These insights can be game-changers. You suddenly have a window to your visitors’ minds. Now you know what they like, what they don’t understand or what holds their attention. So you know very well what direction your video strategy should take. All this from a two-minute video. 

Key benefit: What’s important is their choice of a hosting platform, because only a video hosting platform can provide you with such data about your viewers. 

Many outsiders don’t know one of the most important yet hidden challenges of running a great company: finding, attracting and retaining talented people. Competition today isn’t intense just in terms of funding, revenues, or market share; it’s also about whether you’re bringing in amazing people and building a great company culture.

Braze uses videos to send out subtle but powerful signals. First, have a look at the way they’ve used the tabs in LinkedIn and the story they’re telling.

From the highlighted areas in the above screenshot, you would have noticed that the ‘Jobs’ and ‘Life’ (more specifically, Life at Braze) are placed next to each other. And under the Life tab, the first thing you see in the video with a simple, but captivating title “What We Do”.

It is evident that Braze is using video for employer branding. And that’s done strategically: by selling the idea that what Braze does is something impressive, they are making their job openings only more desirable for prospective employees.

With this one video, Braze tells its story and its mission and all that. But more importantly, it has sent out a powerful cue to anyone checking out this page that Braze is on to building a great organization. If you are someone looking for a change in your career, chances are this single video will entice you to apply for a suitable opening at Braze. 

Key benefit: By using a professional networking platform like LinkedIn on which to tell the story, Braze is reinforcing its image as one great organization to work at.

A social media platform like Twitter or a video and photo-sharing platform like Instagram is used by businesses for nearly everything from branding to lead generation and social listening to social selling. 

On Twitter, Braze connects with its audience by sharing previews, announcing events, or displaying features. And using videos to do all this is central because storytelling is so natural when you use videos. 

For instance, in one of their recent posts, Braze announced they’ll be talking to one of their clients (HBO Max) where they’ll discuss how to get better at customer engagement. HBO Max is certainly in one of the most competitive spaces today, so when they talk about customer engagement you certainly want to listen.

Over Instagram, Braze uses videos to showcase all its initiatives and event participation. This ranges from Nasdaq listing to events where Braze organized sessions for mental health (see the screenshot below).

Key benefit: While social media platforms are ultimately third-party platforms (which means you get limited analytics), Braze has used video first marketing rather well to tell stories and build a brand more comprehensively.

Here are the lessons from the success of Braze, summarized for you: Build your video assets so that you can keep collecting leads for a long time from the same asset. Strive to be market leaders by sharing industry knowledge. Grab the opportunity to engage right at the homepage itself. And leverage social media and professional networks like LinkedIn to reinforce your brand.

Crafting a strong video strategy, building powerful content, working with a video hosting platform that will provide you the tools and analytics that will drive growth, and executing the action plan is what's now required of you.

Now that you know how Braze is crushing it with strong video marketing, it’s time for you to take action.

Check out our blogs to learn more about Video First Marketing. Contact us to get a free consultation on video marketing and video hosting that really works.