The COVID-19 Pandemic has played havoc with many of our predictions and anticipated marketing trends for the last two years. One trend in content marketing and consumption that has held and in fact become more pronounced is the consumption of video content across social media platforms and other online outlets. As we’ve watched this trend evolve throughout 2021 and into 2022, marketers are anticipating the average consumer will watch an average of 100 minutes a day of video content, including videos ads, YouTube videos, and TikTok content. Additionally, as millennials become even more of a dominant force in the marketplace and Generation Z continues to make their influence known, marketers are realizing something important about consumers in general: they seem to just really want to watch videos.
We wanted to explore these trends more in detail, so we leveraged Pollfish to survey a mix of business owners and marketing and technology professionals. We pulled responses from the United States and Canada, 300 from each country for a total of 600 respondents.
Our questions revolved around how different industries and geographic regions plan to use video marketing in their overall marketing strategies, their plans for video production in-house or outsourcing, and how their budgets have been allocated towards video marketing content. We also explored the impact COVID-19 had on respondent budgets dedicated towards video content, what tools they use for in-house production or their best practices for outsourcing production, and finally what our respondents have planned for 2022 in terms of their video marketing and production goals. We’ve broken our findings into the following topics:
- Video marketing goals and objectives
- Industry results
- Geographic regions
- Video marketing and production methods
- Video marketing and production tools
To enhance our findings, we’ve also gathered insight directly from video production specialists, business owners, and video marketing experts from multiple industries and disciplines. We’ve included their insight to give a more complete picture of how professionals are successfully creating and implementing video marketing and production strategies in 2022.
Video Marketing Goals and Objectives
17% of Businesses Focus Most Heavily on Creating Demonstration Videos
Video marketing content can play a number of roles in your inbound marketing funnel, with corporate videos and promotional video ads each serving distinctly different marketing functions. Each type of video requires a different production approach, depending on the type of audience you’re looking to play to or the needs of the campaign.
Demonstration Videos
These videos are used to educate viewers about how a product or service functions. They are often used to demonstrate software functionality, product assembly, or explain complex tasks.
Company Culture Videos
Culture videos are especially useful in the modern marketplace as a way to introduce your brand and recruiting content to prospective employees. They help to build brand loyalty in new employees.
Tutorial Videos
Tutorials and instructional videos are useful in the online education sphere and help to create expertise and consistency in staff performance.
Branded Short Films and Mini-Documentary
Story narrative is increasingly leveraged across various marketing channels. These types of films are created to both entertain and engage potential clients as well as educate the viewer and introduce them to your overall brand. They can provide insight on a level that viewers can connect to on a more personal level.
Web Series
Brands are becoming savvier with online narrative structures and have confidently started creating longer-form, episodic content, both scripted and unscripted, designed to engage and entertain over time and build brand recognition. Each episode can use a different video marketing tactic to elicit engagement from different target segments of the overall target audience.
Customer Testimonials
Social proof and word of mouth are powerful drivers of marketing traffic. Customer testimonials act in the same way as reviews to reassure potential clients of their positive experience with your brand’s products or services.
Behind-the-Scenes Content
Much of the shift in consumer behaviors in the wake of COVID-19 has revolved around customers searching for ways to engage with and better connect to the brands they intend to become actively involved with. These videos give a personal insight into the more human side of your brand and show customers the people behind the roles and titles that they engage with on a business level.
Our respondents focus a majority of their video production efforts on growing brand recognition, sharing brand culture with potential employees, and teaching and educating staff and consumers in order to improve your brand’s authority in its niche.
17% – Demonstration videos
16% – Company culture videos
16% – Tutorial videos
12% – Branded short film or mini-documentary
12% – Web series
12% – Customer testimonials
9% – Behind the scenes videos
5% – Other
We posed the same question to our community of experts to find out what types of marketing videos their organizations were focusing their budgets on creating. Mostly in line with our findings in the survey, it also provided additional insight as to why they’ve focused their efforts on the specific video type.
“We primarily use video content to feature the workplace culture of the company. This lets us do two things. It helps us attract the right employees who are a good fit, and it lets us show potential customers who we are and gain their trust. This strategy essentially benefits us both internally and externally, which we find to be extremely cost-effective.”
—Johannes Larsson, CEO, Financer.com
“We mostly produce product explaining videos and describe the features and benefits of our products and often include examples of how it works. These videos are beneficial for our consumers who are in the consideration or awareness stage and need a clear explanation of what we offer. Product explaining videos also help our customers learn about new features and increase their adoption of our products.”
—Angus Chang, Co-Founder, iupilon
“Product marketing videos are our main focus. We use these videos as an advertising outlet for our products into the market. They serve to create new product awareness among our target market, announce new features, and demonstrate our products’ usability. Product marketing videos help us imprint a lasting product description on the user’s mind.”
—Jonathan Tian, Co-Founder, Mobitrix.com
A Majority of Respondents Noted That Increased Brand Awareness is Their Most Important Goal for Video Marketing in 2022
There isn’t an industry niche that isn’t extremely crowded and excessively competitive in the current economic landscape. It makes sense, then, that the top goal that many of our respondents have set is to first increase brand awareness and second to maximize sales revenue. Other goals revolve heavily around traffic increases and lead conversions.
(On a scale of 1-7, 1 being the biggest goal)
Increased brand awareness
Maximize sales revenue
Drive more website traffic
Increase leads and conversions
Encourage user engagement
Better educate customers
Other
Many businesses have shifted their marketing strategies and goals going into 2022. We wanted to explore the professional community’s video marketing and production goals for the coming year.
“Even though live video streaming has been popular in the past, it is expected to grow in popularity in 2022. We can’t overlook Twitch TV’s tremendous influence, which promotes live video streaming as the most entertaining way to communicate with viewers. It all started with game streaming on Twitch. Although it has evolved into a new content format that is gaining traction among musicians, podcasters, and even yoga instructors! People enjoy interacting with influencers in near-real-time, and it has emerged as one of the most popular video trends for 2022. During the coronavirus lockdown, when we were all forced to stay at home, it became much more real.”
—Jay Soni, Marketing Director, Yorkshire Fabric Shop
“My biggest video marketing goal for 2022 is to consistently post high-value short-form video content on TikTok and YouTube Shorts. The reach of TikTok content is astronomical. By targeting the right hashtags and picking an optimal video duration, it’s remarkably easy to gain thousands of TikTok video views overnight.”
—Mark McShane, Owner & Managing Director, Skills Training Group
“This year, our video marketing strategy is moving further down our sales funnel from brand awareness to thought leadership and client retention. SoStocked is still relatively young, but we’ve developed a healthy base with hundreds of internet users since our launch in 2018. So we’ve chosen to shift our focus from the basics of inventory management education to zoom in on the nuances of eCommerce, especially with the latest supply chain issues. Ultimately, we want to equip our clients to run sustainable and resilient businesses.”
—Chelsea Cohen, Co-Founder, SoStocked
47% of Businesses Believe That Their Current Video Marketing Strategy is Somewhat Effective in Achieving Their 2022 Goals
Roughly three-fourths of the respondents to our survey felt that their current video marketing and production efforts will at least be somewhat instrumental in helping them to achieve their marketing goals in the coming year.
(On a scale of 1-3, 1 being the most effective)
47% – Somewhat effective
27% – Very effective
26% – Not effective
Brands are leveraging multiple types of video content across every level of their inbound marketing channels in order to improve customer engagement and improve brand awareness. Many businesses feel that they are prepared to expand and enhance these strategies in the coming year, but it will take true focus on educating customers and enhancing the brand experience in order to compete in the increasingly crowded video marketing arena.
Industry Results
In this section of the survey, we focused our inquiry on what industries respondents work in and what positions they hold. We also wanted to know more about their companies and how they’ve positioned video marketing and production in their budgets pre- and post-COVID. The graph below shows the data broken down by:
- Respondent Job title or Role
- B2B versus B2C
- Years in operation
- Monthly Video Marketing/Production Budget, Pre- and Post-COVID
As part of this breakdown of our respondent pool, we also gathered demographics information about:
- Industry Breakdown
- Business Profile
Our respondents are positioned primarily as leadership in marketing and technology, with managers and CMOs making up 44% of the titles in our data. Roughly two-thirds of those who responded worked for B2B service providers. A full third of our respondents came from organizations that have been in operation for more than 10 years. According to the information gathered from the survey, video marketing budgets have increased for a significant portion of the respondent pool.
26% – Marketing & Technology Managers
18% – Chief Marketing Officers
63% – B2B
38% – B2C
31% – Have been in business for 10+ years
23% – $500-$1,499 video marketing/production budget pre-COVID
27% – $1,500-$1,999 video marketing/production budget post-COVID
The leading three industries responding to our survey make sense. The rising reliance upon technology and software solutions and the importance of streamlined and efficient accounting practices mean that these segments of the economy would prioritize video marketing and push their advertising strategies to the next level. It also makes sense that education, healthcare, and retail appear so high in the list, as video marketing naturally fits into any strategies the brands operating in these spaces might leverage.
(Industry breakdown:)
8% – Information Services
8% – Finance & Insurance
8% – Software
7% – Education
6% – Construction
6% – Healthcare
4% – Retail
4% – Marketing & Sales
3% – Real Estate
3% – Transportation and Warehousing
3% – Manufacturing
2% – Other
23% of Businesses Had a $500-$1,499 Video Marketing/Production Budget Pre-COVID-19
Across our list of respondents, video marketing and production were afforded a fairly conservative marketing budget prior to the Pandemic. With an average monthly budget of $500-$1,499, we can see that video marketing and production were considered important in the marketing strategies of many companies, but not fully prioritized by smaller businesses with smaller annual revenue streams.
| Business size | Years in Business | Annual Revenue | Monthly Video Marketing/Production Budget Pre-COVID | Monthly Video Marketing/Production Budget Post-COVID |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2-100 employees |
25% 3-5 years in business |
31% $500,000-$2M revenue |
29% $500-$1,499 monthly video marketing/production budget pre-COVID |
31% $1,500-$1,999 monthly video marketing/production budget post-COVID |
| 101-500 employees |
28% 3-5 years in business |
28% $3M-$5M revenue |
29% $500-$1,499 monthly video marketing/production budget pre-COVID |
28% $1,500-$1,999 monthly video marketing/production budget post-COVID |
| 501-1,000 employees |
35% 10+ years in business |
34% $10M+ |
29% $5,000+ monthly video marketing/production budget pre-COVID |
26% $5,000+ monthly video marketing/production budget post-COVID |
| 1,001-5,000 employees |
42% 10+ years in business |
38% $10M+ revenue |
32% $1,500-$1,999 monthly video marketing/production budget pre-COVID |
27% $5,000+ monthly video marketing/production budget post-COVID |
| 5,001+ employees |
47% 10+ years in business |
47% $10M+ revenue |
30% $5,000+ monthly video marketing/production budget pre-COVID |
28% $2,000-$4,999 monthly video marketing/production budget post-COVID |
27% of Businesses Now Have a $1,500-$1,999 Video Marketing/Production Budget Post-COVID-19
In the two years we’ve been navigating COVID-19 and its impact on international economies, we’ve seen extreme fluctuations and adjustments to marketing budgets and strategic initiatives. According to feedback from our survey respondents, the average expenditure overall on video marketing and production increased, a trend that makes sense given the uptick in online video consumption across multiple channels.
We brought the questions of pre-COVID budgets versus post-COVID budgets to the community to find out if the trend for increasing expenditures on video marketing was held outside of our survey results. We found very mixed results, with some increasing their budget and others reducing it significantly.
“Pre-covid video marketing budget was about $1,000 to $3,000. My pre-covid budget for video marketing was not so considerable because before covid, the audience was not so responsive. They were more likely involved with physical businesses. But my post-pandemic budget has been increased to between an average of $2,000 to $5,000. This is because there has been a huge move of the offline audience to online.”
—Ryan Yount, Founder, LuckLuckGo
“Our pre-COVID video marketing budget was well around $50,000, but since COVID, we’ve reduced our budget to around $20,000. This has been because we’ve had to invest our budget in other vital aspects to save the business.”
—Howard Birnbaum, Founder, Magik Flame
“Before the COVID-19 Pandemic, our video marketing budget was $20,000 annually. Now, we’ve increased it to around $45,000 annually. We increased our video marketing budget post-Covid because our efforts have also doubled. Before, we only had videos for our main website. But now, we’re producing content for our website and social media channels as well.”
—Denis Leskovets, CEO & Product Specialist, Office Consumer
“The increase in video marketing/production budget in 2022 doesn’t surprise me at all. If anything, I feel like it should be higher, but baby steps we understand as marketing departments start to understand the power of video. In the context of integrating conversion-friendly videos on websites, it’s beyond important to leverage any tactical ways to increase conversion percents and using video to do so is a great way!”
—Paul J. Scott, Chief Digital Strategist, GoingClear
The COVID-19 Pandemic has left very few industries unaffected, and many businesses have had to respond to business disruptions in unique ways to maintain their revenue streams. Some have shifted funds away from marketing, while others have doubled down on tactics proven to increase lead generation.
Geographic Regions
71% of U.S. Respondents Have a Video Marketing Strategy in Place for 2022
The data from our survey was generated by 300 respondents from across the United States and from both business-to-business service providers and business-to-consumer brands. The information we gathered shows that a clear majority of our respondents have acknowledged the critical role video should play in marketing and have included it as a significant component in their marketing strategy for 2022. Only 11% of our respondents in the United States neither have a current video marketing plan in place, nor do they have plans to implement one in the coming year.
71% – Yes, I currently have a video marketing strategy that I’m implementing
18% – No, but I plan to have a video marketing strategy in 2022
11% – No and I don’t plan to create or implement a video marketing strategy
Across the United States, respondents both pre- and post-COVID preferred either YouTube or Facebook as their preferred platforms for hosting their video marketing campaigns. According to our findings, only in the South did marketers switch platforms in the aftermath of the pandemic. This means that currently, YouTube is the more popular video marketing platform across the United States, save for the Midwest.
Northeast
26% – YouTube
Pre-COVID-19
28% – YouTube
Post-COVID-19
SOUTH
31% – Facebook
Pre-COVID-19
31% – Facebook
Post-COVID-19
MIDWEST
28% – Facebook
Pre-COVID-19
28% – Facebook
Post-COVID-19
WEST
39% – YouTube
Pre-COVID-19
31% – YouTube
Post-COVID-19
17% of U.S. Businesses That Don’t Use Video Marketing Prioritize Email Marketing Instead
For the 11% of respondents who neither use nor plan to use video marketing tactics, 17% of them have elevated email marketing tactics instead, largely due to the fact that email continues to deliver one of the highest ROIs of any marketing channel in play. Other methods being leveraged over video include social media campaigns and SEO strategies, largely to take advantage of recent changes to the Google algorithm that prioritize SEO-related tactics. Content marketing makes an appearance in respondents’ tool chests as well.
17% – Email Marketing
16% – Social Media Marketing
15% – Search engine optimization (SEO)
14% – Content Marketing
11% – Mobile
10% – Display Ads
8% – Affiliate Marketing
8% – Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
41% of Canadian Businesses have a Video Marketing Strategy in Place for 2022
Interestingly, fewer respondents in Canada already have a strategy in place, but those who plan to have a strategy in place this year make up the difference. It’s also telling of the differences in how video marketing is viewed in Canada that just over double the percentage of respondents in Canada don’t plan to utilize video than those who planned not to in the United States.
41% – Yes, I currently have a video marketing strategy that I’m implementing
36% – No, but I plan to have a video marketing strategy in 2022
23% – No and I don’t plan to create or implement a video marketing strategy
Atlantic Provinces
20% – LinkedIn
Pre-COVID-19
26% – Instagram
Post-COVID-19
Central Canada
38% – YouTube
Pre-COVID-19
28% – YouTube
Post-COVID-19
Prairie Provinces
24% – YouTube
Pre-COVID-19
27% – YouTube
Post-COVID-19
West Coast
26% – YouTube
Pre-COVID-19
24% – Facebook
Post-COVID-19
Northern Territories
22% – TikTok
Pre-COVID-19
22% – TikTok
Post-COVID-19
16% of Canadian Businesses That Don’t Use Video Marketing Also Prioritize Email Marketing Instead
Despite the differences in video marketing channels, email marketing is also the go-to for Canadian businesses not looking to leverage video marketing. SEO falls further down the list, with Content Marketing getting a significant boost in the Canadian marketing channel hierarchy.
16% – Email Marketing
13% – Social Media Marketing
13% – Content Marketing
13% – Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
13% – Mobile
13% – Display Ads
11% – Affiliate Marketing
9% – Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
The United States and Canadian marketing landscapes are significantly different when it comes to video marketing and production. In the United States, marketers are more apt to have already put a video marketing plan into place, while Canadian marketers seem to be only this year seeing the necessary shift in consumer behaviors to prioritize incorporating video marketing into their 2022 strategies.
Video Marketing and Production Methods
There’s a fairly even split in how businesses are handling the production of video marketing content, with a slight preference towards in-house production on its own. If you consider third-party production companies on the same level as a freelancer or consultant heading up your video production, then external video production services account for more than half of the production work in our respondent community. In the following sections, we’ll explore in-house video production best practices and methods of identifying and securing third-party video production services.
37% – In-house video marketing/production team
25% – Third-party video marketing/production company
27% – Video marketing/production consultant or freelancer
10% – Other
37% of Businesses Use an In-House Team to Handle Their Video Marketing and Production Needs
In the past, before the rising prevalence of managed services and outsourcing, businesses would have to maintain staff with a diverse set of skills capable of handling any number of business challenges. Increasingly accessible and user-friendly software solutions have allowed many organizations to continue to handle complex marketing tasks in-house, including video production.
For small businesses with small, dedicated marketing teams, keeping video production in-house can keep costs low and shorten the video production timeline. In-house production teams are able to quickly access visual assets and coordinate production shoots easier as they are able to communicate and schedule using internal tools and have a better sense of the brand’s vision and mission, ensuring video content is in line with current goals and values as well as supporting marketing initiatives across multiple channels.
For businesses tackling production in-house, a majority maintained small teams of 1-5 video production-focused specialists. An equal number of our respondents either maintained small teams of 6-10 or large teams of more than 20 team members focused on visual production.
In-house team size:
32% – 1-5
26% – 6-10
17% – 11-19
26% – 20+
32% of Respondents Focus Most Heavily on In-House Graphic Design Tasks
32% – Graphic design
30% – Video script writing
30% – Audiovisual engineering
8% – Other
When queried as to how their in-house teams spent their efforts, respondents came back stating that their teams focused on one of three main tasks related to video production.
Graphic Design
Graphic Designers spend time creating infographics and visual content used to enhance the messaging and impact of the video content. Graphic designers can also have a hand in creating animated video content or helping to create hybrid visuals that incorporate animated content over live-action footage.
Video Scripts
Video Script Writers are focused on integrating brand messaging into a cohesive narrative. They write the dialogue for participants in the video, write out content to be included in the background as added visuals, and help to ensure video marketing content is in line with the overall corporate marketing goal. Depending on the type of video, scriptwriters could be creating educational content or tutorial walk-throughs just as easily as they could be scripting out a weekly web series with multiple contributors.
Audiovisual Engineering
Audiovisual Engineers are responsible for the technology, software, and gear needed to record and edit video content. This can include lighting, cameras, microphones, complex controllers for studios, and single recording devices for recording a short viral video.
We posed the same question to our community of experts to find out where their in-house teams focused their efforts the most in order to get the best value out of the resulting video marketing content.
“We have 3 full-time team members in our video team. They have projects lined up including but not limited to: meeting with marketing, planning, sketching, shooting/producing, editing the video. A video request usually takes a week to complete but they also stay busy for other parts of the production at the same time.”
—Levi Tan, COO, Fosmon Inc.
“Our attention is mainly on scripting, production, and editing tasks. As an in-house team dedicated to production, we work on these tasks at least four days a week. We do this because we are leveraging the wave of video content in marketing, and we intend to stay consistent and upload content several times a week. It takes a day to script, create and produce a video but this varies depending on the video length. Our team consists of three members each with a distinct role.”
—Jonathan Tian, Co-Founder, Mobitrix.com
“AfroLovely focuses on 2 video production tasks – idea generation and post-production. Idea generation is the most important part of the entire process because it allows us to develop ideas, communicate with employees, use consumer feedback and criticism and ensure that our marketing videos are not tone-deaf but instead insightful and entertaining to all types of audiences. AfroLovely has marketing team meetings 2 days a week for approximately 3 hours, during which our 8-10 video production employees engage in brainstorming ideas and sketching storyboards to generate ideas. Post-production is the most time-consuming task for the post-production team of 5 members, which takes a few days or a few weeks depending on the size of the project.”
—Sharon Terera, Founder, AfroLovely
Most Respondents Cited That Having a Limited Video Budget is One of the Biggest Challenges of Handling Video Marketing and Production In-House
With the challenges posed by uncertain revenue streams due to COVID-19, it makes sense that a majority of our respondents felt that the most challenging aspect of prioritizing video content is limited marketing budget to dedicate towards it. It requires expensive equipment, very specialized software that requires a certain skill set to properly deploy. From other feedback channels, it also follows that while video content is wildly popular with consumers, it is a difficult marketing channel to gauge performance metrics from and difficult to leverage in SEO. Both of these challenges are also reflected in our survey results.
(On a scale of 1-7, 1 being the most challenging)
Limited video budget
Not enough video performance metrics
Lack of compelling content and/or available content creators
Limited video SEO knowledge
Inadequate video distribution
Lack of an effective strategy
Other
“This surprises me because, with all the resources and advancements in technology, many businesses can do their own quality video on a limited budget. You can get really creative and utilize video in numerous ways. Many platforms are shifting over to video being their primary medium.”
—Josh Miller, VP of Marketing, PowerMarketing
Our professional video production specialists and marketing leadership provided some insight into the challenges being faced by companies that handle video production in-house.
“The biggest challenge we faced when we originally started was coming up with a video strategy. We realized over time that a video marketing plan is something that evolves over time and that we must continue to work on it. Fortunately, there are numerous tools available on the internet to assist us in developing a successful approach.”
—Tony Martins, Founder, Profitable Venture
“Our main challenge is to produce high-quality videos on a small budget in a short time span. Our audiences are hungry for news of new releases and we need to produce videos showcasing our new products as soon as they are available. We try to make our videos short and snappy and avoid the temptation to overthink or over-produce them.”
—Leanna Serras, Chief Customer Officer, FragranceX.com
“The biggest problem AfroLovely faces are the high costs surrounding each video produced for large campaigns or daily social media posts. Renting or purchasing equipment is expensive and often projects can run over time leading to unexpected costs. Adobe Premiere Pro costs approximately $240 annually and the large video production team has a high salary as they are specialists in their industry. Each of these elements represent additional costs for the business.”
—Sharon Terera, Founder, AfroLovely
25% of Businesses Hire a Third-Party Video Marketing/Production Agency
For small businesses with limited staff and resources, it often can make more sense to outsource video production than to handle the process in-house. There are a number of benefits that come out of outsourcing video production:
- In some cases, the outsourced option can be the more cost-efficient option.
- Choosing a video production agency with a strong reputation guarantees the final product will be of high quality.
- Agencies have the resources and means to keep up with video marketing trends and can ensure content is fresh, unique, and optimized to drive traffic.
- Outsourcing video production frees up staffing and allows your team to focus on customer relationships and sales-building activities.
27% of Businesses Work With a Consultant or Freelancer
Depending on how extensive your video production needs are and the scope of a given video project, you might be better off joining the 27% of respondents who went with a consultant or freelancer. This option allows your leadership to work directly with the creative talent and gives you flexibility in tackling projects as they come up without the necessary investment in resources or equipment.
26% of U.S. and Canadian Companies Use Freelancer.com to Find Third-Party Help
Working through a third-party, whether it’s an agency, consultant, or freelancer, has the same advantages as those we laid out above, but can also have some drawbacks as well.
- Working through a third party will require much more communication and a more complex approval process for the final deliverable to ensure it’s in line with the current marketing strategy and aligns with your corporate vision and culture.
- You have less control over timelines and the creative talent involved.
- The money you save in production can disappear in edits and revisions if the third party doesn’t have a clear understanding of your brand.
- Finding and hiring the right service provider is a time-consuming process.
- Regardless of referrals and a thorough vetting of the work they’ve done in the past, each interaction with a third-party service provider can lead to inconsistent results that don’t meet your expectations.
You can use Freelancer.com like the majority of our respondents, but your experience on the platform with the talent there can be extremely inconsistent. LinkedIn is a fantastic source for sourcing talent, as it’s a platform based on the service provider’s ability to present themselves honestly and is highly dependent upon referrals and word-of-mouth. Another great resource to track down service providers is online directories such as UpCity.com’s marketplace of specialized B2B marketers and agencies. Whichever platform you go with, it’s crucial that you do the legwork of vetting every service provider and ensuring their reputation matches their work quality.
26% – Freelancer.com
21% – Linkedin
17% – Online directory (UpCity, Clutch, etc.)
12% – Upwork
11% – Self-sourced freelancer
6% – PeoplePerHour
5% – Toptal
3% – Other
Our experts community chimed in on what platforms they use to find production help as well, and it was interesting to see the unorthodox approaches of some, while others stayed to tried and true channels.
“ I know this sounds a bit unorthodox, but I have had great success with finding YouTube content that I like and which is in a niche similar to my own but not a direct competitor to me. I then contact the publisher and ask them who their editor and producers are. One of the consequences of the rise of YouTube and video content is that video producers and editors are increasingly having more piecemeal workloads. Therefore if a content creator has a strong relationship with their videographer they are likely to recommend them to others as videographers very rarely work full time with one creator.”
—John Wright, CEO, StatsDrone
“We mostly use Fiverr to hire third-party video producers, editors, and marketers. Fiverr is one of the leading freelance platforms in the business world. Our journey with hiring video production personnel through Fiverr has been quite the smooth one. The platform has a high number of quality video editors that we’ve worked with in the past and will continue to do so.”
—William Donnelly, Founder, Lottie
“We found our current video production agency on Upwork, and I am happy to report that they are doing a fantastic job. We’ve been using Upwork for many years now with a lot of success. The talent marketplace on here is large so you have plenty of options to find a freelancer or agency that’s a good fit. I also like that they have a strong referral system so that a contractor you might be interested in but who is unavailable can refer you to someone in their circle that can get the job done. Contractors know each other and they are typically willing to introduce each other to good quality clients; in fact, this is how we got introduced to our video production agency.”
—Paul French, Managing Director, Intrinsic Search
Most Respondents Said That Positive Online Reviews is One of the Most Important Traits They Consider When Seeking Third-Party Help
We’ve talked in other articles extensively about the importance of reviews for a B2B service provider, and for video production, it makes sense that those looking to outsource dig deep when it comes to reviews. Our respondents also made it clear that a diverse skillset and extensive relevant experience are both crucial to the decision to hire a third-party service provider to help create assets for your next video-focused ad campaign.
(On a scale of 1-5, 1 being the most important trait)
Positive online reviews
Number of years of experience
A diverse range of services
Positive online reviews
Locally-based
Our community of experts from across multiple disciplines had this to say about the role reviews play in their decision-making process and whether they would hire a service provider with minimal or average reviews.
“Online reviews play a crucial role when hiring freelancers because as a business owner myself I understand how a customer is the best brand ambassador for any service or business as you get the most accurate description of a service and its quality. Yes, I would consider hiring an agency with minimal reviews only if their profile is good enough to stand on its own.”
—Dan Ni, CEO & Founder, Messaged.com
“I believe that online reviews are very important for hiring an agency, consultant, or freelancer for video marketing/productions. Reviews show their performance and past work, and we can determine whether they could potentially be a qualified fit to complete our work. Depending on the task and budget, we can hire an agency, freelancer, etc., with minimal or average reviews.”
—CJ Xia, Vice President of Marketing & Sales, Boster Biological Technology
“Reading and looking up reviews is probably the most important part of hiring a third-party video production partner. Reviews give a clear picture of the quality of work offered along with narrowing down the candidate pool. I wouldn’t hire a service provider based on minimal or average reviews because to me this indicates a number of issues right away, such as lack of commitment or availability issues, that will at some point compromise the quality of work.”
—Carl Panepinto, Marketing & SEO Expert, Hyperdrug Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
As you see from our numbers, outsourcing video marketing and production is an extremely popular and useful way to extend your organization’s marketing reach, but it does take some extra effort to establish the necessary relationships. Careful consideration on your part will go a long way and save you on the back end in costs if properly managed and executed.
Video Marketing and Production Tools
23% of Businesses Use Vimeo as Their Top Video-Related Tool
Video production has become increasingly simple to execute for small businesses with limited staff through the use of video production software. Anyone with a camera and the patience to learn how to use many of the low-cost yet incredibly powerful video editors can create solid marketing content quickly and affordably. When we reached out to the community as a whole, asking what product their teams used to edit and manipulate video content, an overwhelming majority stated they were using Vimeo.
Using high-quality video marketing production tools boosts your team’s productivity by allowing them to quickly accomplish what could take much longer by hand or with less complex software solutions. These solutions are often created to help your teams work asynchronously and remotely on projects, which also improves efficiency and workflow. With the right tools in hand, a small team can create video marketing content that performs as if it were made by a big-budget marketing agency. This helps small businesses round out their marketing strategies at the startup phase and build a client base that will give them the necessary revenue stream to later take a more layered and cost-intensive approach to marketing.
23% – Vimeo
10% – VideoScribe
9% – FlexClip
7% – BombBomb
7% – Brightcove
6% – Wave.Video
6% – Animoto
5% – Wistia
5% – SproutVideo
5% – Fastreel
5% – Other
4% – Vidyard
4% – Shakr
3% – Vyond
Staying inline with the concept of tools that help small businesses create powerful video marketing assets, we asked our community what tools they use in video production.
“We use Renderforest, which is a cloud-based platform that lets you make YouTube intro videos, kinetic typography, explainer animations, product and service promotional films, music visualizations, event invitations, wedding or travel slideshows, infographics, and more. It’s a basic platform that doesn’t require any technical knowledge. You simply need a solid concept, which you can put into action by selecting from a variety of video templates, modifying them online, previewing them, and then exporting them for personal or commercial use. If you need professional sound videos for commercial or personal use, you may start by trying the platform for free and then upgrade to the paid versions.”
—Steve Pogson, Founder & eCommerce Strategy Lead, FirstPier
“Animoto is a one-stop-shop for video marketing initiatives because it allows you to make both short and long videos. With Animoto, you can create professional-looking videos for pennies. Free online video editor Animoto, but paid subscriptions unlock more features. Paid videos areprofessional; free videos include an Animoto watermark.”
—Mark Valderrama, Owner & CEO, Aquarium Store Depot
“Powtoon is software that allows you to quickly produce animated, professional movies of your products or services, as well as presentations and training. Powtoon, which was founded in 2012, is noted for having an amazingly simple and intuitive interface that walks you through every stage of the movie creation process. In just a few clicks, you can also easily export your film to YouTube. Powtoon even claims that its users’ engagement can increase by as much as 300 percent.”
—Rameez Usmani, Technology & Security Expert, Code Signing Store
As you should before bringing any software into your technology stack, you need to consider how the solution integrates and fits within your current workflow. You should also consider these elements as well:
- How much does the platform cost? If free, do the paid add-ons provide value for their cost?
- What video formats does it support?
- Can it integrate special effects, sounds, and other elements into the finished deliverable?
- Does it have a strong user community, tutorials, and customer support?
- Is the learning curve something your team can quickly and easily navigate?
Respondents Rated Video Marketing as the Second Most Important Digital Marketing Channel They Prioritized Pre-COVID-19
Prior to the pandemic, our respondents’ marketing mix was focused first on social platforms and second on video marketing. This holds with the trends leading up to 2020 in marketing and advertising before quarantines and shutdowns forced almost every business to reevaluate and restructure their marketing strategies to meet the uncertainties ahead.
(On a scale of 1-9, 1 being the most important digital marketing channel)
Social media marketing
Video marketing
Displays ads
Email marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Mobile
Content marketing
Affiliate marketing
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
Respondents Rated Video Marketing as the Third Most Important Digital Marketing Channel They Prioritized Post-COVID-19
The Pandemic forced businesses to reprioritize marketing tactics and focus on strategies they knew would result in more qualified leads and conversions. A common criticism of video marketing that emerged from our inquiries with the professional marketing community is that while video content might result in high levels of engagement, the impact it has on generating and converting leads and its actual ROI is largely unknown.
Therefore, we’ve seen this shift throughout the COVID-19 outbreaks towards marketing tactics such as social media marketing and search engine optimization. Interestingly, despite its established efficacy in increasing community engagement, content marketing is still considered lower on our respondents’ priorities than video marketing, and in fact, many organizations are starting to tie the two strategies to each other by enhancing blog content and landing pages with video content in order to reduce bounce rates and increase engagement.
Social media marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Video marketing
Content marketing
Displays ads
Mobile
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
Email marketing
Affiliate marketing
“We have represented clients ranging from the NBA and music stars like Carlos Santana to local law firms and manufacturing companies. One thing they share in common is their growing understanding of video marketing’s impact. Smartphones and mobile devices have not only changed the business world but have also educated business leaders in the use, consumption, and demand for digital video. As they are consumers of digital media themselves, they understand its place in the marketplace more clearly. As a result, they are more motivated to engage in its use for their own brands.”
—Calvin Bryant, Founder, C7 Creative
We wanted to dive into this topic more in-depth, so we brought the same questions to the digital marketing community as a whole to get more insight.
“We emphasize video marketing because it’s incredibly visual and you can use video to show complex ideas, share stories about customers, and promote specific actions. Video has become particularly important for information marketers because of its unique ability to adapt and change based on our needs, unlike any other medium.”
—Steven Walker, CEO, Spylix
“I prioritize video marketing compared to other digital marketing channels because the advantages that we can gain and achieve are more valued than other media. Video marketing has so many benefits compared to other marketing channels, as it can quickly raise awareness and promote the business within a short period.”
—Daniela Sawyer, Founder, FindPeopleFast
For brands taking the DIY approach to video marketing and production, there are a wealth of tools, guidance, and expertise on the market to help them get the ball rolling in the startup phase, but it’s crucial for small businesses to recognize the point at which they might need to bring in outside resources to take their marketing efforts to the next level.
As different regions and industries deal with the Pandemic in unique and innovative ways, we at UpCity expect the trends we explored in this survey to continue to evolve throughout 2022. One thing that is clear though, is that more brands are taking video marketing seriously in their overall marketing strategies, and it’s important that platforms such as the UpCity marketplace continue to connect small- to medium-sized businesses to the B2B service providers and resources they need to survive these trying times while continuing to grow and evolve their brands.
UpCity’s Survey Method
UpCity used Pollfish to survey 600 digital marketing experts across the United States and Canada. A majority of the respondents are Marketing & Technology Managers (26%), Chief Marketing Officers (18%), Marketing & Technology Directors (17%), Chief Technology Officers (15%), and Marketing & Technology Specialists (14%) at companies of 1,001-5,000 employees.
Most of the respondents own or work at B2B companies (63%) compared to B2C companies (38%).
Twenty-five percent of businesses have annual revenue of $10M+ and thirty-one percent of those companies have been operating for 10+ years.