We recently conducted a survey to determine how effectively companies use video marketing as a tool for improving customer engagement. The purpose was to discover the general habits of video marketing usage in business and whether any sectors stood out as more proficient than others. A tool for the future, video marketing has been on the rise in recent years. Marketing teams are continuing to see the value of using video as a means of grabbing audience attention in all the right ways. However, according to our survey, the quality of usage varies greatly from industry to industry.

One section of the survey focused on the general effectiveness of video marketing usage across all sectors. This would help us discover how the marketing genre is used in a general sense and how much marketing teams considered it beneficial. The other section covers the differences in usage between a selection of three mainstream industries that we specialise in: education, fintech and charity. This second section would highlight whether there are any standout discrepancies between these influential sectors and, if so, why they exist.

Video As A Marketing Tool

Our survey revealed that almost 70% of professionals agree that explainer videos impact their trust and perception of the product or service being promoted. Explainer videos are an increasingly popular form of video marketing used to condense what would be a lengthy piece of text into a concise and informative visual piece. They are typically no more than a couple of minutes long and summarise your product or service in a more consumable manner. Take this video that we made for world-renowned technological innovators Asus, for example.

Efficiently explaining the concept of their ZenCare device coverage and outlining all of the concept’s the major details, this video is a potential selling point for their audience base. The fact that such a high percentage of professionals agree with the effectiveness of explainer videos is a testament to their effectiveness.

With regards to video marketing in general, 42.4% of respondents agreed that it is the most effective way for helping users understand the key benefits of a product or service. Competing with the likes of blog content, display advertising and print media, the fact that video marketing was considered the most influential format by almost half of our respondents goes to show how important it is to utilise it in this day and age. In fact, 86% of companies now use video as a marketing tool in some capacity. However, despite its obvious influence as a branding tool, it isn’t clear how well informed companies are when it comes to maximising video marketing’s potential. This is why we decided to dive into the information at an industry level.

Effectiveness According to Industry

To help decipher how varied video marketing’s influence is between industries, we reviewed its use within the education, fintech and charity sectors. Three industries that we have a wealth of experience in, we wanted to discover how each perceived its personal use of video as a marketing tool.

Asked whether video marketing is used effectively as part of marketing and engagement strategies, over two thirds of respondents in each sector agreed that it was not. This is a clear indicator of the fact that, despite becoming a more mainstream marketing tool, video isn’t used to full effect by the majority of organisations within these sectors. There were also some interesting discrepancies between the three sectors that provided insight into the effectiveness of video marketing strategies within each field.

Education Sector

The education sector had perhaps the most striking results, with over three quarters of respondents agreeing that video marketing is not being used effectively within the industry. This is a surprising statistic given the high volume of video content that is used for educational purposes, both within this sector and throughout others.

Education is an area that could utilise the power of video marketing to great effect in an array of different contexts. This could range from presenting complicated research findings for your target audience to displaying information through a perspective that will appeal to younger pupils. This explainer video, part of a series that we created for Childnet, is a good example of an education video marketing campaign.

Childnet are a company that endeavours to teach younger generations about internet safety. This video series was focused on introducing children to their STAR SEND Teaching Toolkit and opening up discussions on the matter. The variety that animation brings allows you to cater such videos to your specific needs. In this case, we needed the video to feel light-hearted and easy to connect with but also ensure that the importance of the message was correctly conveyed.

Fintech Sector

In the context of the survey, fintech was the industry with the most positive respondents, with 32.5% of fintech professionals agreeing that video marketing was being used effectively within the sector. Given the industry’s emphasis on remaining a step ahead of the competition and looking to the future, perhaps this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Fintech is a new industry with a brief but fast-moving history, making them more likely to be open to change than more traditional fields, including education and charity. Check out our video below for an insight into the history of fintech.

Just as video marketing is a relatively new phenomenon, fintech is an area that has recently seen an astronomical rise in influence and usage. Therefore, competition is growing at a fast rate and it is important that companies within the sector keep pace with the most recent trends. Video marketing is one of these trends. Whether it be making your website appear futuristic or displaying a complex technological topic in layman’s terms.

We were asked by financial data management platform AutoRek to create an abstract fintech 3D animation for use across their site. The video would have to portray and highlight the company’s primary services without directly addressing them, sitting behind the header text on the website. It was an example of how animation can be used to help bolster branding without throwing it in the face of the audience.

Charity

The third industry that we approached on the matter of video marketing was charity. Only 27.1% of professionals within the charity sector agreed that video marketing was used effectively in their industry as part of fundraising and engagement strategies. This figure suggests that the emotive potential that video content brings to a brand isn’t being fully harnessed.

charity artwork animation

Research has shown that B2B purchasers are 50% more likely to invest when they see personal value in a product or service, including confidence and pride in their choice. The same can be said for charitable donations. Going by this logic, it would be reasonable to suggest that the emotional value added by using video in a marketing plan is a strategy overseen by many.

Above is an animated video that we created for a young person’s charity called The Mix. The charity endeavours to help create a safe space for young people to talk when they are facing a situation that may detriment their mental health. The 2D animation video that we created was designed to be both emotionally thoughtful and appealing to a younger crowd. It is this manner of content that almost three quarters of charity professionals believe is not being utilised to the fullest of its potential, despite it being an efficient tool for driving fundraising strategies, better engaging donors and key stakeholders.

Summary

Our survey found that most professionals are well aware of the value of video marketing and yet so many fail to utilise it to the fullest of its potential. Regardless of the industry in question, our results showed that professionals are aware of the power of video marketing and the value that it can bring to a campaign. However, 72.4% of those working in the education, fintech and charity sectors still believe that it isn’t reaching its full potential. This suggests that an element of the issue lies in the implementation of the content, rather than the nature of it.

So how can one ensure that their video content does not fall by the wayside? One of the primary remedies for this issue is making sure that your videos are implemented across all relevant channels. Everything from TV adverts to social media content can be used to portray your brand through video content, with each possessing its own benefits. However, regardless of the manner in which you want your videos to reach your target audience, it is of equal importance that they are edited in accordance with the delivery platform in question.

To learn more about maximising the usage of video marketing you can contact us today by calling +44 (0) 207 2886 319 or emailing our animation team at wecanhelp@theanimationguys.com