Picture this: your competitor just launched a homepage video. In 90 seconds, it explains exactly what they do, who it's for, and why it works — before a single prospect has to ask. Meanwhile, your homepage has a tagline, a stock photo, and a wall of text that nobody is reading.
That gap compounds every day you don't close it.
91% of businesses now use video as a marketing tool. 83% say it has directly increased sales. And 63% of consumers say video is their preferred way to learn about a product — more than text, infographics, and webinars combined.
So the question isn't whether you should be using video for your business. The question is: which types of video actually move the needle — and how do you use them right?
That's exactly what this guide answers. Here are 10 proven ways to use video for business growth, with the strategy behind each one.
Why Video Works So Well for Business
Before diving into the formats, it helps to understand why video outperforms everything else in your marketing stack.
It comes down to three things: attention, trust, and conversion.
Video captures attention faster than any other format. It holds it longer. And because it combines visuals, audio, and motion, it delivers more information in less time than a written page ever could. Viewers retain 95% of a message delivered via video — compared to just 10% from reading text alone.
Then there's trust. When potential customers can see how a product works, hear from real users, or watch a team explain their process, skepticism drops. Video humanizes your brand in a way that static content simply can't.
And conversion? A landing page with a video can boost conversion rates by up to 80%. Email campaigns that include video see 200–300% higher click-through rates.
Here's what that means in practice: every page, every email, every campaign running without video is working at a fraction of its potential. Now let's fix that.
1. Explainer Videos — Your Hardest-Working Marketing Asset
If you could only choose one video type for your business, this would be it.
An explainer video takes your product or service — however complex, technical, or abstract — and distills it into a clear, compelling story in 60 to 90 seconds. A perfectly produced explainer video answers the three questions every prospect has the moment they land on your site: What is this? How does it work? Why should I care?
Done right, an explainer video does in 90 seconds what a full landing page struggles to do in 10 minutes.
We've produced explainer videos for companies like Cisco, DoorDash, and Deloitte — and the brief that converts fastest is always the same: one problem, one solution, one clear CTA. Companies that try to cram every feature into a single explainer end up with a video that explains nothing.
Where to use it:
- Homepage (above the fold)
- Product and pricing pages
- Sales decks and outreach emails
- Paid ads and trade show booths
The ROI speaks for itself. 96% of consumers have watched an explainer video to learn about a product before buying. That's not a content trend — that's the modern buying journey.
Pick your biggest customer pain point. Solve it on screen. Everything else follows.
2. Social Media Videos — Where Attention Lives
Your customers spend hours every day scrolling through video content. Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn native video, TikTok — the platforms are different, but the opportunity is the same: meet your audience where they already are.
Social video is one of the most cost-effective ways to build brand awareness at scale. Unlike ads, organic social video doesn't require a budget to reach real people — it requires a hook.
Here's what works:
- Short-form wins. 52% of consumers now prioritize videos under 60 seconds when interacting with brands. Get to the point in the first 3 seconds or lose them.
- Platform matters. LinkedIn audiences want insight and expertise. Instagram and TikTok want personality and entertainment. YouTube wants education and depth. One video rarely works everywhere — adapt it.
- Consistency beats perfection. Three polished videos per quarter will almost always underperform 12 imperfect but consistent posts per month.
The goal of social video isn't just views. It's repeated exposure — showing up in your target audience's feed often enough that when they need what you offer, your name is already in their head.
3. Animated Videos — Complex Ideas, Zero Confusion
Some products are genuinely hard to explain. Software platforms, financial tools, healthcare technology, blockchain applications — these aren't things you can point a camera at and expect anyone to understand.
That's where animation services earn their keep.
Animated video gives you total creative control. You're not limited by what a camera can capture. You can visualize abstract data flows, show microscopic processes, walk through a UI without a screen recording, or bring a metaphor to life with characters and motion.
Animation works particularly well for:
- SaaS and tech products that live inside a screen
- Healthcare and biotech explanations
- Financial services and process diagrams
- Concepts that would be expensive or impossible to film
There's also a brand consistency advantage. With animation, every color, shape, and motion is deliberate. Your video looks and feels exactly like your brand — not like a generic corporate talking-head shoot.
If your audience has ever watched a demo of your product and still looked confused, animation is likely the answer.
4. Motion Graphics — Data That Doesn't Put People to Sleep
Here's a scenario every marketer has lived through: you have important data, impressive stats, or a complex process to communicate — and the moment you put it in a slide deck or a PDF, eyes glaze over.
Motion graphics video production solve this.
Picture two identical sales presentations. One uses static slides. The other uses animated charts, kinetic text, and motion-driven diagrams. Same data. Completely different impact. Sales presentations with animated elements close deals 67% more often than traditional decks. And static product demos achieve roughly a 20% completion rate — add motion graphics, and that number jumps to 85%.
That's not aesthetics. That's revenue.
Where motion graphics drive results:
- Pitch decks and investor presentations — nothing communicates traction like a chart that grows in real time
- Social content — a motion graphic stat card consistently outperforms a static post
- Product tutorials — showing a process through animation is faster and clearer than words
- Brand awareness ads — motion graphics look premium at a fraction of the cost of a full video shoot
What separates forgettable motion graphics from effective ones is restraint. The best guide the eye — they don't overwhelm it. Every element that moves should move for a reason.
5. Product Demo Videos — Show, Don't Tell
People don't buy products they don't understand. And no matter how good your copy is, nothing demonstrates value faster than watching the product work.
A product demo video shows your solution in action. For software, that's a narrated screen walkthrough. For a physical product, it's a live feature demonstration. For a service, it might be a before-and-after story framed as a visual case study.
The difference between a demo that converts and one that doesn't? Focus on the outcome, not the features.
Weak demo: "Here's our dashboard. Here's the reports tab. Here's how you export a CSV."
Strong demo: "Here's how a marketing team cut their reporting time from 4 hours to 20 minutes."
Prospects don't care what your product does. They care what it does for them. Anchor every demo around a specific problem and a measurable result, and your close rate will reflect it.
6. Customer Testimonial Videos — The Most Persuasive Content You're Not Making
You can say your product is great. Your customers saying it is 10 times more convincing.
Testimonial videos feature real customers sharing real results — no script, no actor, just an honest account of the problem they had, how they found you, and what changed after. That authenticity is exactly what makes them so powerful.
Why testimonials work:
- They eliminate skepticism ("Is this actually good or are they just saying that?")
- They let prospects self-identify ("That sounds exactly like my situation")
- They turn social proof into social currency — shareable, quotable, credible
A 60-second testimonial from a real customer often outperforms a polished $10,000 brand video in conversion. Production value matters far less than the authenticity of what's being said.
Pro tip: don't script your customers. Give them three prompts — the problem they had before, why they chose you, and the specific result they got — and let them speak naturally. That rawness is the trust signal your next customer is looking for.
7. Video for Email Marketing — The Easiest Conversion Lift You're Ignoring
Most email marketers are still sending walls of text to people who are already half-distracted. The brands adding video to their campaigns are seeing 200–300% higher click-through rates.
You don't even have to embed the video directly. A thumbnail with a play button linking to the video is enough to move the needle dramatically.
Ways to use video in email:
- Welcome sequences — a 60-second "here's who we are and what to do next" video outperforms a text welcome email every time
- Product launches — show the product instead of describing it
- Re-engagement campaigns — video creates a human touch that plain text can't replicate
- Sales follow-ups — a personalized 30-second video from a sales rep gets dramatically more replies than a boilerplate email
The key is matching the video to the stage. Someone who just subscribed doesn't need a detailed product walkthrough. Someone dormant for 90 days needs a reason to care again. Right video. Right moment.
8. Webinars and Educational Video — Build Authority at Scale
Here's the paradox of content marketing: the content that helps the most sells the most.
Webinars and educational video series let you teach your target audience something genuinely useful — without pitching them anything. You're demonstrating expertise, building familiarity, and earning trust simultaneously.
This works especially well in B2B with longer sales cycles. By the time a prospect who's watched three of your webinars gets on a call with your sales team, they already trust you. The sale is half done before it starts.
What makes educational video effective:
- Teach something specific, not generic — "How SaaS companies reduce churn in the first 30 days" beats "How to improve retention" every time
- Keep live webinars interactive — polls, Q&As, and live chat make the difference between a broadcast and an experience
- Repurpose aggressively — one webinar becomes a YouTube video, three LinkedIn clips, five email snippets, and a blog post
- Gated replays build your list; ungated content builds your audience
The businesses winning with educational video aren't the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones showing up most consistently.
9. Live Video Streaming — Real-Time Trust Building
Live video is uniquely powerful for one reason: it can't be faked.
No retakes, no editing, no polish. Just you, your team, and your audience in real time. That unfiltered quality is exactly why live streaming builds trust faster than any pre-recorded format.
Platforms like LinkedIn Live, YouTube Live, and Instagram Live all give preference to real-time broadcasts in their algorithms — organic reach for live content is higher than almost anything else you can post.
Live video use cases that work:
- Product launches — announce it live and create genuine excitement
- Q&A sessions — answer your audience's hardest questions in real time
- Behind-the-scenes content — show your process, your team, your workspace
- Industry commentary — react to news and trends as they happen
One live session, repurposed well, becomes weeks of content. Record it, clip it, transcribe it, publish it. The live event is just the beginning.
10. Branded Video Content — Long-Term Brand Equity
Not every video needs to sell something.
Branded video content tells stories — about your company's values, your team's culture, your customers' lives, or the problem your business exists to solve. These videos don't pitch a product. They build a world people want to be part of.
Think of the best branded videos you've seen. They made you feel something. That emotional resonance doesn't translate directly to a conversion metric — but it creates the conditions for loyalty, advocacy, and word-of-mouth that paid acquisition simply can't buy.
Branded content done right:
- Focuses on a person, not a product — the customer, the founder, the team member
- Tells a story with tension, transformation, and resolution
- Reflects a genuine belief or value, not a manufactured one
- Lives in the why of your business, not the what
This is where your brand becomes something people actually remember. Not because you told them your values — because you showed them.
How to Choose the Right Video Type for Your Business
With 10 options in front of you, the temptation is to try all of them at once. Don't.
Start by matching video type to business goal:
GoalBest Video TypeExplain your productExplainer videoBuild brand awarenessSocial video, branded contentSimplify complex topicsAnimated video, motion graphicsDrive conversionsProduct demo, testimonialsBuild trustTestimonials, live videoEducate your audienceWebinars, educational seriesIncrease email CTRVideo in email campaigns
Pick one or two. Execute them well. Measure the results. Then expand.
Conclusion: Video Isn't a Marketing Tactic. It's Your Competitive Edge.
Businesses that use video well don't just produce better content — they communicate with more clarity, build trust faster, and convert more consistently than the ones still relying on text alone.
The 10 formats in this guide aren't trends. They're proven tools that companies across every industry are using right now to grow. The only question left is which one you're deploying first.
Ready to put video to work for your business? Yans Media has spent 14+ years and 850+ videos helping brands like Cisco, DoorDash, and Deloitte communicate complex ideas simply and convert better. Get your project started here.
FAQ
What type of video is best for business?
It depends on your goal. Explainer videos are the best starting point for most businesses — they work on your homepage, in ads, and in sales outreach simultaneously. If your product is complex, animated video or motion graphics will outperform live-action.
How much does business video marketing cost?
Costs vary by format, length, and production quality. A professional explainer video typically starts from $3,500 to $8,500+. Animated videos and motion graphics vary depending on complexity. Most businesses see full ROI within a single campaign cycle.
How do I measure the ROI of video marketing?
Tie metrics to your goal. For awareness: views and reach. For conversion: landing page CVR before and after adding video. For email: CTR. Video should always connect to a specific business outcome — not vanity metrics.
Do I need professional production or can I DIY?
For internal content, sales follow-ups, and live video — DIY works and is often preferred for its authenticity. For homepage explainers, paid ads, and anything representing your brand at scale, professional production pays for itself in the trust signal it sends.
How long should a business video be?
Short-form social: under 60 seconds. Explainer videos: 60–90 seconds. Product demos: 2–3 minutes. Webinars: 30–60 minutes. The rule: as long as it needs to be, and not a second longer.
