The Year Of The Video

OK, so I’ve been harping on about this for what seems like forever. But the fact is that your company can no longer afford to ignore the potential that online video offers for your business value messaging.

Video keeps audience attention, increases retention rates, and separates your organization from the crowd. Moreover, producing video content for online consumption has never been cheaper, or easier to do – if you know what you’re doing.

Video gets you noticed. Want an example?

Read the following text. It’s taken from a Dutch NBC trailer for the popular TV show “House”:

Hello sick people and their loved ones. In the interests of saving time and avoiding a lot of boring chit-chat later, I’m Dr. Gregory House. You can call me Greg. I’m one of three doctors staffing this clinic this morning. I am a board-certified diagnostician with a double specialty of infectious disease and nephrology. I’m also the only doctor currently employed at this clinic who’s forced to be here against his will. That is true, isn’t it? But not to worry, because for most of you this job could be done by a monkey with a bottle of Motrin. Speaking of which, if you’re particularly annoying you may see me reach for this: This is Vicodin. It’s mine, you can’t have any. And no, I do not have a pain management problem, I have a pain problem. But who knows, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m too stoned to tell. So, who wants me? And…who would rather wait for one of the other two guys?

OK, did you get that?

Good. Now here’s the very same text, set to video by Koos Dekker, via CulturalOil. Click on the image below to view the video:

Which version do YOU remember more? Which one is more persuasive? Which is more pervasive?

Why Customers Ignore Everything We Write (But Watch Everything We Show)

You’ve probably experienced something like this yourself: people remember almost nothing you tell them in writing, but they’ll recall nearly everything they saw in a video 3 months ago. I’m not being anecdotal here, there’s a ton of scientific and academic evidence for this. It’s how our brains work, and it’s costing you more than you realize.

Many businesspeople still treat video like it’s some nice-to-have marketing garnish. It’s as though it’s parsley on your entrée – nobody really gives a stuff if it wasn’t there.

The problem with this kind of outdated thinking is that we’ve collectively forgotten a basic truth about how we communicate. Over millennia, we evolved to process moving pictures and sounds, as well as abstract symbols on pages. There’s an evolutionary reason for this.

Humans are not the rational creatures we like to think we are. For most of our evolutionary history, the things we saw and heard carried immediate consequences. You could be taking a pleasant stroll in the jungle, and fail to notice the sabre-toothed tiger that’s about to tear you to pieces.

If this kind of demise happens enough times, evolutionary biology makes sure our brains develop a kind of content bias. Sights and sounds go straight to the front of the queue. We notice them faster, process them more deeply, and remember them for longer. Text, or even images, are a far more recent interloper in the story of human communication.

This has obvious implications for anyone trying to persuade – i.e. any business. A good video or voice doesn’t just hold attention; it short-circuits the brain’s usual defenses. You can deliver the same message in a PDF and a two-minute clip, and the latter will win. Not because it’s simpler, but because it plays the game our brains are built for.

The Attention Economy Has Rules

Consider what happens when you opens your LinkedIn app on your phone. You scroll past dozens of text posts without slowing down, until you see an video at which point your thumb stops you dead. That’s not because video is inherently better in some way. It’s because motion triggers involuntary attention responses that have evolved in our brains over millions of years.

This creates an economic problem for businesses. Attention has become the scarcest resource in commerce, more valuable than office space or manufacturing capacity. Businesses that capture attention reliably, have a better chance of buyers paying attention long enough to move the sales process further on.

Video content doesn’t just compete better for attention; it operates in a different league entirely. When someone reads your product description, they’re doing work. When they watch your product demo, you’re doing the work for them. You don’t need to be a Mensa member to work out which option they prefer.

We recently worked with a client, who sells a software product in B2B. We replaced their services overview page on their website with a five-minute video and ultra-targeted copy. The result was inquiry rates increased by 300% – within 4 months. The reason wasn’t because the video contained different information. It was because prospects actually (consumed and retained) the information instead of skimming and leaving.

Why Your Brain Trusts Moving Pictures

Our brains have to use more effort interpreting text. We have to, in effect, ‘translate’ the text into meaning, meaning into concepts, and concepts into understanding. Video, on the other hand, bypasses a greater part of this cognitive plumbing. This explains why product demonstrations consistently outperform feature lists in terms of driving sales. Features require mental work to understand. Demonstrations show benefits in action.

As anyone working in behavioral science will tell you, context shapes human perception far more than content does. Video provides richer and more absorbable context compared to text. The same information delivered by a confident speaker in a professional setting carries far more purpose and gravitas than the transcribed text was on a website somewhere. We can pretend this doesn’t matter, but pretending doesn’t change how purchasing decisions actually get made.

The Production Myth That’s Killing Your Progress

Perhaps the biggest misunderstanding in using video in business is that the required output quality requires expensive equipment and professional crews. It’s a great excuse for not doing anything. But, as well we know, the capture quality of even the most meagre smartphones today are more than good enough. Modern phones capture better video than television cameras from a decade years ago. Free editing software has enough capability to produce quality content. The barrier isn’t technical anymore; it’s psychological.

The real reason businesses haven’t jumped on the video bandwagon is for vanity reasons. Meanwhile, the accounting firm down the street records monthly market updates on an iPhone and builds stronger client relationships than competitors with glossy corporate videos that nobody watches. Overly-polished videos can feel disconnected from real customer problems. A slightly rough video that addresses specific pain points will outperform a professionally-produced masterpiece that says nothing useful.

Platform Reality Check

Each platform rewards different types of video content, and understanding these preferences determines whether content gets seen or buried. LinkedIn favors educational content that sparks professional discussion. Instagram and TikTok rewards visually striking content that stops your thumb from scrolling. YouTube prefers longer-form content that keeps viewers engaged.

These aren’t arbitrary preferences. They reflect how each platform makes money. Since LinkedIn sells to businesses, it promotes content that facilitates business relationships. Instagram and TikTok sells attention to advertisers, so it promotes content that captures attention quickly. Smart businesses create content strategies around these economic realities rather than fighting them. A single video concept can be adapted for multiple platforms, maximizing the return on creative effort while respecting each audience’s expectations.

What Actually Drives Business Results

Video marketing fails when organizations focus on vanity metrics like ‘views’ and ‘likes’ instead of business outcomes like leads and sales. A video with a million views that generates no inquiries is worthless. A video with a hundred views that creates ten qualified leads is probably generating more leads that Don in Sales.

The most effective business videos solve specific problems for specific audiences. Generic corporate overview videos that try to appeal to everyone typically appeal to no one. Videos that address particular customer frustrations or demonstrate solutions to common challenges create genuine business value.

Tracking technology now reveals exactly which video segments generate the most engagement, where viewers typically stop watching, and which calls-to-action drive conversions. This data transforms video marketing from creative guesswork into strategic precision.

Integration Beats Isolation

Organizations seeing tangible results from video aren’t treating it as a separate marketing channel. They weave video throughout their entire customer experience. Sales teams send personalized video messages that stand out in crowded inboxes. Customer service creates video tutorials that reduce support tickets while improving satisfaction. HR uses video to showcase company culture more authentically than any written job description could manage.

This integration requires organizational thinking beyond traditional marketing boundaries. We’re talking about when sales, marketing, customer service, and other departments collaborate to identify video opportunities throughout the customer journey. Each touchpoint represents a chance to build stronger relationships through visual communication.

The Early Mover Advantage

Markets reward companies that master effective communication technologies while competitors struggle with implementation. Organizations that build video capabilities now gain advantages that compound over time.

Video content creates multiple competitive benefits. It builds stronger emotional connections with prospects, improving brand recall and preference. It enables more effective sales processes, reducing acquisition costs and improving conversion rates. It attracts better talent by showcasing company culture more effectively than traditional recruitment methods. Most importantly, video scales efficiently. A well-produced video can educate thousands of prospects without requiring additional sales presentations or product demonstrations.

The technology exists, audiences increasingly expect it, and competitive advantages are clear. Businesses that recognize video as essential infrastructure rather than optional marketing are growing market share outside of their share of voice. dominate their markets. Those that continue treating it as a nice-to-have will find themselves explaining to boards why their competitors are winning deals with better communication strategies.

The Choice You’re Actually Making

Video content isn’t becoming popular because is trendy or exciting. It’s gaining ground because, from a marketing effectiveness perspective, it works better for capturing attention, building trust, and driving business results.

The question isn’t whether video marketing will become essential for your business. It already is. The question is whether you’ll adapt your communication and promotional strategy to match how buyers actually consume information, or continue broadcasting text into an increasingly video-native world.