By now, we’re all knee-deep in planning for 2024—identifying new campaigns to test, putting together budgets, setting marketing goals, and defining the channels we’ll focus on. Whether you have a robust video marketing strategy or you’re debating on buying your first iPhone tripod, one thing’s clear: Your business will benefit from more video content this year.
There’s a reason video marketing is so effective for reaching people. When it’s done right, videos are easy to interact with, entertaining to consume, and quick to share. In fact, in a recent video marketing study, 51% of respondents reported that they are more likely to share video content over social posts, blogs, or product pages.
That’s great for building your brand and growing your audience. As long as you make the most of it. Cue video marketing trends. Following video marketing trends to inspire your business’s video strategy will increase your chances of securing views, engagement, and shares.
To start, we wanted to know what to expect in video marketing next year: the types of videos, the distribution methods, and the production tips. So we asked marketing leaders, video producers, and video editors what they think we’ll see more of.
Let’s get into it!
Here are the video marketing trends that the experts expect to see in 2024.
This couldn’t be a list of trends for marketing next year without featuring AI. The advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), and generative AI in particular, have been all over the news this year. For example, Open AI launched the trained generative chatbot ChatGPT 3.5 at the end of 2022, and then an updated ChatGPT 4.0. There have been tons of other applications for this technology on the market and in the headlines this year, including resources for generative AI in digital marketing.
Google Trends captures the huge increase in interest in AI over the last two years.
Danielle Warren, senior video editor at Google, expects this to be a major trend in video marketing in 2024. “AI will of course continue to be a huge topic and trend going forward,” she said. “As more and more AI-powered tools come onto the market, their significance in video marketing strategies will only grow. AI tools will increase productivity and help video teams ‘do more with less.’”
Additionally, AI video creation is a video marketing trend that’s already providing positive results. AI statistics show that 75% of businesses are using AI to help them create or edit marketing videos and 96% of businesses have already seen a positive ROI from AI-powered video marketing.
🗓 Get more marketing ideas, tips, and trends for this year in our free 2024 marketing calendar!
Earlier this year, Google announced that it would significantly reduce the number of video thumbnails that appeared on the SERP. Specifically, Google said that it would stop featuring videos that weren’t the main content of the page.
This has already resulted in fewer videos on the SERP, and marketers are now planning for this in their content strategies. A video that’s not central to the page won’t rank—but the main content will.
Here’s an example of a real-life query and the very helpful thumbnails that still appear from YouTube. Notice, though, that there weren’t any videos pulled from the comments on Quora’s SERP result.
What does this video marketing trend mean? Make sure your main videos are correctly featured and don’t expect to rank for peripheral video content. But still a good idea to prioritize your video SEO next year.
📹 Get more insight into your Google display and video campaign performance using our free Google Ads Grader!
Something that we saw a lot in 2023? Newsletters. According to reletter, there are more than 1.6 million newsletters on Substack and LinkedIn alone.
This format allows for longer, more narrative communication with your audience. That’s a great opportunity for video content.
“I’m looking forward to incorporating more videos into our email marketing strategy in 2024,” Natalie Cantave shared. Cantave runs marketing and partnerships for Estateably, and she co-founded the MKTG WMN community. “Short videos have helped our customers experience the newest product features which will hopefully drive adoption, keep them satisfied, and result in client retention.”
Allen Finn, who runs marketing at Triple Whale, is prioritizing product videos next year, and he thinks he’s one of many marketing leaders making this plan.
“We’re changing most of our documentation to video (versus traditional written help docs),” he said. “It’s more digestible, less intimidating, and much more efficient to update, which is essential for a product that changes as often as ours.”
This change also means investing in video marketing content for your highest-value audiences: your customers or your most engaged prospects. “We’re replacing illustrations with gifs and product videos across the website to show the product as it is versus as an abstraction to drive interest and conversion from high-intent visitors,” he explained.
Focusing on product videos and gifs next year is a no-brainer for software companies, but featuring your offering in motion is great for any business, especially direct-to-consumer.
In case anyone thinks gluten-free mac and cheese looks any different.
And if you’re featuring a service—-whether it’s your dental office or lawn care—-then you have a great reason to get in front of the camera. This brings us to the next video marketing trend to watch for next year.
Rayna van Beuzekom, video editor and producer at Commsor, thinks we’re going to see more people on camera as brands focus on the biggest value of video: connection.
“Video is such a great tool to connect with audiences,” they said. “You can take a seemingly distant product and humanize it through video. We’re going to see more and more people on camera, whether it’s sellers, marketers or executives.”
Notice the key similarity among the “who” options Rayna gave? Sellers, marketers, and executives are all members of your team. Real people don’t mean actors or influencers; it means your company’s employees and partners.
A great example of casual, conversational founder videos from Lo Bosworth, CEO of Lovewellness and Laguna Beach alum.
Founder & CEO at Startup Boston Stephanie Roulic thinks this trend will be especially prevalent for startups. “During the early stages of marketing your company, video marketing is so incredibly important because, more often than not, you have to rely on utilizing your founders’ personality and story to sell early adapters on why they should take a chance on you.”
Early-stage companies and small businesses are in the same boat here. Next year, Stephanie expects more company founders to appear in social videos. She said this will “highlight not just the value of your product, but the team behind your product to help develop trust between you and early customers.”
By creating connections and building trust, video marketing can have real long-term impacts on brand affinity. We’re expecting to see plenty of real faces to help with that next year.
As of October 2023, there are 4.95 billion social media users globally, which accounts for 94% of internet users. With that many people logging into social media, it’s a guarantee that your audience is reachable. It’s just a matter of finding them.
One of the most effective ways to grow your brand’s reach across is short-form video marketing content on social media. That’s why it’s not going anywhere in 2024.
An example of a short-form TikTok video.
“As a short-form video editor, I may be a little biased, but I’m genuinely enthusiastic about the ongoing growth of short-form content,” Warren said. “Between Instagram reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and everything in between, the appetite for short-form videos is only going to increase after growing exponentially over the next few years. Given the ever-shortening of attention spans, the ability to narrate your brand’s visual stories in a succinct and engaging manner is essential for success.”
Short-form video is here to stay for another year—at least. But video marketing experts are also expecting a renewed focus on other kinds of video in 2024.
“I’m hopeful for more long-form content in 2024,” said van Beuzekom. “There’s more room for creativity vs. just trying to make something fast, like in short form.”
They point specifically to an increase in YouTube video marketing and advertising. And this makes sense. 78% of marketers identify YouTube as the most successful video marketing channel.
The platform offers vertical shorts for users to flip through similar to TikTok, but its mainstay is long-form videos. That means YouTube is a great place for your recorded podcasts, your explainer videos, even your event recaps—which leads us to the next trend.
Did you know that, in 2017, 85% of Facebook videos were watched without sound? This video marketing trend is back, as many users are now consuming even more social video content without sound. In fact, users spend an average of 151 minutes each day on social platforms interacting with content, including videos with and without sound.
There’s a lot of Instagram Reels watched in the office, in waiting rooms, in bed beside a partner—without sound. If this is how users are consuming content, it should be easy to understand why this video marketing trend is continuing to grow.
Now, there are more tools than ever to help make sure silent videos are effective with complete, accurate captions. Plus, AI tools will make this easier for marketing teams to do, even without video expertise. This leads to our final video marketing trend.
This past year has been a rough one for tech. With over 220k layoffs last year and the reduced marketing budgets impacting the industry’s freelancers, thrift is going to be a video marketing trend in 2024.
Earlier, Finn pointed to efficiency as an additional benefit of switching to product videos instead of written documentation. Warren also specifically referenced doing more with less as “another trend that is expected to continue into 2024, especially as tech and media companies regain momentum following a challenging 2023.”
Luckily, the rise of AI editing and more easy-to-use video ad tools will help marketers create some clips even without a video background. Vimeo, for example, released the AI-powered caption generator as well as a transcript-based editor for easy cuts.
Of course, nothing beats an expert producer and an adequate budget. But in 2024, the most important thing is getting video marketing for your brand out in the world.
💡 Find more ways to incorporate AI in your video marketing and beyond with our free AI in marketing guide!
Remember, sometimes trends end up here to stay: Spotify Wrapped, all-white kitchens, doodles. Start experimenting with the video marketing trends above now, and your business’s video marketing strategy will be ahead of the game. If you tried these video marketing trends but still want to bring your strategy to the next level, see how our solutions can help you make the most of your business’s videos.
Here are the top 2024 video marketing trends:
More use of AI tools and tricks
Fewer videos on the SERP (sort of)
Videos will be included in newsletter and email creative
Product videos will become more prevalent
More real people on camera
Short-form video for social is here to stay
Long-form video content returns
More videos will be made without sound
Brands will focus on thrifty video marketing
