M2X Network Badge

Audience Video Content Preferences That Every Marketer Should Know

Live and recorded video content is projected to be the top content form for marketers to engage with audiences within a few years.

David Pepin

Video is quickly growing as one of the top content platforms for driving meaningful engagement with audiences. Around the world, more than 80 percent of business organizations report using video in their content marketing strategies.

In our new report “What Tech Pros Really Think of Your B2B Video Marketing,” we survey IT and tech buyers to discover video measurements such as content type, platform, and length to determine overall best campaign practices.

Who was surveyed? 

Readers of our sister sites My TechDecisions and Campus Safety, who focus on tech buyers in the corporate, education, retail, and government-related industries, helped provide a number of survey respondents.

Of those respondents, more than 40 percent came from the education industry, over 20 percent from corporate settings, around 10 percent from healthcare, eight percent nonprofits, seven percent government, five percent manufacturing, and one percent hospitality. About 14 percent of respondents are either executives of administrators.

Content type findings

Surprisingly, the report found that written articles are still the most popular information format among those surveyed. However, with videos quickly gaining traction in all industries, it only won by a few percentage points.

Coming in at third place was pdf downloads and webinars in fourth. The findings suggest that while recorded and live video content are rapidly growing, written word channels are still one of the most impactful ways to convey information in B2B environments.

When it comes to software and manufacturing companies, tech decision-makers prioritize content that shows them the performance of a product. Those surveyed report product overviews being the most important type of video content they would like to engage with. Following in second and third place, respectfully, were how-to information and product comparisons.

Video length

According to responses, there appears to be a “sweet spot” for videos that lies between 2-5 minutes in length. 71 percent of respondents claim to prefer engaging with videos that fall in this range.

Shorter videos under one minute can be viewed as unsubstantial, with only 13 percent preferring this length. While video’s over 5 minutes long can test an audience’s patience and attention, as only 15 percent find this length appealing.

Download our full report about B2B video marketing habits here. See all of our monthly research reports here.