Most B2B founders already feel they should be using video. The harder questions are which video, for whom, and whether it will produce anything a sales team can count. A polished brand film, a screen-recorded demo, a personal clip in a cold email and an animated ad are very different investments, and they do very different jobs.
Video is now a standard part of business marketing, and most companies already use it in some form. When nearly everyone uses a format, the useful question is how to make it earn its place.
Founders on Hacker News describe the practical side of this. They struggle to show a product well in a short time, find screen recording fiddly, and increasingly generate demo videos with coding agents, tools like Remotion and AI avatars (Hacker News). Others ask whether a demo should show the use case or walk through the product (Hacker News). The answer depends on the job each video has to do.
Give every video one job at one step
The useful way to plan video in go-to-market is by the buying step it serves. Four jobs cover most of what B2B teams need.
An explainer makes your positioning clear in the time it takes to scroll past. It sits on the homepage and in early outreach, and it answers what you do, for whom, and why a buyer should care.
A product demo shows the product doing real work for a buyer who prefers to research alone. It sits on product and demo pages, and in follow-up after a first call.
A personal video moves a specific deal forward: a walkthrough recorded for one prospect, or a recap a champion can forward to colleagues.
An ad keeps your company in buyers' memory before they are ready to buy, which is where most of your market sits at any time.
If a video does not clearly serve one of these, it is probably a brand piece without a destination, and those are the first to disappoint.
Short wins attention, so put the point first
Runtime has more effect than most teams expect. Vidyard analysed 943,305 videos created on its platform in 2024 and found that 65% of viewers finish videos under one minute, against 20% for videos over 20 minutes (Vidyard). Engagement was highest in the first quarter of a video's runtime. Vidyard sells video software, so this is platform data, but it matches what most marketers see in their own analytics.
Marketers are planning accordingly. HubSpot's State of Marketing data shows 30% of marketers chose short-form video as the format they plan to invest in most, against 12% for long-form video and 13% for live streaming (HubSpot).
For a demo, that settles the use case versus walkthrough question. Open with the buyer's problem and the outcome in the first few seconds, then show the product doing one job from start to finish. Keep the full tour for a longer video that interested buyers can choose to watch.
Personal video moves individual deals
In outbound and follow-up, personal video is one of the cheapest tools available. A founder on Hacker News describes the improvised approach that worked best for them: short onboarding calls with each early user, followed by personalised Loom videos showing exactly how to use the product for their workflow (Hacker News).
Its real value shows up inside the buying group. Most B2B purchases involve several people, and many of them never join a sales call. A two-minute video your champion can forward explains your case to people you will never meet, in your words rather than in a hurried summary.
Keep these videos short, specific and recorded for one account at a time. Name the company, show their situation on screen where you can, and end with one clear next step.
Animated ads reach the buyers who are not ready yet
Most of your market is not buying this quarter. The LinkedIn B2B Institute and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute put the share of B2B buyers in the market at any given time at about 5%, and recommend advertising mostly to the 95% who will buy later, so your brand is remembered when they enter the market (LinkedIn B2B Institute).
Video is well suited to that job. LinkedIn describes video as one of the fastest-growing formats on its platform, and reports from its own data that advertisers using its BrandLink video product see on average a 130% higher completion rate than standard video ads, with viewers up to 18% more likely to become a lead (LinkedIn Newsroom). Those are platform figures for one ad product, so treat them as an indication of what video can do on LinkedIn, not a forecast.
The harder problem is sameness. Vidyard reports that AI avatar adoption grew 12 times between April and December 2024 (Vidyard), and founders on Hacker News now produce passable demos with coding agents in an afternoon (Hacker News). When generic video is cheap, distinct video stands out. An animated film with a recognisable visual style and a clear story is memorable in a way an avatar reading a script rarely is, and memory is the whole point of advertising to people who will buy later.
What to do this week
- Map your buying steps and write down which of the four video jobs is missing: explainer, product demo, personal video or ad.
- Script a 60-second explainer that states who the product is for, the problem it solves and the outcome, in that order.
- Record one under-two-minute demo that shows the product completing a single real task, opening with the buyer's problem.
- Send a personal video to your five most active open deals, recorded for each account, with one next step.
- Review your current ads and ask whether a viewer would recognise your company with the logo hidden.
Video moves pipeline when each piece has a clear job, a short runtime and a look that belongs to you. The formats are cheap to start and expensive only when they have no purpose. Stolos Digital makes animated ad films, explainers and product demos for B2B teams that want video with a specific job to do.