It’s laborious to disregard the truth that video is now a number one pattern for advertising and marketing groups. I imply, even LinkedIn has jumped on the bandwagon by prioritizing video content material (now, whether or not or not you agree with that, it’s a dialog for an additional day, however I digress).

The reality is that video is right here to remain, and advertising and marketing groups are investing extra in it than ever earlier than.
With 2025 simply across the nook, I made a decision to take a deep dive into a number of the newest HubSpot knowledge, together with the 2024 Video Marketing Survey, to get a clearer image of what traits are shaping the sector.
I additionally spoke with a couple of specialists to get their insights on how they’re planning to put money into video marketing as we transfer into the brand new yr.
Desk of Contents
How a lot does video advertising and marketing price?
The brief reply? It varies wildly. You may spend a couple of hundred {dollars} on easy movies or tens of hundreds on skilled productions.
Sometimes, the most important bills fall into a couple of classes:
- Manufacturing. Prices for scripting, filming, and taking pictures, which might vary from reasonably priced for smaller groups to costly for large-scale productions.
- Put up-Manufacturing. Enhancing, including results, and finalizing the video. As content material will get extra polished, this turns into a much bigger a part of the funds.
- Promotion. Social media adverts, paid search, or sponsored content material to get the video in entrance of the precise viewers.
- Instruments. Software program for enhancing and video efficiency analytics, plus any subscriptions to specialised video platforms.
Waiting for 2025, I feel we’ll see extra groups leaning into AI instruments to scale back prices, particularly in manufacturing and post-production.
With the rise of short-form videos, manufacturers may shift towards creating extra frequent, lower-cost content material for social platforms.
And whereas social adverts will nonetheless be a serious spend, I anticipate customized, interactive video codecs will change into a much bigger a part of the funds as manufacturers search for new methods to have interaction audiences.
How a lot are entrepreneurs spending on video advertising and marketing?
The numbers inform an attention-grabbing story. Our 2024 Video Advertising and marketing Survey exhibits entrepreneurs are placing a major quantity of their complete funds into video.
And it’s paying off — 52% report high ROI, whereas 47% see common returns.
Most entrepreneurs that I spoke with plan to extend their video funds subsequent yr.
It is sensible once you take a look at the impression: 52% cite model consciousness as their major purpose, and 41% say video helps clients perceive their merchandise higher.
What’s the everyday funds breakdown? In keeping with digital transformation knowledgeable Suriel Arellano, right here’s how companies often slice it:
- 40-50% on manufacturing
- 20-30% on promotion
- The remainder on expertise and advertising and marketing
How AI Is Making Video Advertising and marketing Extra Reasonably priced
Video advertising and marketing can get costly rapidly — whether or not it’s for manufacturing, post-production, promotion, or analyzing outcomes.
However AI video tools are significantly altering the sport, serving to entrepreneurs like myself scale back prices throughout all phases of the method.
Right here’s how I’ve seen AI make video advertising and marketing less expensive.
1. Manufacturing Stage: Brainstorming & Scripting
Making a video from scratch typically includes hours of brainstorming, scripting, and outlining. AI instruments can considerably pace up this course of, decreasing the time spent on these duties.
For instance, ChatGPT or Breeze can help in rapidly producing video scripts or brainstorming concepts. By merely offering the AI with a couple of key particulars in regards to the video’s goal and viewers, entrepreneurs can generate complete scripts or outlines in minutes.
This protects each money and time, particularly you probably have restricted sources.
Now, as knowledgeable author, I ought to add a disclaimer right here. I actually don’t advocate for ChatGPT changing human creatives, together with writers. A talented scriptwriter will deliver a degree of experience your venture desperately wants.
Nonetheless, I do advocate utilizing ChatGPT that can assist you brainstorm new concepts or angles and polish sure facets of the script.
2. Put up-Manufacturing: Enhancing & Results
As soon as your video is shot, the enhancing section could be one of the crucial costly phases, particularly should you’re hiring knowledgeable editor. AI instruments are serving to scale back post-production time although by automating lots of the tedious duties.
The price of enhancing a video might rack up hundreds of {dollars} simply. AI-powered instruments like Descript and Adobe Premiere Professional can automate video enhancing duties similar to chopping, including subtitles, and even creating social media-friendly codecs.
One of many coolest enhancing options I’ve seen is text-based enhancing.
Primarily, you may edit phrases from a video transcript, and the editor will clip the video accordingly. Provided that I’ve extraordinarily restricted video enhancing abilities, I like how straightforward that is. See it here in action.
3. Promotion: Advertisements & Viewers Focusing on
As soon as your video is prepared, selling it to the precise viewers is essential.
Conventional advert spend can rapidly add up, particularly should you’re counting on guide focusing on and content material creation. AI instruments make it simpler to optimize each your promotion technique and your advert spend.
You should use machine studying to optimize advert placements, determine the most effective viewers, and modify campaigns in actual time to scale back price per conversion.
You can too use AI-powered translation instruments to create multilingual variations of your movies. It may be useful for reaching worldwide audiences with out the expense of hiring a number of voice actors.
Reasonably priced Video Advertising and marketing Strategies
1. Weigh your choices.
In keeping with our video advertising and marketing knowledge, 69% of video entrepreneurs surveyed personal manufacturing tools whereas 10% hire, and the remaining group does each. However which method is true on your model? Let’s break it down:
In-Home |
Businesses |
|
Value Construction |
Decrease price per video, larger upfront funding. |
Larger per-video price, no tools funding. |
High quality |
Good for easy content material, restricted by group abilities. |
Skilled high quality, entry to knowledgeable expertise. |
Time |
Fast turnaround for easy tasks. |
Longer lead instances however constant supply. |
Management |
Full management over course of and edits. |
Much less direct management however skilled administration. |
Finest For |
Common, easy content material wants (social media, product demos). |
Advanced tasks, high-production worth content material. |
The selection typically comes right down to your content material kind and frequency.
As an illustration, should you’re a make-up model creating common tutorial content material, in-house manufacturing is likely to be good — you simply want good lighting and a digicam to showcase merchandise in motion.
Nonetheless, should you’re a journey model needing cinematic vacation spot photographs with skilled expertise and a number of areas, an company might truly be less expensive.
Most smaller manufacturers (these with 200 staff or much less) report higher ROI when working with exterior companies, notably for high-production worth content material.
However should you’re planning to create frequent, easy movies for social media, constructing an in-house group might be a sensible long-term funding.
2. Separate need-to-haves from must-haves.
If there’s one piece of video tools it’s best to give attention to, it’s lighting.
Many imagine that having the most effective digicam does the trick, however the fact is that lighting is what makes or breaks the standard of a video.
Lighting units the tone and temper of a video, two components it’s worthwhile to preserve your viewers’s consideration in a video.
Sound is one other space to splurge on — particularly your mics. This can improve the standard of your video, particularly if it’s a must to accept low-end cameras.
As for every part else (the digicam, the lens, the equipment), I feel these are nice add-ons, however should you’re on a funds, you can also make do with low to mid-range choices whereas nonetheless getting a high-quality consequence.
Professional tip: Whenever you’re filming with a smartphone, I like to recommend taking pictures in panorama mode for YouTube however vertical for platforms like TikTok and Instagram Tales. This protects you from having to reshoot or crop later.
3. Concentrate on engagement over manufacturing worth.
Whereas 40% of entrepreneurs emphasize the significance of partaking video enhancing, you don’t want costly software program to create compelling content material.
What issues most is capturing consideration rapidly (51% of entrepreneurs agree that is essential) and telling an attractive story (37% prioritize storytelling and scriptwriting).
Professional tip: “Localization and personalization of video content material shall be a precedence in 2025 as a result of it’s simpler and extra reasonably priced than ever because of AI,” says Matt Panousis, co-founder of Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies, an AI-enabled VFX studio.
So, discovering methods to personalize and humanize your content material shall be a key side of partaking your viewers.
4. Use free enhancing software program.
If you happen to’re a part of a small enterprise or group that’s attempting to create a video advertising and marketing technique with out spending a lot cash, don’t fear.
You should use the superior video instruments that include smartphones, and you will discover good video enhancing software program. A few of this software program is even free.
Certainly one of these instruments is HubSpot’s Clip Creator — which might convert textual content into partaking movies for your small business. You can begin from a template or generate a video with AI.
I attempted creating a couple of for my very own freelance enterprise and cherished attending to experiment with totally different variations.
Get started with HubSpot’s Clip Creator.
5. Contain SMEs for instructional content material.
Instructional movies are one of the crucial efficient content material sorts in 2024, and involving Topic Matter Specialists (SMEs) in your group may also help you create high-value content material with out the excessive price. SMEs can present:
- Professional Perception. Including worth to your content material with genuine, credible information.
- Effectivity. SMEs are sometimes faster at delivering correct and helpful content material, which might scale back the necessity for intensive scriptwriting or analysis.
- Affordability. As an alternative of paying for exterior specialists or influencers, your individual group members can present the identical degree of experience.
6. Use extra video on social media platforms.
The best option to promote movies is on social media platforms, with 69% of entrepreneurs saying it’s the simplest technique for reaching audiences.
The most effective half? It’s basically free if you have already got a powerful following. We’ve additionally seen that you simply don’t want a large promoting funds to achieve your audience, so there’s no cause to not strive.
My favourite hack right here is discovering methods to repurpose your content material. For instance, you may take a single piece of content material and switch it right into a YouTube video, a number of TikTok clips, an Instagram reel, and so forth.
Video Advertising and marketing Is Definitely worth the Funding in 2025
Video advertising and marketing can really feel overwhelming, particularly once you’re working with a good funds. However right here’s what the info is telling us: you don’t want Hollywood manufacturing worth to create content material that resonates along with your viewers.
With 52% of entrepreneurs seeing excessive ROI from video and 41% saying it helps clients higher perceive their merchandise, it’s clear to me that video is certainly well worth the funding.
Concentrate on what issues most: capturing consideration rapidly, telling partaking tales, and getting your content material in entrance of the precise eyes by social media.
And with AI instruments making video manufacturing extra accessible than ever, I imagine there’s by no means been a greater time to start out creating movies that join along with your viewers — with out breaking the financial institution.
Editor’s Word: This submit was initially revealed in March 2016 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.