How Powerful Is Video Marketing for B2B Growth in 2026?
Video marketing is powerful for B2B because it compresses complex ideas into something buyers actually consume, builds trust at scale, and creates measurable pipeline when paired with clear CTAs, analytics, and distribution. In 2025–26 benchmarks, most businesses use video and most marketers plan to keep or increase spend, making it a must-have, not a nice-to-have.
This is the modern version of our original 2017 post—rebuilt for today’s buying committees, AI-assisted content workflows, and the reality that B2B discovery now happens across search, social, and answer engines. If you want a strategic programme (not a random pile of videos), you’re in the right place.
Want help turning this into a measurable growth engine? Start with our Services: Simplifying SEO & Inbound Marketing page, or skip ahead to the 30-day plan and then book a call.
Why does video marketing work so well for B2B buyers?
In B2B, you’re rarely selling a “quick win”. You’re selling a decision—often to a committee—where risk, trust, and clarity matter more than hype.
And buyers are already doing this. Google-referenced research shared by Communicate Magazine reports that around 70% of B2B buyers watch videos at some point in their purchase journey (published 2024).
The punchline: if your prospect can’t understand your value in under a minute, you’re forcing them to do homework. Most won’t.
What do current 2025–2026 benchmarks say about ROI and adoption?
Here’s the “are we late to the party?” answer: yes, most of your competitors are already using video—and many are doubling down.
- 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool and 93% of marketers consider it integral (Wyzowl “Video Marketing Statistics 2026”, based on survey data gathered in late 2025).
- 92% of marketers plan to spend the same or more on video in 2026 (Wyzowl, late-2025 survey results).
- Only 5% of companies reported cutting video budgets, while over half planned to invest more in 2025 (Wistia, 26 March 2025).
- For distribution, YouTube remains dominant, and LinkedIn is widely used for video by B2B marketers (Wyzowl platform usage data).
ROI doesn’t come from “posting more”. It comes from the right buyer-stage match, a clear next step, and measurement that ties attention to outcomes.
A useful B2B mental model: video is a trust multiplier. Your job is to attach that trust to a next action (demo, download, consultation, reply).
If you’re building video as part of a wider growth system (SEO + content + CRM), our Inbound Marketing services approach is designed to connect content to pipeline—not vanity metrics.
Which B2B video formats should you prioritise in 2026?
Your format choice should be dictated by where the buyer is in the journey and what uncertainty you need to remove.
| Format | Best for | What it should answer | Strong CTA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Explainer / positioning | Awareness → Consideration | “What is this and why should I care?” | Read the guide / subscribe |
| Product demo | Consideration → Evaluation | “How does it work in the real world?” | Book a demo |
| Webinar / deep dive | Evaluation | “What’s the approach, risks, and proof?” | Register / request assessment |
| Customer story | Evaluation → Decision | “Will this work for someone like us?” | Talk to an expert |
| Short social clips | Awareness | “What’s the insight in 20–40 seconds?” | Watch the full version |
Wistia’s 2025 reporting also highlights that product videos, webinars/live streams, and educational videos are among the most common—and commonly successful—types businesses continue to prioritise.
If you want deeper tactical guidance, see our video marketing strategy guide and our B2B video marketing breakdown.
How AI changes B2B video: production, distribution, and trust
AI isn’t just a “make videos faster” thing. It changes how you plan, how you personalise, and how you prove value.
Strategic note (TARS voice, minus the sarcasm): if your AI workflow produces content that’s inaccurate or generic, you don’t get efficiency—you get reputation debt.
- Great for: ideation, scripting outlines, captions, translation, clip extraction, title/thumbnail testing.
- Needs human judgement: messaging, proof points, compliance, customer claims, and anything your buyer will fact-check.
A practical 6-step B2B video strategy you can run in 30 days
This is the version that works when you’re busy, slightly understaffed, and still expected to “do more content”. You’re welcome.
- Choose one outcome. Pick a single measurable goal (e.g., increase qualified demo requests). If you can’t measure it, it’s a hobby.
- Map buyer questions to stages. List the top questions asked by prospects in awareness, consideration, and evaluation. Make one video per question.
- Write for clarity (not cleverness). Use: problem → insight → evidence → next step. Keep intros short; deliver the point early.
- Produce lean, then polish. Prioritise audio + lighting. Use AI for captions, edits, and repurposing, but keep a human review step.
- Distribute where attention lives. Put the full version on your site, then slice clips for LinkedIn and email. Align with your social media marketing plan.
- Measure, learn, iterate. Connect video performance to your CRM. Wistia notes that more than half of marketers connect their video platform to CRM/email tools to track video analytics alongside marketing data (Wistia, 26 March 2025).
If your tech stack is HubSpot (or you want it to be), strong measurement depends on clean setup. Our HubSpot onboarding work is designed to get tracking, lifecycle stages, and reporting aligned—so video contributes to pipeline in a way leadership actually trusts.
How to measure video marketing ROI (without lying to yourself)
Views are not ROI. Views are… optimism. Here’s a cleaner way to measure B2B outcomes.
- Awareness: play rate, average engagement, new visitors to key pages.
- Consideration: click-through to supporting assets, email replies, meeting bookings.
- Evaluation: lead form completion, demo requests, sales cycle velocity, influenced opportunities.
- Decision: close rate on video-influenced deals, retention signals, expansion triggers.
Want a tactical win? Put a clear CTA at the end of your key evaluation videos. Wistia’s benchmark data shows lead gen forms embedded in video can convert strongly—nearly a quarter of viewers completing them in their dataset (Wistia, 26 March 2025).
How video supports SEO, AEO, and GEO (and why that matters in 2026)
Video doesn’t replace SEO—it amplifies it. And in an AI-first discovery world, the surrounding text matters just as much as the video itself.
Quick placement tip: Wistia reports that videos on contact pages often see some of the highest play rates (Wistia, 26 March 2025). If you’re not using video to support conversion on bottom-funnel pages, you’re leaving money on the table.
When you should bring in a strategic partner (and what to ask)
If you’ve got a backlog of “we should do video” and no measurable system, you don’t need more ideas—you need a strategy, a workflow, and reporting you trust.
- How will you tie video to pipeline (not just views)?
- What’s the plan for distribution (LinkedIn, email, sales enablement), not just production?
- How will you use AI responsibly (accuracy, brand voice, accessibility)?
- How will you integrate measurement with HubSpot/CRM reporting?
For leaders thinking bigger than “marketing content”, video becomes a strategic capability—especially when paired with AI enablement. If that’s your lane, start with AI strategy consulting and then we can map a practical roadmap together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does video marketing really work for B2B companies?
Which B2B video formats perform best in 2026?
How long should B2B videos be?
Should we use AI tools to create B2B videos?
What’s the best place to host B2B videos?
How do you measure video marketing ROI in B2B?
How does video help SEO, AEO, and GEO?
References & further reading
- Wistia (26 March 2025). State of Video Report: Video Marketing Statistics for 2025.
- Wyzowl (data gathered late 2025). Video Marketing Statistics 2026 (12 Years of Data).
- Wyzowl (methodology). Original Video Marketing Data & Statistics.
- McKinsey (12 September 2024). How B2B companies can win in omnichannel sales.
- Reuters (25 August 2025). LinkedIn partners with Adobe to join push into video content.
- Communicate Magazine (2024). The power of video marketing.