Video vs. Text: Which Drives More Conversions in B2B?

In the battle for B2B buyer attention, is video or text content more effective at driving conversions? Business professionals new to digital strategy often wonder where to invest their time and budget. Both video and text have roles to play, but video content has been surging in effectiveness across the entire B2B buyer’s journey for the past several years. The adoption of AI in just about every browser’s search experience is only making video more important. 

In this post, we’ll explore how and why video tends to outperform text in awareness, consideration, and decision stages, backed by compelling statistics and examples. We’ll also discuss why text still matters (especially for SEO and detail), and how to get started with a video-first content strategy. 

By the end, you’ll see how video can boost engagement, recall, and conversions – and how to begin leveraging it for your own B2B marketing. So let’s dive in!

How Video Engages Buyers at Every Stage of the B2B Journey

In B2B marketing, buyers go through stages from initially learning about a problem to comparing options to making a purchase decision. Here’s a look at each stage and why video content shines in ways text often can’t:

1. Awareness (Top-of-Funnel): Capturing Attention – At the awareness stage, prospects are just discovering their problem or your brand. Video is a powerful attention-grabber in crowded feeds and search results. Short explainer videos, social media clips, or a quick company intro can convey your value proposition faster than a blog post headline.
   
2. Consideration (Mid-Funnel): Building Understanding and Trust – In the consideration phase of marketing, prospects are evaluating solutions and need deeper information. Video helps explain complex B2B products or services in an easily digestible format.
   
   For example, a 2-minute product demo video or an animated explainer can quickly communicate what might take a 1,000-word whitepaper to convey. 

For example, when Energy Products Distribution talks about their pattern software online – they go beyond simply explaining the technology in text. They show how it works—like in the video below.

This superior recall is crucial in B2B, where multiple stakeholders and technical details are involved. Video ensures your key points stick. Also, seeing and hearing a real person (in a webinar, interview, or case study video) builds trust and humanizes your brand. 

By the end of consideration, the buyer not only understands your solution better, they remember it better and feel more confident in it than if they had only read through documents. A majority of them may be skimming anyway. It’s already been studied that a majority of users are skimming AI overviews, and that’s before they even end up on your website.

3. Decision (Bottom-of-Funnel): Driving Action and Confidence – In the final decision stage, the buyer is deciding whom to give their business to. Video can tip the scales by reducing any lingering friction. Think customer testimonial videos where a satisfied client shares their success story, or a personalized video message from a sales rep addressing the prospect’s specific needs. Seeing real-world proof and authenticity on screen can alleviate doubts in a way that text testimonials might not. 

Video also conveys enthusiasm and tone, which sets the stage to build excitement around working with your company. All of this helps push the viewer from consideration to conversion. 

When it’s decision time, a well-placed video (on a proposal page, in a follow-up email, or as a product tour) can be the final nudge that drives the deal home.

Why is video so effective across all these stages? It’s simply more memorable. 

B2B buyers are people, and people are wired to respond to storytelling, visuals, and human connection. Video delivers on all of these. It can educate and entertain at the same time, keeping busy professionals interested. 

Text certainly can inform, but it’s often passive – whereas video guides the viewer through a narrative. By engaging multiple senses, video creates a stronger impression at every step of the journey. It accelerates the trust-building process in B2B relationships by putting a face or voice to the brand, and it simplifies complex ideas through visuals and demonstrations. All these factors lead to higher conversion potential, from the first touchpoint to the final sale.

Why Text Content Still Matters (and How to Pair It with Video)

With all this praise for video, you might be wondering: Is written content still relevant? Absolutely! 

Text content remains a foundation of B2B marketing – but its role is evolving. Rather than an “either/or” scenario, think “both/and.” The best strategy is to use text and video together, playing to the strengths of each.

Here are a few reasons text is still important, and how it complements video:

• SEO and Findability
  Search engines still rely on text (and keywords) to understand what your pages and videos are about. While video can boost your rankings, it usually needs text support in the form of titles, descriptions, transcripts, and subtitles. A blog post or webpage that includes an embedded video along with a textual summary or transcript can perform best of all – the video engages users, and the text ensures the content is indexed properly for relevant searches. Informative text and engaging video make the B2B interactions that much more helpful and interesting.
  
• Depth of Information
  B2B buyers often require detailed information that might be cumbersome in video form (for example, technical specifications, pricing breakdowns, or implementation guides). Text content like whitepapers, e-books, and detailed blog posts allow for easy skimming, note-taking, and revisiting specifics. Not everyone will watch a 10-minute video to find one data point – some would rather ctrl+F through a PDF. 

By providing text resources alongside video, you cater to both learning styles. You might hook someone with a video, then provide a downloadable document for them to look over later. In practice, many successful B2B marketers use video to spark interest and convey high-level messaging, then offer text-based content for those who want to dig into the fine print.

• Accessibility and Convenience
  While video is engaging, there are times when text is more accessible. For example, a professional might be in a quiet office or commuting without headphones. Reading an article is much easier than playing a video in those moments. 

Additionally, not all information is best conveyed in video. For example, short updates or quick news blurbs may be faster and more efficient to read in a newsletter. 

By maintaining a mix, you ensure your audience can get information in whatever format suits them at that time. Providing captions or transcripts for videos also serves those who can’t watch or listen at the moment they see your video. Essentially, text ensures no one is left out and that your content can be consumed in various environments.

Text is the scaffold that supports a video-first strategy. You might lead with video content to grab attention, but you’ll want text around it to reinforce the message, improve SEO, and give added detail. Think of your blog posts, product pages, and emails as the canvas, and video as the rich, painted media that brings them to life. This combined approach delivers a better user experience than text or video alone. Just like everything in the B2B space, collaboration and working together will make for the best user experience. 

Implementing a Video-First Strategy: B2B Tips and Tactics by Funnel Stage

If you’re convinced that video deserves a bigger place in your marketing, the next question is: How do you begin implementing a video-first approach, especially if your team is new to video? The good news is you don’t need a Hollywood studio or a massive budget to start seeing results. Here are some tactical recommendations and types of videos to consider, prioritized by stage of the funnel:

• Top-of-Funnel (Awareness) – Start with a Brand Introduction and Educational Clips
  
  A great first video project is a brand overview video. Below is an example from Energy Products Distribution. 

This is a short (1-2 minute) video that introduces who you are, who you help, and the core problem you solve. It’s the kind of video you’d put on your homepage or About Us section. 

Why start here? Because it addresses first-time visitors and gives them a quick way to understand your value. 

In addition to a brand intro, create a few educational micro-videos that speak to common pain points in your industry without being salesy. These could be quick tips, thought leadership insights, or industry myth-busting – content that is highly shareable on social media and can attract attention. Keep them short and optimize for easy viewing (big captions, clear graphics) since many will watch on social feeds. 

The goal at this stage is to generate awareness and interest, so focus on content that’s genuinely helpful or intriguing to your target audience.

• Mid-Funnel (Consideration) – Product Demos, Explainers, and Webinars
  
  As leads move into consideration, they’re hungry for information about how your solution works and why it’s better. This is where product demo videos and explainer videos come in. A product demo can be as simple as a screen recording with voiceover (for software) or a live-action demonstration (for a physical product), walking through key features and benefits.  

Aim to highlight use cases that matter to your B2B buyers – essentially show them what they’d otherwise have to read in a manual or datasheet. Explainer videos, often animated, are great for breaking down complex services or processes into a digestible story or analogy. 

Additionally, webinars or longer-form videos become valuable at this stage. A 20-30 minute webinar (recorded live or even pre-recorded) allows you to go in-depth on a topic, and viewers who stick with a webinar are usually high-quality leads. You can also repurpose webinar recordings into an on-demand video series, extracting shorter clips for those who won’t watch the full session. The key in mid-funnel is to educate and build credibility. Videos here should address common questions, comparisons, and objections. 

Our friends at AirOps did exactly that when they repurposed a long webinar into a key piece of explainer content that breaks down how their product optimizes down to the sentence level. Not only does this video explain a somewhat complex topic quickly, Steve is showing how knowledgeable the company is — therefore instilling trust when this video was shown to the Xponent21 team. 

• Bottom-of-Funnel (Decision) – Testimonial and Personalized Videos
  
  At the decision stage, trust and reassurance are the name of the game. Two of the most effective types of videos here are customer testimonial videos and personalized sales videos. Testimonial videos feature real clients speaking to the results they achieved or the positive experience they had with your company. This type of social proof is gold for convincing late-stage prospects – it’s one thing to read a quote on a case study, but another to see a fellow professional enthusiastically endorsing your solution on camera. Even a few short testimonial clips embedded on your case study pages or proposals can make a measurable difference. 

Personalized videos are also an emerging tactic: your sales reps can record quick, tailored video messages for specific accounts or prospects (we use Loom). 

For example, after a demo, a rep might send a follow-up “thank you” video to the decision-maker, recapping how your solution fits their needs. This personal touch helps humanize the sales process and keeps your company top-of-mind. It’s often more memorable than yet another follow-up email. 

You might also consider how-to or onboarding videos for prospects who are at the final evaluation stage. For instance, a short video titled “What to Expect in Your First 30 Days as a Customer” can alleviate hesitations by showing exactly how you’ll support them post-purchase. 

Overall, at bottom-of-funnel, your videos should aim to reduce any remaining uncertainty and reinforce that choosing you is the right decision. If done well, they will send prospects over the finish line.

A few additional tips as you roll out these video tactics: 

• Don’t be discouraged if your early videos aren’t blockbuster quality. Even seasoned creators admit their first videos were far from perfect​. What matters is consistency and authenticity. 
• Each video you publish will teach you something and improve your skills. 
• Remember to repurpose your video content widely. One video can fuel multiple channels. For example, a single webinar can be chopped into a dozen short clips for social posts, a blog summary (with embedded video) for your site, and snippets for an email newsletter. This way, you squeeze maximum value from your investment. 
• Don’t forget to track performance: views, engagement, and especially conversions (e.g. how many leads did that product demo video generate?). Use those insights to refine your topics and formats over time. 

With these steps, you’ll gradually build a robust library of video content that serves your buyers at every stage.

The Video-First Future: How AI and Search Engines Are Prioritizing Video

One reason video content is becoming a must-have in B2B marketing is because technology is shifting in that direction. Search engines and AI are increasingly favoring video content when connecting users with information. Here’s what’s happening and why it matters:

• Search Algorithms Love Video
  Google’s algorithm has evolved to mix in video results wherever appropriate. You’ve probably noticed Google often shows a row of video suggestions or even directly plays a snippet of a YouTube video in the search results for queries like “how to do ___” or “___ explained.”  This creates a big boost in SEO strategy.

YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine in its own right – a huge audience might find you via YouTube search before ever hitting Google. By creating video content, you gain access to this additional search ecosystem.

Social algorithms on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram also favor video posts, often giving them more reach​. All of this points to a “video-first” approach in content distribution: those who incorporate video are being rewarded with more exposure.

• Rise of No-Click Searches and AI Answers
  A recent analysis found that up to 60% of Google searches now result in no click to a website. This is due to featured snippets, instant answers, and AI-driven results that give people the info they need without needing to click through. 

While that might sound alarming for web traffic, it’s also an opportunity. How do you get your brand in front of those searchers who aren’t clicking links? One way is through the content that is shown directly on the results page – and video is increasingly part of that. 

For example, Google might show a portion of a how-to video (with a link to YouTube) as the answer, or an AI summary (like in new search engine AI features or tools like Bing Chat) might cite a video it found informative. By having video content that succinctly answers common questions, you increase the odds that your video is the one displayed in those no-click results, thus capturing the viewer’s attention even if they don’t visit your site.

• AI’s Next Frontier – Consuming Video Content
  Speaking of AI, consider how tools like ChatGPT, voice assistants, or future AI search engines get their knowledge. They’ve historically been trained on written text from the web. But now, AI is starting to incorporate other media. The “next frontier” is AI systems consuming video and audio content (through transcription and image recognition). We’re already seeing early signs of this: AI-powered search can transcribe YouTube videos and use that data to answer user queries. 

What does this mean for B2B marketing? It means your video content could be doing double duty – not only appealing to human viewers, but also informing AI algorithms that recommend your content to more humans. If you produce informative videos, an AI answer engine might quote or reference your video when someone asks a related question.

Video content is becoming machine-readable and machine-recommendable, not just a passive media format. Ensuring your videos have clear, spoken content (and maybe providing transcripts) will help AI accurately index them. 

Search and AI trends are stacking the deck in favor of video creators. By adopting a video-first mindset now, you’re positioning your company to ride these waves instead of trying to catch up later. Your content will be more likely to surface in the ways buyers are discovering information in 2025 and beyond. From Google’s SERPs to AI chat assistants, video is fast becoming a preferred answer format. 

Smart B2B marketers are seizing this moment to get ahead of competitors – those still relying on text-only strategies may find themselves losing visibility as these changes take hold.

Embrace Video to Boost Conversions (Let’s Strategize!)

There is no doubt that video is a conversion driver in B2B marketing, outpacing text in capturing attention, imparting information, and persuading prospects to take action. Throughout the buyer’s journey – from creating initial awareness to sealing the deal – video content can elevate your strategy and deliver better results. 

That doesn’t mean abandoning written content, but it does mean rethinking your content mix to put video front and center, supported by text. By doing so, you cater to how modern B2B buyers prefer to learn and engage, and you leverage the fact that platforms (from LinkedIn feeds to Google search to AI tools) are prioritizing video content.

Getting started with video may feel daunting, but with the tactical tips outlined above, you can begin in a manageable way: create a core brand video, answer a few FAQs on camera, repurpose a webinar, or film a customer testimonial. The key is to start – and to stay consistent. Over time, you’ll build a rich library of video assets that keep working for you: attracting prospects, educating them, and nudging them toward conversion.

Now, are you ready to win the conversion game with a video-first approach? Xponent21 is here to help. Schedule a free consultation with our team to map out a video-first strategy tailored to your B2B business. 

We’ll assess your buyer’s journey and content needs, and share a roadmap for integrating video at each stage to maximize engagement and ROI. Don’t let your message get buried in a wall of text – bring it to life with video content that captures attention and drives real results for your organization. 

Book your consultation today, and let’s launch your video-driven conversion strategy!