Discover data-backed tips to get ahead of competitors with video marketing. Learn expert-recommended video marketing strategy to rank on top search positions, increase engagement, and drive more views. Gain insights on how Augmented Reality (AR), AI-driven personalization, shoppable videos, and more will boost your brand’s video marketing ROI.
Videos have evolved to become the pillars of digital marketing given that 91% of businesses now use video as a marketing tool.
If you aren’t part of that league, you’re missing out. And if you’re already using videos as a marketing tool, you need data-backed strategies to maximize your video ROI.
However, not every video marketing strategy is effective. Besides, strategies that worked for your brand five years ago won’t achieve much results today due to changes in audience preferences and technology.
Hence, to determine what video marketing strategies are result-oriented and fit for the present, Adilo, an online video hosting platform, invested a great deal of time, efforts, and resources into original video SEO research and studies, likewise, interviewing industry video experts to get their strategies and predictions for 2025.
These rigorous data processes birthed the ultimate video marketing strategy that can boost your search visibility, increase engagement, and drive more views amongst other benefits.
Keep reading to discover what we found.
Table of Contents
How We Came About This Video Marketing Strategy
To ensure these video marketing strategies are effective, Adilo’s research team invested months in experiments, digging data, and interviewing industry experts.
To begin, we studied 70 top eCommerce brands that cut across different categories, including clothing, health, skincare, sports, fitness, and online marketplace. And with revenue between $1 million and $100 billion.
From these brands, our research team analyzed:
- 49,232 YouTube videos
- Over 9.9 billion YouTube video views, and
- 21.8 million YouTube subscribers.
Next, we carried out an intensive YouTube SEO study. Here, we studied over 1.6 million YouTube videos. The research team analyzed 300 videos ranking in the top 3 search results for highly competitive, non-local keywords in 10 categories.
Our SEO study was featured in the Search Engine Journal and recommended for its data-backed effective strategies.
Additionally, we went further to speak with more than 20 video experts, founders, CEOs, marketing managers, PR specialists, and digital strategists to get their video marketing predictions for 2025.
These expert-recommended video marketing strategies have proven effective through their years of experiments in the industry.
So, the video marketing strategies you will be learning shortly aren’t based on assumptions or half-baked but built on data-backed experiments, studies, and research.
13 Video Marketing Strategies That Can Help You Win In 2025
Let’s begin:
1. Invest in Market Research
Market research is a vital stage before any video marketing strategy is implemented.
Why?
This initial stage serves as a map that guides you on what needs to be done. Data-backed strategies without market research are synonymous with shooting in the dark.
Invest in market research and gain insight into what’s trending in your niche, your competitors’ loopholes, and what your target audience currently needs.
Your market research should include:
Research Your Target Audience
For every video, there is a target audience.
So, how do you create unique video content when you don’t know your target audience?
Hence, you need to know the category of persons that need your content; B2B, entrepreneurs, students, parents, Gen Z, etc. Next, you must analyze their preferences, pain points, most frequent platforms, locations, and more.
To achieve this, utilize Google Analytics, and social media analytics to see what videos your audience interacts with the most.
Also, you could conduct surveys and polls to gather direct insights about your target audience.
Research Your Video Content
Your video content is as essential as its target audience.
Leverage the knowledge of your audience preferences to search out keywords that are trending in your niche. Afterward, research about the topic in depth to offer a comprehensive solution to your audience’s needs through your video.
Videos that rank on search engines are first user-oriented before search engine optimized. Hence, whatever video you put out there must be unique, valuable, and solve your target audience’s needs.
In addition, we recommend you create videos with keywords with high volume and low competition. It is easier to dominate with these types of keywords. Also, Google keyword planner can be utilized to discover potential keywords.
2. Optimize for Short-Form and Vertical Videos
Short-form and vertical videos will lead video format this year.
With the shrink in attention span, platforms like TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts now prioritize short-form and vertical videos as they’re perfect for mobile viewing where most of their audience stream content.
This proves to be true as Imran Khan from Brand Ignite, a Singapore-registered full-service digital agency with over 17 years of experience says;
“Short-form videos will lead viewer engagement, while live streaming and interactive content will enhance real-time interaction.”
In addition, our YouTube SEO studies found that the median video length for the top three ranking YouTube videos is 536 seconds—8 to 9 minutes long.
So, if you aim to rank on search engines, keep your video length below 10 minutes.
3. Embrace Augmented Reality (AR)
Augmented Reality (AR) has transformed digital marketing, including video marketing.
With this technology, consumers can interact with digital elements in real-world settings such as how a shoe fits virtually before a purchase.
Let’s face it, AR brings brands, products, or services to life. It also boosts the immersive experience and connects emotionally with your audience, leading to repeated purchases.
In 2025, brands integrating AR into their video marketing strategies will have a competitive edge.
In addition, Mushfiq Sarker, a marketing strategist at LaGrande Marketing, with over 15 years of experience, predicts that AR is set to dominate this year.
“Consumers are more likely to remember and act on videos that let them interact with the product or experience it as real. In 2025, AR will move from being a novelty to an expected feature in video marketing, and the brands that embrace it early will have the advantage.”
4. Create High-Quality Content
Quality over quantity will win this year as consumers only stick to quality.
High-quality videos are non-negotiable if you aim to dominate search results this year. These are high-retention video content that are unique, and valuable with professional editing.
Engaging content keeps viewers interested, which increases watch time and engagement, key search engine ranking metrics.
To create quality content, weave your products and services into a storyline, and use more visually appealing graphics to attract and maintain audience interest.
In addition, ensure high video production quality; clear audio, lighting, HD videos, and professional editing.
Our YouTube SEO study results indicate that high-quality videos are prevalent among top-ranking YouTube videos, with 90% of the top three results being either HD or 4K.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
- 4K – 22 percent
- HD – 68 percent
- Other resolutions (240p, 360p, 480p, and 720p) – 10 percent.
5. Integrate AI-Driven Personalization
Consumers are drawn to personalized videos because they can relate to the storyline.
This means, a one-size-fits-all video marketing approach will fade away this year, as AI-driven personalization takes center stage.
While humanized content should be prioritized, your brand can leverage AI tools to expand reach quickly. These AI tools analyze user behaviors, and preferences to deliver customized video experiences.
Therefore, you should first create your unique content before you utilize it to generate multiple versions of your videos tailored for different audience segments.
Alexander Weber, a social media expert with 10 years of experience and founder of Axlek Onlin has experimented with this video marketing strategy.
He says, “Vertical video will dominate even more strongly in 2025 but with an important twist: highly personalized AI-generated content variations will become the norm for scaling reach.”
He added that;
“I’ve already seen incredible results by adapting my golf tutorial content into personalized versions for different skill levels and demographics. What used to take my team a full week of editing can now be done in hours, allowing us to create targeted variations that speak directly to specific audience segments.”
6. Leverage Video SEO Techniques
User oriented videos are only half of your video marketing journey. To complete the equation you need to optimize these videos for SEO.
Search engines need to crawl your quality content and make it discoverable by the target audience. Hence, you need to leverage video SEO techniques to increase your video visibility and ranking on search engines.
This strategy is vital as it helps search engines; Google, YouTube, and others understand your content better and match it with search intent.
According to Georgi Todorov, the founder and CEO of Create & Grow, search optimized videos will shine this year.
“Videos with search optimization will prevail. People treat YouTube like Google, hence ranking becomes really important. To increase discoverability, more marketers will concentrate on SEO-friendly names, descriptions, and even AI-generated chapters.”
Here are key video SEO techniques you need to embrace:
Rename Your Video File With Your Target Keyword
Before you upload your video, rename your file with your target keyword. Search engines crawl these texts to understand your content.
Replace the generic video title “video123.mp4” with your target keyword “video-marketing-strategies.mp4.”
Insert Your Keyword Naturally in Your Video Title
Your video title is one of the first things viewers notice about your videos. When crafted appropriately it will increase click-through rates and search ranking.
Unfortunately, our study found that only 6% of the top three-ranking YouTube videos have titles that match the search keywords.
This explains why they’re ranking in top search positions. Hence, to rank, ensure your title contains your keyword at the beginning, so it’s easy to understand and enticing.
However, avoid deceiving viewers with titles that don’t match your content, it will hurt your video SEO performance.
Create Smart Video Description
Your video description is also a key SEO factor for ranking. Here, you provide viewers and search engines with a summary of your video content.
But, don’t overwhelm them with words. instead keep it brief and concise, preferably around 200 words. Our study revealed that 98% of the top three ranking YouTube videos have a video description, and the average word count is 222.
Also, break down your description into shorter paragraphs to enhance readability—Include your target keyword too.
In addition, Include external links. we discovered that 78% of the top three ranking YouTube videos have at least an external link in the description.
Add Captions and Transcriptions
Videos with captions and transcriptions get more views because they’re accessible to a wide range of audiences, Including those who watch without sounds and those with hearing impairment.
Plus, it gives search engines more text to index.
Our YouTube SEO study found closed captions in 93.7% of the top three-ranking YouTube videos. And 94% of the top three results contained transcripts.
Leverage Relevant Hashtags
Hashtags don’t directly increase your search ranking. But, it helps search engines categorize and recommend your video for appropriate search.
Only 36.7% of the top three ranking YouTube videos used hashtags.
This means you should use hashtags wisely and use a combination of broad and specific tags to increase search visibility.
Upload Custom Thumbnails
Thumbnails are visual hooks that spark your audience’s curiosity to learn more about your video. It’s an effective video marketing strategy that increases click-through rates.
We found that 89.3% of the top 3 ranking YouTube videos use customized thumbnails.
That said, don’t rely on auto-generated thumbnails, create your customized thumbnails with your brand logo.
Maximize more human emotional expression on your thumbnails, viewers connect faster to videos that move them emotionally. Don’t forget to include catchy text that describes your video content.
Include Timestamps
Timestamps are chapters that help viewers navigate your content easily.
With timestamp, viewers can navigate to specific video content they’re interested in. This increases watch time and viewer engagement with your video, a key search engine ranking metric.
In addition, our YouTube SEO study found that most YouTube videos about 63% ranking in the top three spots have timestamps. We recommend you include this in your video marketing strategies.
Categorize Your Video
Search engines like YouTube allow you to categorize your videos under relevant topics. This includes fashion, health, entertainment, music and others.
This further enables your videos to appear in related searches and recommendations. Hence, choose the most appropriate category for your video to boost its visibility.
7. Focus on Authenticity and Storytelling
In 2025, authenticity and storytelling will lead to user engagement.
In addition, they would build the credibility of your business. When this happens, viewers will interact with your content and carry out desired actions that signal Google that your content is worth ranking on top searches.
These two video marketing strategies help brands humanize their content, a quick way to connect with a viewer’s emotion.
In the coming months, consumers will become bored of AI-generated content and crave the content they can relate to. This is your brand’s chance to dominate search results by leveraging authenticity and storytelling.
Oliver Gaywood the marketing manager at Dealify, an Australian-licensed finance broker has seen this change already in his brand’s video marketing results.
He says, “People will become bored of videos created by AI, or that they suspect are created with AI. I’m seeing this in my networks already and it’s only going to grow.”
Gaywood says that people connect better with other people than with AI versions of people. As online activities become more suspicious and doubtful, people will want to see a real person at the forefront of videos, even if it’s just a quick appearance at the beginning.
So, instead of just persuading viewers with product features using AI elements, share real-life user experiences with these products and how it will help change their everyday life—it convinces viewers to consider your brand faster.
8. Utilize Behind-the-Scenes Videos
Consumers want to be part of a brand’s journey and appreciate brands showing their human side.
Behind-the-scenes videos offer real, unfiltered insights into your brand which makes consumers relate more to your brand’s vision. This video marketing strategy will lead this year in how brands build transparency and trust.
According to Aaron Henry, the founder and managing director at Foundeast Asia, a Bangkok-based international marketing and public relations agency, behind-the-scenes videos create authentic experiences.
“Brands are leveraging employee-generated content to provide behind-the-scenes insights and authentic experiences, fostering deeper connections with audiences.”
Hence, let consumers see the efforts you and your team put into delivering quality products and services. This includes the production process, a day in the life of your team or the challenges behind a new product launch.
9. Choose a Reliable Video Hosting Platform
Your video hosting platform influences your video visibility and discoverability on search engines.
A reliable video hosting platform partners with you to achieve your targeted video marketing goal; increase visibility, engagement, sales, credibility, etc.
The right video hosting solution offers you access to advanced video options such as storage, customization, analytics, and distribution medium.
Also, check for video hosting platforms that enhance your audience engagement, are scalable with traffic growth, and optimize your content for search engines.
Our top recommended video hosting platforms include:
- Adilo: Unlimited video hosting for ultra HD videos
- Vimeo: An AI-powered video hosting platform
- Vidyard: Great for marketing and sales video
- YouTube: Budget-friendly video hosting service for a wide reach
- Facebook: Free video hosting service
- Tiktok: Free video hosting service for short videos
- SproutVideo: Live and on-demand video hosting for businesses
- Brightcove: Great for gathering a large audience
10. Grow Your Video and Channel Engagement
Image Credit: Social Status
To dominate search engines in 2025, you need more than high video views—it’s about interaction.
The more likes, comments, shares, and watch time your video gets, the better it performs in the algorithm, which makes your brand more discoverable.
Audiences only engage with videos and channels with value and solutions to their problems. When this happens, it signals the search engine of the credibility of your video and channel.
To begin, craft attention-grabbing hooks that draw viewers at first sight. Include a touch of humor and shocking facts to your storytelling to sustain their interest throughout your entire video.
Also, we found that YouTube videos that rank in the top three search positions have a significantly higher average engagement rate of 2.65% compared to the 0.09% average engagement rate for YouTube videos across all industries.
To dominate search results this year, employ strategic steps to grow your business engagement:
- Ask open-ended questions to encourage comments
- Reply to every comment to create an active discussion
- Use community posts and polls to interact with subscribers
- Encourage likes, shares, and subscriptions with clear CTAs
- Feature Q&A sessions and live streams to encourage participation
- Utilize User-Generated Content (UGC)
11. Integrate Video QR code
Video QR codes will significantly impact video marketing strategies this year. They make it easy for consumers to access videos seamlessly.
So, don’t overwhelm your audience with lengthy URLs or complex instructions. Instead, use QR code to enable a quick scan. Integrate your brand’s QR codes on packaging, flyers, business cards, and even in-store displays.
This approach drives traffic directly to your video and channel.
However, to ensure a quick scan by consumers, include a compelling Call-To-Action (CTA) along with your QR scan. This includes a scan to access exclusive tips, or watch this video for a special discount.
ProfileTree found that QR code scans increased by 57% in 2022–2023. And this figure has been on the rise since then.
In addition, Robert Weiss, the President of MultiVision Digital and a video expert with over 1,600 successful videos under his belt, predicts video QR code adoption will explode in 2025.
“Video marketing gives the best user experience with QR code scans and gives the ability to maximize an ROI for advertising, product launches, social media, traditional direct mail advertising, and more.”
12. Create More Shoppable Videos
Image Credit: Promo.Com
Shoppable videos ease consumer purchase journey. These videos allow consumers to purchase products directly via the video.
These videos contain clickable hotspots, branching videos, and links that viewers can use to access various products and make a purchase.
This way, they don’t have to exit the video or copy and paste any URLs into their search engine to access a brand’s products.
This video marketing strategy makes consumers own their shopping experiences. It convinces viewers to make a purchase instantly, likewise, it boosts audience interaction with your video, which would increase your brand’s SEO performance.
Since shoppable videos increase conversion rate by up to 70% compared to non-interactive content, expect to see more of these video types, don’t get left behind!
Daniel Vasilevski, the director and founder of Bright Force Electrical, believes this and predicted that shoppable videos will be huge in 2025.
“When someone watches a video showcasing a product, they can immediately click on an integrated link to buy it without leaving the app. This works because it eliminates extra steps, like going to a profile’s bio, clicking a link, and then completing a registration process.”
13. Repurpose Content Across Social Media Platforms
There isn’t any one-size-fits-all video that suits all social media platforms alike.
But, creating different quality videos for all these platforms takes time and effort.
That’s when you must repurpose your video content to suit social media platforms. So, instead of producing new content for every channel, businesses can tailor one video to fit various platforms, which saves time, and effort and expands brand visibility and reach.
Moreover, it helps you convert a single piece of content into multiple formats including GIFs, blog posts, infographics, or podcast snippets.
With this video marketing approach, a long-form YouTube video can be trimmed into bite-sized clips for TikTok, Instagram reels, and Facebook stories.
Most importantly, before you upload content on any platform be sure to consider each platform’s content format, aspect ratio, resolution, and video lengths.
Powering Your Video Strategies With Adilo
Adilo, a top-notch video hosting platform can help power your brand’s video marketing strategies by providing robust hosting and branding solutions.
To begin, invest in video SEO with Adilo which offers turnkey solutions.
This platform allows businesses to enable SEO indexing with just one click. This uploads your videos to Adilo’s authority content map; a high-priority sitemap submitted to search engines leading to fast video indexing.
Applying video marketing strategies is much easier as Adilo automatically transcribes videos and integrates them into video sitemaps and schema markups.
Also, this platform enhances your video searchability by creating video chapters or key moments that allow search engines to index specific parts of the video.
By hosting videos with Adilo, you can optimize your website with JSON-LD data. All these make your business visible to a broad audience and rank in top search positions.
What’s more?
- Adilo’s analytics offers insights into viewer engagement. You can use its heatmaps to refine strategies and track ROI on your video marketing strategies.
- When you sign up with Adilo video hosting, you have access to cutting-edge video QR code embed capabilities that boost your viewer’s engagement.
- You can leverage tools like playlists and in-video call-to-actions to engage viewers and generate leads.
- Advanced features such as HD streaming, and adaptive delivery ensure smooth creation, editing, and sharing of video.
- It provides you with security features like DRM encryption, passwords, geo-blocking, IP licensing, and dynamic watermarking to help keep your videos secure.
FAQs
How can I increase engagement on my video content?
To grow engagement, focus on storytelling, and create interactive content like polls, Q&A, and live videos. Also, hook your audience in the first few seconds, and use captions and transcription to encourage interaction from non-native speakers. Responding to comments and creating community-driven videos also help boost engagement.
How can I optimize video titles for better rankings?
Use relevant keywords, keep titles concise (60 characters or less), and make them engaging. Also, add modifiers like “best,” “how to,” or location-specific terms.
What video formats work best for different platforms?
Each platform has unique preferences:
- YouTube: Long-form tutorials, product reviews, vlogs
- Instagram Reels & TikTok: Short-form videos, trends, challenges
- Facebook: Live stream, storytelling videos
- LinkedIn: Thought leadership videos, industry insights
- Pinterest & Twitter (X): Short, visually appealing snippets with CTA links
What should be included in my video description?
Your video description should include relevant keywords, a summary of the video, timestamps, CTA’s, and links to your website or social media to improve SEO and engagement.
What are the biggest video marketing trends for 2025?
Emerging trends include Augmented Reality (AR), AI-driven personalization, shoppable videos, and the rise in behind-scene videos.
Final Thoughts on the Ultimate Video Marketing Strategy
Simply uploading videos on search engines isn’t sufficient for your brand to rank in top search positions in 2025.
So, you only break through the competitive digital space by applying the video marketing strategies recommended by experts.
However, you don’t have to doubt if these strategies will work for your business. They’ve been proof-checked by these experts and will boost any business visibility, engagement, sales, and overall SEO performance.
All you need to do is simply analyze your business’s current video marketing journey, and carry out intensive market research to know which video marketing strategies your brand needs at the moment.
These processes can be overwhelming, especially for small businesses and brands. That’s why we recommend the Adilo video hosting solution which will enable the seamless implementation of these strategies and help scale up through advanced analytics.
Author
Experience: Happiness Hassan is an SEO content writer and strategist with over 7 years of experience helping brands boost visibility, engagement, and sales.
Expertise: Whether it's keyword research, crafting content, or fine-tuning on-page and off-page strategies, I’ve got you covered. My goal is beyond driving traffic but making your users experience a win-win for everyone!
On the coaching side, I’ve trained countless writers to turn their passion into profitable SEO careers. I help them navigate the SEO path, standing out in even the toughest niches and cashing in on their skills.
When I’m not geeking out over SEO, you’ll find me deep in the world of self-development. As a dedicated student of continuous growth, I write about my growth journey, sharing insights to help others unlock their potential.
Education: Complementing my BSc. Geography and Environmental Management from the prestigious Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, I have honed my skills as an SEO content writer and strategist through comprehensive training at Northpad, where I gained expertise in crafting optimized content to boost search engine visibility. As a certified student of Jobberman Soft Skills Training, I developed strong communication and problem-solving skills, which complement my SEO proficiency.
My dedication to continuous personal learning and online training keeps me updated with the latest industry trends, enabling me to create content that aligns with the ever-evolving demands of search engines and user experiences. I stay connected with top experts to ensure my strategies remain current and effective.
Felix is the Senior Content Editor and Strategist at Adilo, where he harnesses his expertise in social video marketing, online video platforms, video editing, e-commerce, e-learning, and marketing to to help businesses drive results. With a keen eye for storytelling and a pulse on industry trends, Felix crafts actionable content that empowers brands to elevate their video marketing strategies and thrive in the digital landscape.
