If you’re like most financial marketing managers, you know that video is not only popular among consumers, but can support engagement, audience education, showcase brand personality and much more. It’s a great way to modernize your marketing and generate valuable ROI.
Knowing that is one thing, but it can be challenging to determine how video content makes sense within your bank or credit union’s overall marketing strategy and budget.
With the right information, planning and approach, however, financial marketers will realize that there are several ways their institutions can, and should, be using video on their website and digital marketing channels. Before discussing some of the best use cases, let’s tick off some specifics of what video brings to marketing.
Key Benefits of Using Video and Animation
While video production requires resources to produce, there is substantial justification for including video in your marketing mix. Here are the five most important benefits:
Preference: Consumers don’t want to read, which is why so many brands and businesses are focused on creating easily digestible content, including videos and animated gifs.
Engagement rates: Social media data confirms that posts with any form of video or animation generate higher on-platform engagement rates than static posts. Every time.
“Including a video on a campaign landing page can boost your conversion rate by up to 80%.”
Improve online visibility: Video content on your website supports search engine rankings. In fact, websites that include video are 53 times more likely to show up on the first page of Google, according to Insivia, and receive 157% more organic search traffic.
Increase conversion rates: Allowing marketers to communicate offer details, features and benefits in a visually engaging way, video can help increase the chances of conversion. According to Unbounce, including a video on a campaign landing page can boost your conversion rate by up to 80%.
Increase email click rates: Adding video to your emails can increase click rates by 300%, according to HubSpot, helping distribute your marketing messages in a more captivating manner and improving business results.
Now that we’ve got your attention with what video and animation can do, lets review some of the logical applications within financial institutions.
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Primary Video Use Cases for Financial Institutions
Video can help banks and credit unions clearly communicate important messages to target audiences. Providing valuable content for the website, social media and more, videos can be reused for a variety of purposes to support different initiatives. Here are six of the most important use cases.
1. Product and service demos. 97% of marketers say video has helped users gain a better understanding of their products and services, HubSpot has found. Within banking there are significant opportunities to make financial products and services appear less overwhelming through video, such as online and mobile banking services. Videos can help banks and credit unions show consumers how to download an app and locate important information within it, or how to perform specific transactions. This is particularly helpful for encouraging usage among older generations who haven’t grown up using technology the way Millennials and Gen Z have. This may also cut down on customer service calls for commonly asked questions regarding setup and usage.
2. Financial education. Improving financial well being is quickly becoming a must-have capability for financial institutions. It’s especially valued by Millennials. For this reason, many banks and credit unions are incorporating financial literacy into their websites and marketing strategies.
“Let’s face it, people don’t always want to read.”
The challenge is producing engaging, digestible content, because let’s face it, people don’t always want to read. Videos are an effective way to deliver valuable information that resonates with different audiences, making it easy for them to understand important yet complex financial topics, from home buying to saving for retirement. You can even provide supplemental written notes for audiences to save and keep for future reference.
3. Branding and story telling. Every brand has a story made up of its history, values and mission. Banks and credit unions can use video to visually highlight who they are, their personality, and their commitment to their people and vision. Using video to craft a distinct identity for your financial institution can help differentiate you from competitors.
4. Meet the team. Aside from your brand and its unique promise, your employees are one of the biggest differentiators you have. They are the faces your customers see when they walk into the lobby, the people who answer the phones and handle live chat in your contact center. By using video, you can highlight your employees in a much more engaging way than simple head shots and text blurbs. From their professional experience to their personal lives, let customers get to know them through video. It will reinforce meaningful connections that lead to lasting relationships.
5. Testimonials and service. Sharing feedback is essential to illustrate your commitment to customer satisfaction and validate your mission. Serving as social proof, financial institutions can use video to showcase real-life examples of how their solutions have helped people. From short clips to more in-depth success stories, video can offer a more immersive insight into someone’s experience with the financial institution.
6. Product positioning. Many consumers don’t actually understand how certain financial solutions can support their lifestyle, life stage or goals. Video can help illustrate more vividly how a bank or credit union’s products and services can match a life stage or need — from getting married to having a baby to affording a college education. Capturing authentic expression that provokes audience emotion can help consumers identify with what your financial institution is offering and imagine how it might enhance the quality of their own life. In this way video can help make products relevant as opposed to product pushing, increasing engagement and adoption.
Video Marketing Tips for Financial Institutions
Just having a video in your marketing mix won’t magically produce the kind of results described earlier. Like other tactics, there are key do’s and don’ts that are important to know when you’re in the planning phase. Here are the most important.
Limit the length. People don’t have long attention spans online, so keep your videos succinct. The ideal length of your video will depend on what its purpose is and where it will be shared. Someone on YouTube might be happy to watch something for four minutes, whereas someone on Instagram might not stick around for even 30 seconds. “Explainer” videos can be longer but generally no more than 60-90 seconds, whereas videos in an email should be under a minute.
Include closed captions. 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound, while 40% of Instagram Stories are watched with the sound off. Using closed captions in your videos allows viewers to follow along even without the volume and also helps your videos meet ADA guidelines.
Use quality graphics. An out-of-focus video that looks like it was filmed on an old cell phone can actually have an adverse effect, making your brand appear dated and unprofessional. If you decide to commit to video as part of your marketing mix, don’t compromise on the quality of video production just to stay within your budget. There are other ways you can incorporate moving visuals into your marketing mix without spending big, as discussed next.
Explore budget-friendly formats. Developing videos and animations requires more time, effort and resources than some other marketing tactics, yet there are some efficient and effective ways to incorporate video into your digital strategies without breaking the bank. Here are two:
Animated GIFs – Most of us know GIFs as the funny graphics you tag your friends in on social media or text to them. But, if a GIF is aligned with your brand messaging, you can use this short video format to share valuable content in a way that will engage your audience.
Slideshows – If you don’t have the know-how or resources to develop custom videos, Facebook gives users the option to create a slideshow, which strings together up to ten individual static images to build an experience that mimics animation.