Small Business Owners Could Be Saving Over $5k

With tight marketing budgets in 2024, iStock has revealed the average cost saving of editing a one‑minute video with stock footage compared to creating and editing the same video from scratch.

Marketing budgets have not yet recovered to pre-Covid levels, meaning business owners and entrepreneurs across the country are having to make difficult decisions on where the budget is best spent. 

To support businesses of all sizes in creating powerful marketing content, iStock carried out research to reveal how marketers can save an average of $5,015 on their video marketing.

The survey asked entrepreneurs to share their marketing strategy plans in 2024 and after finding out that over half of business owners (59%) are planning to create video content for their business, yet less than 2% were able to correctly estimate the cost of a one-minute video, we wanted to share how you can create the same marketing impact for your business, for less.

Why You Should Create Video Marketing Content For Your Business

But what are the benefits of creating and sharing video content for your small business? Here’s what business owners highlighted as their top five main motivations for creating video content.

1. Increases revenue (58%)
2. Builds brand image (54%)
3. Improves website traffic (51%)
4. Influences customer’s buying decisions (50%)
5. Increases brand awareness (48%)

The top motivations make sense – video‑based marketing content provides impressive reach for businesses and holds potential customers’ attention with viewers retaining 95%1 of a message when watching in video. Video content also generates 1,200%2 more shares than text and image combined, but it can be costly.

How You Can Save Over $5k On Your Video Marketing Strategy

With almost 60% of business owners citing a lack of resources, including budget, people, and time, as their top marketing struggle going into 2024, we pinpointed our research to tackle this top concern with a significant cost-saving video marketing production switch. 

Taking into consideration the production elements involved in creating a one-minute marketing video, including the script development, actors, music, crew, and editing costs, we revealed the potential cost savings below.

Editing with stock video

Filming and editing from scratch

Not only does utilizing stock footage allow small business owners to save when it comes to the creation of captivating marketing content, but it also aids in disrupting the remaining top marketing struggles identified in the study.

1. Lack of resources ‑ budget/people/time (58%)
2. Increasing visibility and generating quality leads (35%)
3. Producing and delivering content (34%)
4. Keeping up with trends and technology (32%)
5. Consistent execution of marketing activities (28%)

Finding out what type of marketing content performs for your business is a test-and-learn process. By incorporating stock video footage into your marketing activity you can test and learn at a quicker rate, allowing you to produce more content, remain consistent in your messaging, and be reactive to current trends.

Some entrepreneurs are looking at alternative avenues for the creation of video marketing content, with over a quarter (26%) of business owners reporting that they are considering hiring an in‑house content creator for their business.

If you’re wondering if this could be an option for your business, check out which industries are looking to the creator economy to support the creation of video marketing content:

1. Finance/Economics (42%)
2. Tech (34%)
3. Health (32%)
4. Entertainment (31%)
5. Digital Marketing (28%)

Why You Should Use Stock Video To Market Your Business

Incorporating stock video footage into your marketing strategy is a cost effective way to create memorable content for your audience, and you can be rest assured that it’s commercially safe to use too.

With over 185 million assets, iStock is the original resource for premium, royalty‑free stock imagery, video, and audio sourced from the crowd, with a network of over 413,000 contributors worldwide (including non‑exclusive and exclusive). With such a vast array of assets to choose from, you can produce powerful marketing content for your business to suit every occasion.

1 https://biteable.com/blog/video-marketing-statistics/ 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matthew O’Such, VP SEO & Digital Marketing at Getty Images & iStockPhoto

As Vice President of Digital Marketing and SEO, Matthew O’Such is responsible for overseeing and designing the brand’s SEO and digital marketing strategies globally for Getty Images and iStock.
In this role, Matthew leads tactical planning and execution to deliver growth through organic search, as well as guides audience development and traffic growth through both technical and non-technical opportunities. As a data-driven leader, Matthew leverages analytics and data to drive new market expansion globally and to prioritize SEO projects within the product roadmap to improve the overall state of the company’s websites.

With over 20 years of experience, Matthew has developed marketing solutions, lead customer engagement, as well as drove growth and innovation for both agency and in-house large enterprise brands, including WeWork, Ziff Davis, and Razorfish. While working on the agency side, Matthew led teams and SEO strategy for multiple brands, such as American Express, Marriott International, Patron, Smart Car, as well as many pharmaceutical companies.

In 2016, Matthew was selected for the Publicis90 Award for his innovative research and planning of a new technology for presentation streaming software, SnapDeck.