iStock Blog Best Practices Video Business Marketing in 2024: Here’s How Much You Could Save With Stock Video

Marketing budgets have taken a dip in recent years and have not yet recovered to pre‑Covid levels ‑ so where is a tight marketing budget best spent to generate revenue for your business and what are business owners flagging as their main areas of concern in 2024?

To support businesses of all sizes in creating powerful marketing content, iStock has revealed the average cost saving of editing a one‑minute video with stock footage compared to planning, filming, and editing the same video from scratch.

iStock also surveyed over 500 business owners to uncover their top marketing struggles ‑ and how many have considered hiring an in‑house content creator to level up their marketing strategy.

• Over half of business owners (59%) are planning to create video content for their business in 2024
• You could save an average of $5,015 by producing a one‑minute marketing video using stock footage versus making it from scratch
• 26% of business owners want to hire an in‑house content creator
• Business owners revealed their top marketing struggle is lack of resources

With the new year upon us, business marketing plans are being finalized, taking into account key learnings over the last 12 months, but what marketing struggles are concerning business owners as we head into 2024?

Find out the top 5 biggest marketing challenges for small business owners in the US below, according to iStock’s research.

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%)

With marketing budgets being squeezed it’s not surprising to see a lack of resources standing out as the top marketing concern for business owners. However, this means that entrepreneurs are looking for smart switches to generate marketing content that creates noise while keeping costs as low as possible ‑ and here’s where stock video can help!

According to the iStock survey findings, over half of business owners (59%) are planning to create video content for their business in 2024.

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

If you’re considering video as part of your marketing strategy, here’s what business owners highlight 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 creator economy continues to boom with 47% of Americans identifying as full‑time content creators as of 2023 and it’s got business owners considering how they can make the most of the growing industry for their marketing strategy.

When asked if they are considering hiring an in‑house content creator for their business, over a quarter of entrepreneur respondents (26%) said yes.

Here are the top 5 industries in which business owners are considering hiring an in‑house influencer:

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

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.

Find out more on how to choose the right license for your stock video project here and if you have any questions feel free to contact us and we’ll help you make sure that you select the right one.

We conducted desk research analysis gathering data from multiple sources to compare the costs of creating a professional one minute video using iStock footage to producing and editing the video yourself from scratch. 

Stock video production costs take into account the average cost for one minute’s worth of stock video footage, average cost for four hours of script development, average cost for music licensing for a small artist and average cost for three hours of editing from a freelance video editor.

Filming and editing from scratch costs take into account the average day rate for a videographer, average cost for four hours of script development, average day rate for two models (intermediate level talent), average cost for music licensing for a small artist, average day rate for production studio rent, average day rate for five members of crew, and average cost for three hours of editing from a freelance video editor.

iStock conducted a survey of 550 American business owners to understand their marketing plans and struggles for the year ahead. This survey also asked respondents to share presumed costs for marketing activations, such as producing video content. A text analysis was used to summarize open text questions and provide a ranked overview of the most common themes or threads.

The data is based on self‑reported answers, meaning respondents may have had biases or discrepancies between their own reported ability and their actual abilities. Survey data has certain limitations related to self‑reporting.

Now that you have an overview of the potential savings of utilizing stock video in marketing content and business owners’ marketing struggles in 2024, feel free to share this data.

We ask that you do so for non‑commercial use and provide a link to this original study page, so the researchers are credited correctly.