9 Best Video Marketing Tools to Boost Sales and Brand Awareness

Video marketing is no longer optional for businesses – it‘s essential. Studies reveal just how effective video is at engaging audiences and driving real results:

• Videos on landing pages can increase conversion rates by over 80% (Wyzowl)
• 90% of customers say videos help them make buying decisions (Animoto)
• Companies using video enjoy 41% more web traffic from search results (Wordstream)

Clearly, video works. But taking advantage of video marketing requires more than just creating and uploading content. To maximize your ROI, you need solutions that streamline video production, hosting, optimization, distribution and analytics.

As a digital marketer with over 10 years experience leveraging video in client campaigns, I’ve tested my share of tools. In this comprehensive guide, I’ll share the top 9 video marketing platforms on the market right now based on their features, capabilities and value.

I’ll also provide pro tips, real user reviews and examples throughout so you can determine which solution may be the best fit. Let‘s dive in!

Why Invest in Video Marketing Tools?

Before reviewing the top options, let‘s briefly go over why video tools are worth integrating into your tech stack:

Automated Video Creation

Sophisticated tools allow anyone to make pro-level videos in minutes by providing templates, drag-and-drop editing, and millions of royalty-free media assets. This simplifies and speeds up production.

Engaging Branded Video Players

Hosting platforms offer customizable video players to match your brand identity. Players can include clickable calls-to-action, chapter menus, contact forms and more to actively engage viewers.

Distribution and Sharing

Automating multi-channel video distribution saves tons of time. Many tools optimize videos for different platforms and add your brandwatermark to deter theft.

Video SEO Built-In

Solutions focused on optimization help videos rank higher on Google and YouTube by improving titles, descriptions, metadata and playability.

Performance Tracking

Robust analytics provide insights on viewership, traffic sources, completion rates and conversions. You can use this data to refine your video strategy.

Lead Generation

From gated videos to calls-to-action to contact forms, the right tools make capturing and nurturing leads simpler. Some even track ROI by integrating your CRM.

Marketing Stack Integrations

Top marketing automation, email, analytics, and ecommerce platforms offer deep integrations with video tools to align efforts and reporting.

For both established enterprises and early-stage startups, investing in video software pays dividends. Next let‘s explore the top solutions available.

1. Animoto

Animoto is the perfect video production tool for small teams and solopreneurs looking for an easy automated way to make quality marketing videos, no skills required.

The platform offers a stock media library with over 415,000 HD video clips, 1 million images, and 240 licensed music tracks you can use royalty-free. Simply choose from one of Animoto‘s professional templates spanning promos, testimonials, tutorials, social posts and more. Their AI will remix your selected media into a polished video timed to the music.

Animoto‘s drag-and-drop editor makes further customizing a breeze:

• Add logos
• Insert text overlays
• Apply filters
• Tweak fonts & colors
• Switch up the template style
• Rearrange, trim or replace clips
• And much more

Finished videos render in full HD 1080p quality. You can download directly or have Animoto publish to YouTube, Facebook and Instagram for you.

Pricing:

Their "Professional" plan gives you unlimited video exports and stock assets for $49/month. Going up to their "Agency" plan at $79/month adds features like:

• Brand styling packages
• Advanced analytics
• Video collaboration
• Priority support
• Additional 4K stock media
• Unlimited team members

Animoto is a great option for DIY video production on a budget. Over 1 million users have taken advantage of the platform‘s simplicity. As digital marketer Neil Patel commented:

"Animoto makes it stupidly simple for anyone to create professional videos. If you need to make something for social media, Animoto should be your go-to tool."

For quick video creation without the learning curve, Animoto delivers.

2. Wistia

Wistia is arguably the leader when it comes to video hosting combined with built-in marketing capabilities. Their platform powers over 4 billion video views a year for businesses ready to step up their video game.

Wistia excels at delivering ad-free viewing experiences, tracking performance down to the viewer level, and turning audiences into leads using calls-to-action, forms, popups and email gates.

Some standout features include:

Customizable Video Players: Match your brand with custom end screens, colors, logos and calls-to-action. Viewers feel like they’re engaging with your content directly on your site.

Performance Analytics: Wistia offers marketer-friendly metrics on views, completion rates, devices, geography, visitor segments and viewing patterns over time. You can even track the on-page movements of individual viewers.

SEO Optimization: Videos are hosted on a fast CDN and coded with proper titles, schema markup and captions to improve rankings.

Audience Targeting: Use viewing data to segment and target your audience across channels with relevant video recommendations and ads.

Lead Generation: Forms, calls-to-action, and email gates help convert viewers into contacts. Integrate your CRM to track associated opportunities.

Marketing Automation: Wistia seamlessly integrates with Mailchimp, Hubspot, Intercom, WordPress and other platforms to align efforts.

Wistia starts at $20/month for unlimited videos, with volume discounts available. For a robust video hosting platform with built-in marketing, Wistia is a top choice.

3. Vyond

Vyond provides a radically easy automated way for anyone to create professional animated explainer videos—no animation expertise required.

The platform provides a media library with hundreds of animated characters, thousands of props, and dozens of customized scene templates ideal for how-to videos, product demonstrations, lessons, commercials and more.

Simply drag and drop characters into a scene, customize their appearance, drop in props, add text captions, and record your voiceover or upload a script. Vyond handles the rest by auto-lip syncing the characters and timing everything to the soundtrack.

You have full control to tweak the visuals but can leave the technical animation work to Vyond‘s technology. This focus on templates, customization and automation removes the learning curve.

Videos render quickly in full HD quality without any watermarks. Download them or have Vyond directly publish to your YouTube, Vimeo or Wistia accounts. You can also schedule videos to premiere across your social channels.

Vyond offers starter plans for individual creators at $49/month, with team packages starting at $199/month. Volume discounts are available.

If you want to communicate ideas clearly through custom animated video content, Vyond makes it as easy as drag, drop, and publish.

4. Brightcove

Brightcove Video Cloud is an enterprise-level video hosting platform used by leading media companies and global brands like Discovery, AMC, IBM, the NBA and more.

With Brightcove, you get a complete video content management system combined with monetization capabilities, flexible APIs, and powerful analytics.

Some key features include:

Robust Media Library: Store unlimited videos using Brightcove‘s secure cloud servers. Access permissions, metadata tagging, transcoding and more aid organization.

Omnichannel Distribution: Publish videos across your owned channels as well as third-party sites, mobile apps, and connected TVs through Brightcove‘s global content delivery network and video APIs.

Server-Side Editing: Trim, stitch, manipulate and re-encode videos through the cloud instead of tedious manual processes. This allows you to optimize videos for different devices.

Contextual Analytics: Brightcove goes beyond surface-level views to provide insights based on geographies, referrers, completion rates, devices, operating systems, and more to hone your video strategy.

Monetization: Simple video ad integrations allow you to insert pre-, mid- and post-roll ads, overlays, and server-side ad stitching to generate revenue.

Flexible Access: Manage your Brightcove videos and data using their portal, mobile apps, or directly integrate your CMS, marketing platforms, and custom apps via APIs.

Pricing scales based on usage starting around $199/month. Enterprise options are also available.

For a robust enterprise video CMS with powerful capabilities, Brightcove Video Cloud leads the industry. But the solution may be overkill for many SMBs.

5. SproutVideo

SproutVideo focuses on providing an easy yet full-featured video hosting, marketing and analytics platform tailored to the needs of small businesses and teams.

Their tools simplify hosting branded videos, tracking performance, generating leads, integrating video into your website and campaigns, and optimizing video SEO.

Notable SproutVideo features include:

• Video Galleries: Organize your videos into channels, playlists and galleries that match your brand. Embed or share them anywhere.

• Customizable Player: Watermark videos, add intros/outros, insert clickable calls-to-action, gate videos and more.

• Insights: See overall video performance as well as metrics on individual videos like views, completion rates, traffic sources, devices and geography.

• Audience Building: Grow your email list by adding lead capture forms to your videos. Integrate your CRM to track associated opportunities with video views.

• Video SEO: Auto-generated transcripts, rich metadata and closed captions improve Google and YouTube rankings.

SproutVideo plans start at $39/month for core features, with discounts for annual subscriptions. The platform is designed for lean teams with straightforward video hosting and marketing needs.

According to Capterra reviews, users highlight SproutVideo‘s ease of use, templates, analytics and responsive support team. It‘s a robust-yet-affordable option suitable for most small businesses.

6. Shakr

Shakr utilizes artificial intelligence to help teams quickly create, manage, and distribute high-performing cross-platform video ad campaigns at scale.

The platform lets you produce hundreds of 15-second social video ads tailored for different platforms extremely quickly by automating the production process.

Here‘s how it works:

• Select a template for the video style, structure and editing effects you want

• Customize the template by adding your brand assets, colors, logos, images etc.

• Input your desired captions and text

• Choose a soundtrack from Shakr‘s stock music library

• Let Shakr work its AI magic to automatically generate and render 100+ adapted versions of the video for different platforms

You can create endless variations suitable for Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest and more in the time it normally takes to produce just one manually.

Finished videos render in HD quality without watermarks for flexible use in your ad campaigns.

Shakr also provides collaboration features and analytics to optimize your efforts over time.

Pricing scales based on your video volume and seats needed, so it‘s customized for your team and usage.

For exponentially faster video ad production, Shakr taps the power of artificial intelligence. It‘s an innovative option specifically for social advertising.

7. Vidyard

Vidyard positions itself as an "all-in-one video platform" offering video hosting, marketing tools, analytics, lead generation, SEO optimization and more.

Their focus is helping teams drive greater business results by both creating remarkable video experiences as well as demonstrating full-funnel video ROI.

Notable aspects include:

• Video Hub: Centrally store marketing, sales, training and other videos for easy organization.

• Interactive Player: Engage viewers with calls-to-action, cards, end screens, and email/form gates.

• Performance Analytics: Track individual video and broader platform metrics like views, completion rates, geography, referrals, devices and more.

• Audience Insights: Identify your most engaged viewers and underperforming content to optimize your approach.

• Lead Tracking: Capture viewer contact info through forms and integrate your CRM to monitor opportunities from videos.

• Global Distribution: Syndicate videos to increase reach, plus auto-optimize for different platforms.

• Marketing Automation: Vidyard seamlessly integrates with Hubspot, Marketo, Salesforce and other popular platforms.

Vidyard offers customized pricing. Their platform is trusted by big brands like Lenovo, LinkedIn, SAP, and Microsoft.

For robust management, interactivity, optimization and analytics, Vidyard hits all the marks. It‘s a solid choice for teams taking video marketing seriously.

8. BombBomb

BombBomb makes it easy for sales teams to add personalized videos into their email outreach sequences – such as personalized video introductions when prospecting new leads.

The platform helps your emails stand out by adding the human touch. BombBomb integrates directly into your existing email and CRM workflows.

You have three options for adding video to your messages:

• Record a new webcam video through BombBomb’s mobile app or browser extension

• Upload a pre-existing video from your computer

• Select a video template and customize it with your message

Once your video is uploaded to BombBomb, insert it into any email with a single click. See who opened and watched to gauge engagement.

More advanced features allow you to build sequences with personalized fields, manage team libraries, and analyze performance. But the platform starts simple.

BombBomb is designed for sales teams wanting an easy way to boost email outreach and relationships using video. It can help humanize cold outreach and build trust faster.

Plans start at $99/month per user. Volume discounts are offered.

9. Vimeo

Last but not least, Vimeo has cemented itself as a leader when it comes to high-quality video hosting and distribution for professionals. Top brands like Adobe, Amazon and Starbucks rely on Vimeo‘s platform.

Noteworthy aspects include:

• Unlimited HD video hosting powered by Vimeo‘s global CDN for fast, reliable playback.

• Customizable embeds to match your brand identity with calls-to-action, colors, logos and display preferences.

• Robust analytics on plays, finishes, geographies, browsers, devices, traffic sources and more to optimize your approach.

• Team collaboration features, review tools, and permission controls aid video production workflows.

• One-click social sharing lets you distribute videos to your connected Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest accounts.

• SEO-friendly pages, transcripts and metadata help onsite and YouTube videos gain exposure.

• Marketing integrations with Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Hubspot and more to turn viewers into leads.

Vimeo is especially popular with creative agencies, corporate communications teams and video professionals.

Paid plans start at $20/month and go up based on needs. Enterprise options are also available.

For a full-featured yet intuitive video management platform, Vimeo is a go-to choice for many businesses and teams.

Now It‘s Your Turn!

Hopefully this extensive guide provided you with a helpful overview of the video marketing tools landscape and top solutions available right now.

While their capabilities vary, investing in video software can pay tremendous dividends for your business if leveraged effectively.

Think through your current video content volume, production needs, budget and potential use cases. Then select a platform aligned to your goals, be it boosting brand awareness or generating more leads and sales.

Most offer free trials so you can test drive the tools hands-on before fully committing. Once signed up, take advantage of capabilities like customizable branding, lead capture forms, marketing automation integrations, and performance tracking.

Soon you‘ll start reaping the benefits through expanded reach, higher conversion rates, larger audiences and bigger deals closed.

Now grab your camera, choose a video platform from this list, and start showcasing your brand story creatively on-screen. The opportunities are endless.

Let me know if you have any other questions! I‘m always happy to offer tips.