Is video the right medium for your audience? Or are there other ways of getting your message across?
Video has real strengths and weaknesses, so it’s important to weigh these up before deciding if it’s the right way to reach your audience.
Strengths
Video is a powerful way to engage people, tell stories, demonstrate processes, and add a human touch.
You can use video to:
- Introduce a topic and explain why it matters
- Convey complex ideas in plain language
- Provide demonstrations, real-world examples, and proof points.
Weaknesses
Video is less effective for conveying critical information that users may need to revisit. Compared to text or static visuals, video is harder to scan, skip, or locate specific details.
It’s also not always reliable: links can break, and some browsers block video players.
Viewers often lose interest and stop watching. YouTube reports that, on average, only around 25%–30% of viewers stay with a video until the end, leaving many with only a partial grasp of the material.
Video can also overwhelm viewers by packing in too much information, making it difficult to understand.
An apparent solution – splitting content across multiple videos – rarely works, as viewers:
- Have limited time and attention
- Expect a single video to meet their needs
- Often miss any additional videos due to scrolling habits and page layout.
Choosing other media
Sometimes written and interactive formats can work harder than video. Email campaigns, for instance, can target specific segments of your audience with tailored calls to action, while written case studies can build emotional engagement with readers.
So consider your content and audience carefully to decide whether other formats would communicate your key messages more effectively.
Combining video with other media
Using video alongside other media – such as webpages, infographics and PDFs – can make your message clearer, more flexible, and easier to remember. This approach helps you:
- Create a clear information structure
Use video for high-level ideas and storytelling, then support it with written content and visuals for detail. This allows users to explore at their own pace. - Support different ways of learning
Some people prefer watching, others reading, skimming, or interacting. Multiple formats help you reach more people in ways that work for them. - Provide reinforcement without repetition
You can strengthen your message by sharing it across multiple channels, adding a different perspective or level of detail that feels fresh and new. - Accommodate busy schedules and short attention spans
Smaller, focused pieces – such as short articles, visuals, or videos – make it easier to find information quickly. - Improve accessibility and inclusion
Captions, screen-reader support, and plain-text summaries help more people fully engage with your content.
How each channel supports your message
For the best results, make sure you use each channel for what it does most effectively.
Use a webpage as your hub
Design your main page so it’s easy to scan, enabling you to:
- Provide key information
- Summarise the most important points
- Signpost users to supporting formats
- Enable your webpage to stand alone if videos or downloads fail.
Add supporting webpages for detail
One page is usually enough, but extra linked pages can supply more detailed guidance without cluttering the main content.
Create PDFs for depth and offline access
PDFs work well for users who want everything in one place. They can:
- Share detailed or policy-level information
- Provide printable versions of key content
- Support users who prefer a document-style format.
Use infographics to clarify and simplify content
Infographics help people grasp information quickly and should support, not replace, text. They can:
- Show processes, timelines, and hierarchies
- Compare data visually
- Reinforce key messages.
Infographics must include alt text to meet accessibility standards. Those without alt text are removed from the university’s website.
Provide FAQs to address common questions
FAQs can:
- Give clear answers to common queries
- Expand on content briefly without cluttering the main page
- Reassure users and reduce requests for support
- Be updated to reflect analytics and feedback.
Add links to further guide your users
Clearly visible links on your main webpage enable users to easily find further sources of information, such as related webpages, helping to:
- Keep the main page focused
- Avoid information overload
- Guide users to the next steps.
Explore the production process
Need to know about video production? Visit our video support page.