For more reasons than we can list here, video is the best medium to share information and demonstrate instructions. Nothing eliminates confusion, promotes clarity and recollection, creates emotion, or engages quite like video does.
In case your L&D teams needed more reason to create video courses, we’ve collected (and cited!) seven statistics that show why video instructions are more effective than written text is.
1. Viewer Information Retention
Viewers retain 95% of a video’s message (compared to 10% when reading the text version).
That’s a difference of 85%! One of the most compelling pieces of evidence for why video instructions are more effective than written text is its ability to help learners actually remember what they learn. Don’t let your organization miss out on this valuable opportunity to leverage a vital tool in your training arsenal.
In order to capture as much learning ROI as possible and make your training as it can be, you need viewers to retain what they learn. Studies show over and over again that video shows significantly higher knowledge retention than text does (see the study linked above by Waves Media).
2. Ability to Recall Information
According to Hubspot, 80% of viewers could recall a video they viewed in the past month.
Are you able to say the same for text? That’s likely not the case. The combination of images and audio make it much easier to recall specific information than scanning our minds through countless lines of text.
One reason why video instructions are more effective than written text is that video makes your information memorable and easier to recount. Don’t lose out on this effect by utilizing another medium in place of video for instructions and training.
3. Video is Popular Among Everyone - Including Your Employees
Video traffic is currently estimated to account for around 70 percent of all mobile data traffic.
By 2080 that number is forecast to increase to 80 percent. This means that your employees are spending about 4 out of every 5 hours on their cell phones watching video. People today are accustomed to receiving information in video format, and it is expected more and more. Providing onboarding and training in video format will make your employees feel comfortable with a medium they are familiar with and can navigate easily. This will only increase learning and retention.
4. Video is Free and Instantaneous to Create
It costs $0 to film an instructional video.
To record an instructional video is free. It takes little to no prep work to hit “record” and share what you already know. No research has to be done or new work, only to document processes you are already an expert in.
Also, don’t stress too much about editing and creating very high production quality. You want to make sure the audio and visuals are clear of course, but beyond that don’t spend too much more time and resources perfecting the quality.
5. Video Incites More Action Than Text
A call-to-action with a video produces 380% more clicks than text, according to a study by KISSmetrics.
These stats tell an important story about how video creates action in ways that written text simply cannot. Whether you want viewers to learn a new software tool, complete a task, or take a quiz at the end of a training video, it is important that viewers feel compelled to take action.
Video is especially powerful in this case when important calls to action can be linked directly to the training. This eliminates all barriers for the user, and gives them the best chance to succeed at the task at hand after just having viewed the information (that they can view as many times as they want).
6. Video is Engaging
Viewers are over 27 times more likely to click on an online video ad than a standard banner ad.
While training videos won’t have banner ads, this particular statistic speaks volumes to the engagement that video creates when compared to text and images. It is imperative that your viewers remain engaged if training is to result in a high ROI.
To keep employees engaged, create short, concise training videos that are easy to navigate and find. Divide training sessions into smaller, easy-to-digest sections that are labeled so they’re easy to find.
7. Get More Done with Less
If “a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video has to be worth at least 1.8 million words.”
Dr. James McQuivey of Wake Forest University performed a unique study that framed the value of online video in a unique way. By approximating the number of still frames in an average 60-second video, McQuive determined that each minute-long video is “worth” approximately 1.8 million words in the same way that “a picture is worth 1,000 words.”
In the context of video training, you can communicate more in a short, concise video than any number of screenshots and images and arrows can. This saves your organization resources, time, money, labor, errors, and slowdowns in productivity.
Conclusion
Our small collection of statistics help show that video is the ultimate medium for onboarding, training, and instruction. Increase ROI when you demonstrate important procedures with an easy-to-navigate video training platform, as opposed to traditional written manuals.
