| This guide explains how healthcare providers and organizations can use video marketing to build trust, educate patients, and improve engagement. It covers key video types like patient testimonials, explainer videos, and doctor profiles, along with best practices for HIPAA compliance, distribution strategies, and performance tracking. The blog also highlights current trends and tools shaping healthcare video marketing in 2025, making it a comprehensive resource for medical marketers and healthcare professionals. |
Video hasn’t just transformed entertainment—it’s revolutionized the healthcare industry, too!
From branding to patient education to internal training, healthcare video marketing is shaping how providers, payers, and patients connect—with clarity, empathy, and serious ROI.
If you’re in a healthcare organization —whether you’re a hospital system, telemedicine startup, insurance provider, or healthtech brand—video content might be your most powerful (and underused) effective healthcare marketing tool.
So let’s dive into why video is working so well, what kinds you need, and how to do it right. To that end, here’s our ultimate guide for crafting the best healthcare video marketing strategies through the power of animated storytelling.
Let’s be honest: healthcare is complex, jargon-heavy, and intimidating, even for healthcare professionals themselves. Digital marketing for healthcare is a challenge, but solid video marketing strategies make it simple and human.
Regardless of the type of video, this format and artform can:
With the levels of misinformation and pseudoscience running rampant today, the importance of healthcare video marketing cannot be understated.
Fact: Around 85% of social videos are watched without sound, so captions are essential to your video marketing efforts to ensure your message reaches. (digiday.com)
Healthcare is emotional content done right. Video is the perfect delivery, for digital marketing campaigns of any kind, even in the healthcare sector.
While we’re on the topic, also do check out our breakdown of video marketing statistics for 2025!
Like any industry and artform, healthcare explainer video trends come and go, with varying styles, tones and even gimmicks. But the underlying mechanisms remain the same and are as powerful as ever.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the broad categories that healthcare marketing videos can fall under:
Ideal for medical devices, digital therapies, software platforms, or public health campaigns, animated explainer videos clarify complex topics with clear visuals and concise scripts.
Testimonial videos feature real patients sharing their stories—authentic, emotional, trust-building.
Onboarding, compliance refreshers, or skills training—training videos make it easy to standardize learning across diverse teams.
Product demo videos are great for showcasing features and benefits—especially for medical SaaS or devices—without overwhelming viewers.
From flu shots to mental health support, animated PSAs can drive impact without big budgets.
Summarize conference highlights and leverage that effort well beyond the event.
Fast, mobile-optimized mini-videos perfect for quick bites of value on social media platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, or Instagram.
Not every audience wants to see inside the OR or watch a surgeon work. Animation offers:
Animations—from whiteboard animation sketches to motion graphics—offer clarity and emotional connection in one polished package.
Patients need empathy and reassurance. Doctors want accuracy and detail. Admins look for efficiency and ROI. Are you going for B2B or B2C? Here’s the difference. Who is your video aimed at? Start there.
Every video begins with good writing. Craft an explainer video script that’s concise, direct, and audience-focused.
Live-action builds connection, while animation offers clarity. Choose based on message and mood.
Video marketing in the healthcare space demands precision and technical details. There isn’t much room for the kind of hype you see in regular advertising. So it’s a good idea to hire a video production company with healthcare experience.
With 85% of video views mute, captions are non-negotiable. (source: tubefilter.com)
Once published, check your video metrics for watch time, drop-off moments, and calls-to-action. Then update and tweak accordingly.
Enough theory, it’s time to look at practical real-world examples. By analyzing these proven videos, we might just glean some valuable insights and get healthcare video marketing ideas of our own!
No child really wants to be lectured about brushing their teeth regularly and eating less candy. And kids can be a tough target audience to crack, even if you’re selling toys. So imagine the challenge set out for healthcare providers.
So Bupa used a fantastical, fairy-tale style of high-quality storytelling with 3D animation to capture their wonder and take them on a magical journey, using the Tooth Fairy as the central character.
Here’s an excellent example of how to use storytelling techniques to take an otherwise unappealing message and turn it into a compelling, entertaining story to educate children– without them even realizing it.
The healthcare industry is inextricably linked with politics, whether we like it or not. It can often be a hot-button issue with plenty of noise but little nuance, confusing an already wary and uninformed public.
CBS understood the power of animation and video in explaining complex topics and holding the target audience’s attention from start to finish. The slick, colorful motion graphic combined with easy-to-follow narration helped break down the dense information. It’s a high-quality video that helps empower patients to find the right healthcare providers via the Affordable Care Act, in a way that’s easy to follow and understand.
Kicking off this list strong is the #BallBoys campaign for testicular cancer awareness.
It’s a difficult topic to talk about. No one really wants to think about cancer and we’d all rather ignore the thought. So, some serious creativity is needed to get people’s attention.
As far as healthcare video marketing strategies go, this couldn’t be any less like a typical PSA, starring Deadpool, “the merc with a mouth.” It’s pitch-perfect for going viral on social media channels.
For the two or three of you who don’t know, he’s a wisecracking superhero known more for his not-family-friendly brand of subversive humor, rather than for his superpowers.
Here, we see him wax poetic in his own unique style as he goes on to guide viewers on how to examine yourself for testicular cancer. His juvenile yet charming humor keeps the audience hooked on every word, while driving home the important points.
As a side note: it’s especially fitting to use Deadpool for cancer awareness. This is because his story starts with him about to die of stage four terminal cancer. He tries everything, finally signing up for a dangerous and illegal experimental treatment, and it works. He emerges horribly disfigured, but gains superpowers. So it’s quite appropriate to use this character for this cause!
Being sure not to exclude female or AFAB viewers, they also released a companion video on how to self-check for breast cancer too, so no one is left out.
This just goes to prove that not only can PSAs by healthcare providers be interesting, but even entertaining to the target audience– when done right. It’s a testament to the power of video marketing.
We tend not to think of mental health as part of the larger healthcare services industry. But it absolutely is.
Unfortunately, even today, mental health is still a taboo subject that people don’t like to talk about. While attitudes are changing and improving with enough education and awareness, it’s still difficult to broach the subject.
Depression is one of the most common mental health issues, affecting as much as 6% of the world’s population– and growing. And yet it still exists in this shadowy area of taboo and misinformation. This only makes it harder to talk about, and for those afflicted to seek help.
This animated character video by the WHO breaks through a lot of the stereotypes and avoids being “preachy” or getting bogged down with psychology jargon– by using the power of storytelling. It feels more like a short film than a PSA.
By using a simple analogy of a man having to live with an invisible monstrous black dog that ruins his life, the viewer is made to understand first-hand what depression really is and what it is not. This method of storytelling is not only compelling and interesting, but it shatters the taboos and stereotypes around depression and other mental health issues.
Not all animation is slick visuals and pretty pictures. The visuals only carry the message. And here, the message outshines the simple artwork and basic motion graphics animation. This is because animated storytelling is a powerful and valuable tool that can help us understand things better. It can put ourselves in others’ shoes and see the world through different eyes, as in this case.
Healthcare is kind of a downer of a conversation topic. But we thought: does it have to be?
Here’s a character animated short video we created for Avecina Medical. It’s an animated cartoon featuring two goofy characters who get into a misadventure and end up in hospital, created using cartoon animation services and accompanied by fun music and lyrics that narrate the story.
We made sure to thread the needle just right between keeping things light and defusing tension, while being careful not making it so silly that it trivializes healthcare. It was a creative risk, but then all art is about some experimentation, trial and error, and being brave enough to try new things.
Our client loved it and we’re delighted to report the response was positive from the target audience too!
Why did it work? Because the goofy cartoon-y humor does not extend to the hospital itself, which comes in to save the day at the end of the story. It’s not mean-spirited, and remains relatable to the viewer– even if they never taunted zoo animals and learned a painful lesson the hard way.
Let’s face it, picking the right healthcare insurance company for you is about as much fun as going to the dentist, and about as easy to understand as income taxes. It’s just confusing and overwhelming. Not only do all the options look the same, but it’s never really clear exactly what they all do or how they work.
That’s probably why Buck went with this approach for their healthcare commercial for healthcare brand BridgeSpan.
To start with, they use a friendly art style with bright, friendly colors and characters. It’s clear, non-threatening and welcoming.
Then, right from the get-go, they immediately address the pain points faced by the typical customer, affirming that they understand their world and their perspective.
As the 2D character animated video content unfolds, the solution unfolds itself neatly, blending in a little storytelling with a relatable character who serves as an avatar for the audience. We also like the little call-back at the end with the character’s skateboarding injury!
This is a great example of the power of animated B2B storytelling, and what it can do to break down complex and even frightening topics in a way that’s friendly, memorable, and even entertaining.
Here’s a recruitment short video for WestWood Clinic by Buck that really stands out in how well it speaks to future medical students.
We love the subtly medical-feeling color palette of teal blue-green, paired with a clean but organic art style.
But where this infographic animation video really shines, is in how it teases the viewer with a bright future in the medical field– one where it’s not just a job or career, but a higher calling that helps people and saves lives. The script and visuals give just enough information to let the viewer’s imagination take over. Because often, you can say a lot by saying very little.
This delightful video for Oscar Health Insurance uses the power of humor to get viewers’ attention and stay memorable.
This high-quality animated cartoon video effortlessly delivers a clear message on how patients can find the right healthcare facility in their area without hassle, when they need it the most.
It just goes to show that when done right, humor is a fantastic and powerful tool to really connect with your audience in a human and natural way.
The proof of this is how this health insurance commercial animation accomplishes more in 15 seconds than most videos do in entire minutes!
Want to check out more examples? Check them out here!
Probably the most common question we get, is also the trickiest to answer. This is because all good animation is bespoke, custom-made per client, carefully crafted with the client, their audience, and end goals in mind.
But to give you very rough, ball-park figures:
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Video Type
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Estimated Cost
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60-sec animated explainer
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$3,000–$10,000
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Live-action testimonial
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$5,000–$20,000+
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Internal training video
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$2,000–$7,000
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Social media short clip
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$500–$3,000
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Can you find places that do it cheap? Sure you can. But as they say: you get what you pay for, and that certainly applies here. Again, quality matters. Bargain basement video rarely moves viewers.
With a skilled storyteller crafting the right animated videos for your digital marketing, healthcare providers can reach, engage, simplify, explain-- and win hearts and minds. Animated storytelling is a powerful tool that can put you at the top of your game.
The right video can:
It’s time to lock in meaningful engagement today and forge lasting relationships for tomorrow.
Need help creating an impactful healthcare explainer video or training series? Let’s talk!