Most brands produce one type of video and wonder why they aren’t growing. You don’t need 30 formats. You need 5, produced consistently, each with a clear role in the funnel.
These are the formats we run for clients who’ve generated over 100M views (Mondly) or started from zero community (Creative Tim, 0 to 250k followers). Each one answers a different job: attraction, education, trust, conversion, retention.
1. Hook-driven content (top of funnel)
Short video, 15-30 seconds, built around a hook that stops the scroll. No aggressive CTA, no in-your-face brand. The job is to land on the FYP and bring in new viewers.
At Creative Tim, the “The mistake 90% of junior developers make” pattern alone pulled 2.3M views from a 22-second clip. We weren’t selling anything. We were building authority.
2. Tutorial / how-to
The format that builds trust the fastest. You show you understand the audience’s problem and solve it in 45-90 seconds. The product appears naturally, it’s not the subject.
It works for any vertical: at Mondly we did “3 mistakes Romanians make when speaking English”. At Orient Ceramic, tile-laying tutorials on real cases. The payoff has to be concrete, not theoretical.
3. Case study / result with numbers
“I tested X for Y and got Z.” Format that builds authority through data. Works great for B2B and services, where the buying decision is rational.
It works when the number is specific. “We grew conversion by 34%” beats “we grew conversion a lot” by 3x on retention. Say how long the test ran and on what volume.
4. Behind-the-scenes / process
People buy from people. Videos showing how the product gets made, how the team works, how you make decisions, build long-term attachment. They don’t perform on the first view, but they create followers who come back.
At Blindspot, backstage clips had 2x the watch time of product videos. They don’t convert directly, but they lower CAC for retargeting campaigns.
5. UGC / vertical testimonial
Video shot by a real customer or by a creator who behaves like a customer. No read script, no studio lights. Authenticity is the key metric.
On TikTok Ads, TikTok Creative Center confirms the pattern: UGC-style ads have CPM 30-50% lower than polished productions. At MultiversX, UGC pushed CTR to 2.8% on acquisition campaigns, vs 0.9% on studio production.
How you combine them
The ratio we use with clients: 50% hook-driven, 20% tutorials, 10% case study, 10% behind-the-scenes, 10% UGC. Top of funnel eats volume, the rest builds conversion.
It’s not about producing more types. It’s about producing consistently from these 5. Whoever publishes 4-6 videos per week in this mix sees real signal in 60-90 days. Whoever rotates chaotically between 15 formats never learns what works.
