The significance of content marketing is well known for all sorts of businesses, but it’s critical to pinpoint your main focus area. Would a stronger emphasis on video marketing or article marketing be more advantageous for your company?
In this article, we will walk you through the pros and cons of each of one, and give you the best tips on how to effectively take advantage of these two content marketing types.
How Video Marketing Works:
Businesses create video type of content around their products or services in order to reach most of their potential customers. It’s because statistically, most people enjoy watching a video instead of reading a written piece of content.
There are storytelling, informational, demonstration type of marketing videos, and there could also be a testimonial or a review.
When doing video marketing for your business, don’t make a video only about you and your products, but also explain how it can benefit your audience.
Short tutorial videos (under 5 mins) are the most effective because it is not easy to retain the viewer’s attention on the Internet these days, and there’s great competition out there.
In as short as possible way, you should clearly describe who you are, what services or products you offer, and most importantly – how much value it can bring to your customers.
However, if you can manage to develop the concept that retains the longer-lasting attention from a viewer, you can also focus on creating longer videos.
YouTube is a great platform for publishing videos about your brand or your products. People trust the content from YouTube, it’s shaping people’s approach and beliefs. In fact, it’s a place that can bring the most exposure to your videos, and ultimately – traffic to your offer.
Apart from YouTube, you can also use videos on/for:
- Other video platforms (Vimeo, IBM Cloud Video…)
- Social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter…)
- Landing page & sales letters
- Paid advertising (Facebook/Instagram ads)
- Private membership areas (webinars, courses…)
Pros of Video Marketing:
According to statistics, digital marketers who utilize video get 66% more clients and customers to their businesses, than those who don’t. Also, over 80% of people who bought any product online, have watched a video before related to that product.
These stats indicate that people trust videos and video marketing might be a positive thing for your business.
Here are some serious advantages and reasons why your business should use video marketing:
1. Establishes better connection
The main difference between video marketing and article marketing is that video allows you to establish a stronger emotional connection between your business and the audience.
Most of the time people will enjoy watching the video instead of reading a written article piece, just because videos are more fun and interacting to consume.
You have a way more options to express yourself when being on a video. You can use your voice, visual and sound elements, as well as the body language to engage the reader and tell your story.
Actually filming yourself and being in front of the camera, can build the most trust and engagement that ultimately drives conversions and profits for your business. And since there are plenty of teleprompter apps available, you don’t even have to remember the script.
2. Leverages your time
You can often find big brands having short informational or other types of videos that explain who they are and what they do.
It’s because it’s easier to create a short video that answers all the questions your audience ask, instead of dealing with their questions individually.
A short video explainer can save a lot of time for both – you, and your customers, as you don’t have to repeat the same things multiple times, and your audience will find the answers quicker.
3. Low Cost
While it depends on your business and marketing strategy, video marketing doesn’t always need to come at the cost.
Of course, it’s better if you produce high-quality videos with the fancy camera and great editing, however, you can also succeed with the lower quality videos filmed by your smartphone.
Take a look at the successful entrepreneur Tai Lopez. A lot of his videos have been filmed with just a smartphone, and they generate millions of views on YouTube.
In fact, videos filmed on a phone with little to no editing drives the biggest conversions most of the time.
Often, it’s all about the value that your video has inside and little about quality and effects. So, if you don’t have a fancy video equipment or editing skills, don’t hesitate and start video marketing now.
4. Quick Results
Compared with SEO when you are trying to rank your article on Google, a video on YouTube can rank the way quicker.
It could take only a day to see some number of views on your YouTube video, while it can take weeks, months, or even years for your article to get noticed on Google.
Ultimately, as you get to see quick traction of views on your videos, the traffic to your website will also increase.
If you decide to create an article version of your video, or video version of your article – that’s even better. Then you will double your chances for your content to be noticed as Google also ranks YouTube videos, and your article can take place in the search results too.
5. Develops You
Besides the benefits to your business, video marketing can also develop you as a personality. If you decide to participate in your marketing videos, you will need to become a good presenter and speaker in general.
As you will do more and more videos, your communication skills will increase and you will become a confident speaker. You will also learn some video editing skills along the way, they are useful and important for great user experience.
Cons of Video Marketing:
Although video marketing is shinning right now, some people decide to stay away from it, and here are the reasons why:
1. Costs To Start
While video marketing is a cost-effective method in the long term, in most cases it will cost something to start.
Compared to article marketing where it costs nothing to write an article, video production will typically require a camera and a microphone to start and that comes at the cost. And for editing purposes, you will probably need to use software or service that also isn’t free.
2. Has A Learning Curve
It might take time for you to become a good speaker on a camera, however, you can still start and learn everything along the way.
The same applies to the editing skills, it will take time to learn quickly and effectively produce marketing videos, but again, the lack of video editing skills shouldn’t be the reason not to start.
3. Can Be Uncomfortable
Many people don’t feel great being in front of the camera. They feel embarrassed, and not confident, and that can affect the brand’s image you are trying to present.
The good news is that you can find the way around it, and still do video marketing without filming yourself. There are tools like ContentSamurai that allow you to easily turn your written articles into fantastic videos using artificial intelligence.
Or, if you have a budget to invest, you can order your marketing videos to be done on freelancing platforms, like Fiverr. There you will pay freelancers to produce videos for you according to your specific needs.
How Article Marketing Works?
An article is a wordy piece of informational content that describes products or services related to your business. Article marketing is an essential part of content marketing and every business that is present online should use it.
How much you should focus on article marketing depends on the type of the business. For example, if you are a local business, and your goal is to only reach people around you, having a few short articles on your website that explain what you do and who you are can be enough.
But if you are a business that delivers products or services, within the country or worldwide, you probably need to have more than a few pieces of written content on your website, and you will need to focus on writing long articles – blog posts.
It’s because, Google is a number 1 free traffic source, and with the right article marketing strategy you can reach a lot of people that potentially convert.
But the problem is that nowadays Google requires a lot of written content, and time to rank it. The optimal word count of an article is 1500-3000 words, however, how many words your article should have depends on the competition.
Before writing your article you will have to do the keyword research. It is a process when you analyze a demand, competition, and opportunities for a certain keyword, and you use it in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) process.
If you manage to rank your articles for the right keywords on Google, you will gain regular traffic to your website, and ultimately to the sales offers.
To rank in Google, generally, you will need to have a good amount (at least 15) helpful articles on your website, and it will also take time for Google to understand and start displaying them in the search results.
The whole process can take anywhere from 3 to 12 months, so don’t expect quick results when trying to rank your articles on Google.
You can also do an article marketing strategy for your landing page or sales page content. You would normally won’t try to rank these pages, and you will be using other traffic sources for that, so SEO doesn’t matter here that much.
Instead of writing a long sales post, your goal is to provide a punchy article that is short, valuable and capturing the reader’s attention.
The recommended minimum word count for landing pages is 350 words, however, it can be as long as needed.
Besides blog posts, and landing pages, you can also use article marketing on/for:
- Social media sites
- Email marketing
- Paid advertising
The most important thing in article marketing is to always provide value for your readers. No matter where you are going to use the articles, you need to make sure they are always engaging, readable and helpful.
Pros of Article Marketing:
There’s no surprise why article marketing is one of the oldest marketing strategies, which is still being used until the present.
There are a lot of people who like to read things online, instead of watching the video content, and your business can benefit from this content marketing strategy too. Here are the reasons why:
1. Great Way To Attract Visitors
While YouTube videos can be also ranked on Google, the vast majority of the search engine’s results are written articles. If we compare searches made on Google and YouTube, people use Google much more to find the information they need.
There are around 63 million searches made on Google every second, and Google owns more than 90% of the worldwide search market.
These stats indicate nothing else, but the fact that your business needs to be on Google these days, and article marketing is the best way to do that.
As mentioned before, Google loves to rank long, unique articles, that are helpful for your readers. Sometimes, a single blog post can generate thousands, if not millions of unique targeted visitors, so imagine how such traffic could contribute to your business revenue.
2. Monetization Prospects
If you have published written content on your website, you can add links or ads that can make you money.
A great way of earning money through link-clicks is affiliate marketing, where you recommend someone else’s products and leave a link to them within your content. When someone clicks your affiliate link and makes a purchase you will get a commission – a percentage of the sale.
When it comes to advertising, you can also have ads displayed in your written article. There you will get paid every time someone clicks an ad.
The adverts blended in written content can work really well, therefore advertising is one of the top monetization methods for many bloggers.
3. Costs Nothing
Writing and publishing written content costs not more than having a laptop and the internet connection, therefore you can always expect great ROI.
Whereas, for example, video, or podcast production might require an investment into the camera, microphone, software, or any other equipment. Everyone can do article marketing, and it is the most cost-effective content marketing type.
4. Develops You
Similarly to creating videos, writing articles has a positive side on self-development too. As you write more and more articles, you generally become a better writer.
Your ideas and thoughts become clearer, more structured, and for some people, writing can also work as a therapy that relieves anxiety.
5. Allows You To Convert It Into Other Types Of Content
Videos or podcasts often start with an article. You can write and publish the article, and then easily convert it into other types of media, like videos or podcasts.
By doing so, you can basically get a few things done in one go, as you don’t need to spend time writing scripts or scenarios for your videos or podcasts.
There are platforms and tools that will easily allow you to turn your written articles into high-quality videos or audio files that you can effectively “re-use” for the other marketing channels.
Cons of Article Marketing:
Although it is always highly recommended that you use the article marketing strategy to promote your business, you can leave it behind if you can’t deal with certain things.
Those things are the pains and struggles of article marketing and they are very common for many businesses.
So here are the disadvantages of article marketing:
1. Can Be A Pain For Many People
While some people love writing, the majority of people naturally hate this task. People who haven’t written a lot in the past may have serious difficulties producing a long and punchy article.
Also, for many people writing seems to be a slow and boring process, so they prefer to produce quick videos instead or outsource this task to others.
2. Takes Time To See The Results
As we have talked about that earlier, Google takes time to rank articles nowadays, especially if your website is new. It could take anywhere from 3-12 months to see some organic visitors coming to the articles that you have published on your website.
For many people, it might be a not exciting strategy to market their businesses with, and they just give up without seeing the results.
Want To Learn Video or Article Marketing?
Learning video and article marketing is essential for almost all successful businesses. By learning those things you will get familiar with the art of storytelling and persuasion, SEO and many other technical skills.
You will have to become a great presenter, writer, and speaker in general, and these skills may take time to master.
However, there is a way to make a learning process way shorter if you follow a constructive learning strategy. The Niche Marketing Kit is a course created by two great marketers John Thornhill and Dave Nicholson and it is highly focused on Article and Video Marketing topics.
This course also teaches how to create a profitable business without having your own product. So if you are a current business owner, or you just want to start a business, you can check this helpful review that we made of this amazing digital marketing course.