Content marketing is always changing as technology advances and the way that people consume media changes too.
A huge change in recent years has been the rise of video marketing, and how brands and businesses use it to speak to their audiences in new and engaging ways.
But what does the future of content marketing look like?
Will text-based marketing stay up there as one of the most used ways of content marketing, or will video marketing keep climbing in importance in the digital marketing scene, eventually taking over?
Whilst each brings their own positives and negatives to the content landscape, they are both here to stay in the future, and this post will look at why.
What is Text Content Marketing?
But first, just to define a few terms: text content marketing is the use of the written word to promote a business or brand and what it offers to its consumers- be that a product or a service.
It is an older form of content marketing compared to video marketing, but nevertheless is still an incredibly important form that has lots of benefits, especially from an SEO perspective, but more on that a bit later in the post.
What Are Some of the Types of Text Marketing?
Text content marketing comes in lots of different formats, but the most commonly used ones are the following:
- Blog posts: these are a great way to improve SEO and are an informative and engaging way to drive more organic traffic to a website.
- Email marketing: with this form of text content marketing, customers are provided with updates about your business through emails. This could be new products or services, or any offers that you may be running.
- Social media marketing: whilst the main part of a social media post may be a visual image or video, the captions that come with them, or the text on the image, all have to be written too in an engaging way.
- SEO Content writing: SEO writing in a form of text content where the text on a piece of content is written in a way that is optimised for search engines.
What is Video Marketing?
Video marketing is, very basically, the use of video content to promote a business and its products and/or services. It has the same purpose as written content marketing, but is just a different format. Video marketing is all around us these days, and you will consume it in ways you probably don’t even realise.
With social media channels like Instagram and TikTok having such prominence, video marketing is all over. People use these to find out about services and products and are visually appealing and engaging, and it has a number of benefits too.
What Are Some of The Types of Video Marketing?
Just like how text content comes in a number of different forms, there are lots of video marketing types too that are all great at promoting a brand or business. All of these have been shown to engage viewers and increase leads over recent years:
- Explainer videos: This is the type of video content marketing that explains a product or concept to do with the businesses area of expertise. The idea is that complex or lengthy information is compacted into an easily understandable and engaging piece of visual content.
- Brand videos: These are the type of videos that showcase the business and who they really are. They are great for connecting with an audience and improving the relationship with them.
- Product or service demos: With these videos, a product or service is showcased, with all features and benefits explained. You will often see these type of videos produced by content creators on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, usually as partnered or brand ad videos.
- Live videos: These videos are, as the name suggests, live and could be event footage, an interview, a look at the business, anything like that. These types of videos are often found on social media platforms such as Instagram, especially with the function to go ‘live’ on stories.
The Benefits of Video Content Marketing Vs Text Content Marketing
There are a lot of differences between text and video content marketing, and video marketing brings to the table a lot of things that are useful and beneficial in any content strategy. These things are the reasons why video content marketing has become so prominent in recent years, and will probably continue to have more and more as time goes on. Here are just a few of them:
More Engaging
Videos keep the audience engaged and entertained just purely by the nature of them- viewers are receiving the information that they need to know without feeling like they are reading it, or putting in a lot of effort to find it out. Videos also get a lot more shares than text does, improving interaction and traffic to your content and business.
More Leads
As just mentioned, videos are a lot more shareable because they are so engaging, and they very often encourage audience interaction too. This can only mean one thing- that you will gain more traffic and reach wider audiences too. Think about how easy it is for a video to go viral- every single person that sees the content learns a bit about your business or brand and what you offer, increasing the chance that they will research you further and buy from you.
Easier to Process
Unlike text content, which can be easy to skip over or skim read, videos and pictures are a lot more engaging and also more memorable too. With the number of times they can be shared too, they circulate for a long time after they have been first published.
Provides More Opportunity to Engage Deeply With Your Audience
Content marketing is all about establishing a relationship with your target audience, finding trust in them and being seen as a reputable and knowledgeable business in your niche. Where words can definitely be used to evoke this kind of response in an audience, video marketing does an even better job. There is the opportunity to show your face, your work space, your employees, your area, what you do day to day in a video, and the visual input evokes deeper connections between the audience and the brand than words do.
The Benefits of Text Content Marketing Vs Video Content Marketing
Even though a lot can be said about the benefits of using video content marketing to promote your business, especially nowadays, the importance of text content cannot be denied either. Yes, people may respond better to video content, and there may be lots to be said for why it is a great and important form of content marketing, but the same can be said for written content too:
- Reading is more accessible: Whilst videos are great for conveying information quickly and in an engaging manner, sometimes watching a video isn’t a feasible option. It could be because of where you are, because you can’t hear sound, or because you just need to see a snippet of information instead of watching a full video on it.
- You can’t actually go without text: This is another element- even visual content includes text. Text content is what people search for, and also that allows you to create content that is more in-depth and discursive in comparison to video content marketing that is perhaps more ‘on the surface’ information.
- It is good to appeal to everyone: Finally, and perhaps the most important point when looking at this topic- you need a mixture of content, especially written content, in order to have good SEO and all the things that come with that.
So yes, whilst video marketing might have its great benefits for a business’s marketing, and the same for the written content too, in reality, you need a mixture of both in order to smash your SEO goals.
You also have to bear in mind that different audiences like and respond better to different types of content. Where some people will respond really well to videos, a lot of other people will respond well to text content too, and therefore ensuring you have a variety of content forms will keep you appealing to all audience preferences, keeping your engagement levels up too.
Final Thoughts
There is a place for both video and text content marketing in the future, with both bringing important and differing elements to the scene. Whilst video content marketing brings a level of engagement and opportunity for interaction that text content doesn’t quite, a lot can be said for the importance of the written word in content marketing too.
Text offers an easily accessible and descriptive form of content marketing that a lot of people will prefer over a video, as well as a host of SEO benefits that video marketing doesn’t achieve.
Both bring a multitude of great things to the content marketing scene, and should be used as allies, not enemies, in order to have the successful, engaging and SEO optimised content that you need.
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