Video marketing versus written marketing – why do both

According to research last year, over 80 percent of businesses use video in their marketing efforts, and more than 90 percent of marketers see video as an important marketing strategy. And they know why! In 2018, people watched video content for 1.5 hours a day, while in 2022 the average increased to 2.5 hours a day.

The increase in producing and consuming marketing video content is clear, but that does not mean video versus text is a fight with one champion! We will demonstrate why written content marketing plays an important role, just as video marketing does for your business. Let’s see how to make both strategies the most effective.

Time for video

In this chapter, we will offer you context on three levels – what is video content marketing, what are the reasons behind the preference to consume it and why you should use video marketing.

What is video content marketing?

Video content marketing includes producing and sharing video content using video editing apps to raise awareness, create engagement, and drive sales. Promote and tell people about your product or service by using this powerful marketing strategy!

How does it work?

Watching a video is an automatic, passive process that doesn’t take much energy or effort on behalf of the viewer.

Thus, people choose video content, particularly in a “browsing” state of mind, which leads visitors to pass through a website just to see what’s on offer. Being entertained is their main goal.

While watching video content, viewers often become immersed and create an empathetic connection with the screen. The emotional connection leaves a memorable impact, mostly thanks to how your brand can make a good impression.

It also turns out video content especially appeals to mobile users. According to Facebook, people are 1.5x more likely to watch video every day on a smartphone than on a computer.

People is watching videos on smartphone

Why marketers use it

Based on how video works and when people choose it, video blogs have several advantages you should know about.

Videos naturally attract attention. People’s eyes are subconsciously forced to follow movement on site.

“The play button is the most compelling call-to-action on the web.”

Michael Litt

Once the button is clicked, video content marketing has one of the highest engagement rates. The reason is simple – you can combine movement, sound, and text. This way, video helps to increase the time spent on your site. You also build trust and signal search engines your site has good content. Do you see where we are going? Yes, SEO optimization and traffic – both are improved by videos!

Video is also easily shareable, which is why videos are often discussed and shared on social media, bringing in more recognition and curiosity regarding the brand.

In addition, a recent study found that video can increase purchase intent by 82%. Another report says 73% of consumers declared they’re more likely to buy after watching a branded video describing a product. Isn’t that great?

Time for written content

Although a lot of available data and information suggests that video content marketing is better than written content marketing, we’d like to share some reasons why creating written content is still important for your business.

What is content writing?

Content writing for marketing includes writing blog posts and articles, newsletters, product descriptions, as well as content for specific social platforms and video scripts.

How does it work?

Reading is active. The process of reading requires creating thoughts about the content and activating mental structures. Reading engages the “inner voice”.

Written content is more often chosen by goal-oriented visitors who come to a website with a specific need. They know exactly what they are looking for, be it to read certain content, purchase a specific product or get an update on the latest news.

Preference for text is also linked to a sense of control. Some people need to remain in the driver’s seat as opposed to video consumption where the perception of control over the environment is unconsciously lost.

Finally, written text is easy to scan. Readers can skip the parts which interest them less, return to passages that are central to them, and set the pace of the interaction. When people open an article or blog post, they can instantly see how long it is and skim it for the key points.

Why marketers use it

Written content is generally easier to produce. Therefore, when deciding blog vs video blog, companies often prefer a blog.

For written content marketing there is also no need for additional equipment, and the only editing consists of proofreading and reviewing. Costs are created mostly by the salaries of people working on the content (copywriter, designer, and SEO specialist if your company has one).

Moreover, marketing content writing is easier to reuse and adjust according to the platform where you need to post. A piece of text originally created for Facebook can be transformed into an Instagram caption or Tweet by shortening the text and adjusting the tone to be more casual.

Posting one video everywhere, on the other hand, is not functional.

Okay, that sounds like text content marketing is well-adaptable, but how is it related to the company’s SEO? Text can be even more SEO-friendly! Surprised? With written content marketing, you can distribute multiple keywords throughout the article, which has a significant effect when it comes to ranking. The time for written content comes especially when people need an answer to specific questions. In that case, people rely on search engines rather than on social media and other platforms.

Make your content work

Video marketing and written marketing as collaborative elements

Now you know how written and video content marketing works and why it makes sense to do them both. Let’s move to practice. When planning and producing content, the most important element is always the purpose.

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

Simon Sinek

Clarify your purpose – whether it is to entertain, to inform, to educate or to inspire – and follow the three steps below:

• Identify your intended audience and find your ideal customer. Check the guideline on how to create your buyer persona in our article about creating a business plan.
  
  
• Decide what content will be useful or interesting to your intended audience.
  
  
• Choose the most suitable format for your content. How to tile a bathroom tutorial is better to share as a video, so the viewer can see the process of tiling. A complex recipe would be more appropriate to process as text with all necessary information.

Marketing plan

Make your video goal-oriented

By now, you already know about the advantages of video marketing for business and why people choose it. This knowledge will support your planning process at every step but do not worry, we will still guide you through this!

Select the type of video marketing content that fits your goal. Do you need to increase brand awareness? Sell more event tickets? Present a new product? Let’s look at the most common types of video marketing you can use.

Types of video marketing content

• Demo video – take your viewers on a tour of your software, unboxing a product or putting a physical product to the test
  
  
• Branded video – introduce your company’s vision, mission and core values
  
  
• Event video – are you hosting a conference or organizing a sport race? Invite people and release interesting interviews and moments from the event
  
  
• Expert interview – schedule an interview with internal experts or influencers in your industry and offer them to your customers
  
  
• How-To video – teach your customers something new and help them understand your product and services
  
  
• Explainer video – capture a fictional journey of the company’s core buyer persona and show a solution to an issue by purchasing your product
  
  
• Animated video – use strong visuals to explain an abstract service or complex concepts
  
  
• Customer testimonial video – capture your satisfied, loyal customers
  
  
• Live video – give your audience a special, behind-the-scenes look at your company
  
  
• 360° video – allow viewers to “scroll” around to see a service or product from every angle

Choose the right platform for your video

Decide where you will share your video. While choosing the platform, focus on the video length and tone. This applies especially in video marketing for social media. Let’s start with YouTube, video here can be long and informative. The tone can also vary from fun to formal.

TikTok stands on the other end of the social site spectrum. Here you can add short videos that are mostly designed for entertainment.

Facebook videos can be up to 15 minutes long. The tone tends to be either formal or casual.

On Instagram you have three format options: Instagram Videos, Stories and Reels. Instagram Videos can be up to 10 minutes long, the maximum limit for the other two is 60 seconds. In general, Reels tend to be more fun than other formats.

LinkedIn videos can range from 3 seconds to 30 minutes. The tone should be professional.

Twitter videos can be up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds long. Twitter videos vary between fun and casual to formal.

Sharing video on a company website allows you the freedom to select your desired video length. However, always consider if the length is appropriate to the purpose of your video content.

Decide how often you’ll post and if that’s a feasible schedule for your business. Create a content calendar and be efficient!

How to embed videos on your site

Watch our special tutorial on how to use videos on your website in the Webnode editor.

Track your video content outcomes

Choose metrics that will help you analyze the impact of your video content.

A simple starting point is view count, which is the number of times users have seen your video. This is a great metric to track if your goal is to increase brand awareness.

Another thing is play rate, which helps you figure out how relevant or appealing your video is to your audience. Play rate is expressed as the percentage of people who played your video divided by the number of impressions it received.

If you’re on social media, shares and comments are sensible metrics to track which can tell you if you are reaching a desirable number of people.

Let’s move to video completions – the number of times users play your video in its entirety. This metric can be more reliable than view count when trying to measure your video’s success.

Another telling indicator is also completion rate – the number of people who completed your video divided by the number of people who played it. A low completion rate might mean your video content isn’t resonating with your target audience.

Is your goal a particular action? Then pick up the click-through rate. One step further is the conversion rate. How to count these metrics you can find below. Google Analytics will help you organize your data.

Benefit from written content

We have showed you the advantages of content writing for business and why people and marketers choose it. Now transferring it to practice, how should writing for content marketing look?

Attention test! Text allows people to scan and jump to the most relevant parts. Great, you remember well. Moreover, according to the research people have been doing it for more than 20 years! That makes this behavior the most important point you should count with in your written content marketing:

• Use clear, noticeable headings and subheadings
• Place information up front
• Employ formatting techniques like bulleted lists and bold text
• Use plain language
• Insert one idea per paragraph
• Shorten the word count

Selecting the type of text and deciding where you are going to share it are also applicable steps for text. At the same time, the type of content writing marketing can be flexibly transformed to different styles across various platforms.

After that, decide how often you’ll post and choose metrics to analyze the impact of your content. Do you see? Adopt the process once and use it in a multitude of ways.

Track your written content outcomes

Identify what KPIs (key performance indicators) are the best to track the impact on your business goals. Here are some examples to measure:

• Volume of organic traffic generated
• Number of call-to-action (CTA) clicks (e.g., registering)
• Click-through rate – the number of CTA clicks divided by the overall number of visitors x 100
• Total number of conversions – e.g., the number of those who registered after clicking the CTA
• Overall conversion rate for your article – the number of conversions divided by the number of visitors x 100

Seeking more video marketing ideas? Follow our tips here. We also gathered for you a detailed workflow for your blog posts. Are you planning to start blogging? Try the step-by-step guide.