Digital Prosperity Blog

Videos Vs Articles: Which Is Best For the eCommerce Website?

Written by Lewis Dillingham | 20-Mar-2018 15:07:33

An eCommerce website has many additional benefits and challenges compared to a brochure or information website. They allow a business to make sales with much less personal involvement or time investment but that also means that marketing can be somewhat more limited as you will struggle to create a relationship with your clients.

Content is a great way of resolving that issue as it engages your client when you can't. ECommerce websites can benefit from many kinds of content but the two dominant formats are video and blog posts. These methods are effective because they give you a way of providing information to your clients without needing to give up your time and allow you to continually market to your leads 24hours a day.

Video Content For Your eCommerce Website

Video content can come in many varieties, all of which could benefit your business. Whether it be a live Q&A stream, a product demonstration or informational video, you can engage, educate and encourage a lot of people using video. Videos take a lot of time and effort to produce but their relevant lifespan is essentially limitless. As long as you are putting resources into distributing the content, it will continue to provide you with fresh leads.

Video is also considered by experts to be the content format with the highest ROI. Due to the visually attractive and engaging nature of video, you can portray an especially strong message about your brand, products, event or anything else. You can promote your products, provide useful information to your customers, and educate your leads on new offers and events or anything else you could possibly want to say to your audience.

The best kinds of video for an eCommerce website are:

  • Product Demonstrations – Show your products in use and provide information and statistics about said product.
  • Tutorials – If your product requires certain skills or knowledge to use, try creating videos that show how to set up the product, use the product and maintain the product.
  • Product Showcases – When you launch an exciting new product, try releasing a showcase that dramatically and emotively shows off your new product.
  • Offers and Deals – Instead of using easy-to-miss text posts, try creating an engaging and noticeable video to market your offers and deals.
  • Live Q&As – Run live streams via Facebook or Twitch and let people ask questions about your products or your company.

Blog Content For You eCommerce Website

Blogs are one of the most widely used forms of content by businesses. They are great ways to provide useful, relevant advice and are also surprisingly quick to produce. An article is easy to consume, easy to distribute and is a staple part of inbound marketing.

The intention of your blog is to encourage potential leads to find your business through supplying useful, relevant content. It should become a big part of your website, receiving many organic visits from search engines and should be a powerful tool in getting visitors to convert. By placing CTAs on your blog articles your readers can convert directly from the articles, which is something a video lacks. Your articles can also be a host for other types of content, which allows you to create some collaboration between your content. You can insert your images and infographics into an article, embed your videos and link PDFs.

Your articles can cover any topic you desire but if you want to get the most out of them, they need to provide the reader with honest, useful, up-to-date advice. Some of the best topics for an eCommerce site are:

  • How to set up a product
  • How to use a product
  • How to maintain a product
  • Which of these two products is best for you?
  • The benefits of using your products
  • If you have this issue, this product can help
  • What to do if your product has an issue

Which Can You Benefit Most From?

When comparing any two formats of content you have to consider what you want the content to achieve. Are you looking to increase website visitors and boost brand awareness? Or is it a few strong leads that you want? Once you know this, you can consider the strengths and weaknesses of each type of content. In the case of videos and articles, they each benefit your businesses in different ways.

Let's take a look at two different comparisons:

Video vs Article: Increasing website visitors and raising brand awareness

Videos

Articles
  • Videos are a very engaging type of content and will attract the attention of many people.
  • Videos can be distributed all across the internet, ranging from social media, video upload platforms, websites, emails, articles and more.
  • Videos take time and money to produce but are considered by experts to have the highest ROI.
  • Visual content sticks in the mind better than written so a video will allow someone to remember your logo or the look of the products, sparking their memory next time they see it. Meanwhile, words can be hard to remember so they may forget your business name and product name.
  • Video can better capitalise on powerful partnerships as seeing a company team up with your favourite creators and celebrities is more impactful than reading about it.
  • Video appeals to everyone who watches it whether they are interested in the product or not, allowing you to gain a new fan without having to specifically target them.
  • Articles will appear on Google search results, meaning they're easier to find than a video.
  • Articles can be shared on social media and emailed to leads.
  • Articles are more accessible for than videos as they are faster to load, meaning people with poor internet may search specifically for an article.
  • You can produce articles faster than most types of content, giving you a higher number of ways a client can find them.

 

Video vs Article: Getting strong leads

Videos

Articles
  • Video can be optimised with tags and titles that will allow them to be found by the right people.
  • Video will engage people strongly, allowing potential leads to become more invested in your products.
  • Seeing a product in action will gain more trust than only reading about it.
  • Articles are designed to be found by prospects so anyone that clicks onto your article is already invested in finding your products.
  • Articles can be updated as needed, meaning readers will always come to you with the appropriate knowledge.
  • Articles are a part of your website so readers can immediately begin browsing your website without needing to first go to your website.
  • Articles can have clear, engaging CTAs on the article itself, allowing people to convert directly from the content.
  • Articles should contain useful, relevant content that leads to well informed, eager prospects.

The Happy Middle Ground

As you can see, both videos and articles have their strengths. Ideally, you should be using both types of content to first attract numbers and then produce articles to find the strongest leads among them. Videos take longer to create but have an incredible ROI. Articles are quick to produce so you can create a steady stream of new content.

Find your goals and then decide on the best content strategy to achieve those goals. The JDR Group are experts in digital marketing and have the knowledge and skill necessary to help guide your content strategy to the next level. You can contact us on our website or call us on 01332 343 281.
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