Effective content marketing involves publishing a steady stream of content that your audience finds interesting enough to acknowledge and hopefully even share with their online social circles. There are many aspects to a content marketing campaign that determine its overall success or failure, including the variety of mediums used in the content marketing mix.

The ideal marketing mix in the digital age involves more than the traditional combination of the right product, placement, price and promotional material—although these factors are still important in any form of business. Social marketing and content marketing have opened the floodgates for countless promotional possibilities that never before existed, including short, zippy videos published on YouTube, Vine, Vimeo and other similar platforms.

In addition to posting images, infographics, blog posts and general updates to your website and social media accounts, why should you put in the extra work to include video in the mix? Let’s take a closer look at the value of video as a medium in content marketing and then check out some examples of brands using video in harmony with their overall content marketing mix.

Why Bother With Video?

The modern marketer’s mantra states that content is king and we know that balancing promotions across various platforms is best, so why is everyone so seemingly smitten with video? There are several reasons why video has made such an impression in the world of content marketing. Video allows marketers to create content that is:

• Diversified: Cross-platform marketing allows you to communicate more frequently with a larger portion of your target audience. Without video content your brand can’t establish a presence on popular sites like YouTube and Vimeo or mobile apps like Vine.

• Quickly Digestible: As content marketing continues to thrive, the amount of promotional content online continues to increase at the risk of overwhelming consumers. One of the reasons video is such an appealing medium for content marketing is that your audience can easily digest the clip with minimal effort. Quick, relevant videos provide consumers with a convenient and often entertaining shortcut to your content.

• Easily Shareable: Video provides your brand with a medium through which it can be creative yet informative. Your audience is more likely to share content that is engaging and entertaining, so videos often become popular candidates for retweeting or sharing across various forms of social media.

Choosing A Platform

Once you decide that video would make a valuable addition to your brand’s content marketing mix, you still need to decide which platform you’d like to create video for. Would a 6 second Vine clip suffice or do you envision an informative and entertaining YouTube series contributing to your marketing campaign? Both Vine and Instagram work well for publishing concise, shareable video content, while Vimeo or YouTube might be better options for longer commercials.

Chasing The Dream of Viral Video

It seems like every other day there is a new viral video that absolutely everyone has watched, giving marketers everywhere hope that their next video might hit the jackpot. Unfortunately, many of the videos that go viral are not associated with any particular brand or, if they are, they have a very heavy promotional backing to give them a false start on their rise to Internet fame. A video rarely goes viral organically without a rare set of perfect circumstances.

However, this shouldn’t discourage content marketers from creating videos. There are many carefully orchestrated videos designed to communicate with a target audience and increase brand engagement without ever going viral. After all, content marketing isn’t as concerned with creating viral content as it is with creating quality content that stays true to the brand and speaks to a specific audience. That being said, launching a popular video campaign is obviously an accomplishment that would benefit any company.

Sources of Inspiration: Looking At The Diversity Of Video Content Marketing

Now that we’ve gained a better understanding of the value that video can add to your content marketing mix (as more than just an attempt to gain viral exposure), let’s check out a few brands who have already discovered the creative possibilities of video campaigns.

Brand: Lowes

The popular home hardware store offers its Vine and YouTube fans quick and simple videos that help solve common home fix-it dilemmas. This particular clip demonstrates how Lowes’ viewers can keep wipe a paintbrush with dripping any paint. The #lowesfixinsix hash tag sums up the simplistic genius behind this easily digestible video content marketing.

Brand: Goodlife Fitness

Filmed in a Goodlife gym facility with plenty of Goodlife paraphernalia and logos within the camera’s line of vision, this video is part of a YouTube series produced by the health club brand. Although it’s only 30 seconds long, this video requires a slightly longer attention span than any 6-second Vine clips. The short instructive video provides relevant information to Goodlife’s audience by demonstrating how to do a proper squat.

Brand: Uberflip

Less than a minute and a half long, this informative clip uses graphics, statistics and text to quickly demonstrate the growing popularity of video as a cross-platform promotional tool. This video appeals to its audience by delivering valuable information through a concise and engaging video.

Although the use of video is relatively new to many content marketers, there is already extensive variety among the types of videos brands choose to include in their content marketing mix. Finding a video style and format that match your overall marketing goals will allow you to speak to your audience through a valuable medium that is quickly becoming a crucial part of content marketing.

About the Author

Emily is a freelance writer based in Toronto, Ontario who covers a range of topics from technology to travel. She holds a Bachelor in English Literature and Business from the University of Waterloo. No matter how many projects she is working on, Emily always finds time for baking, reading, and yoga.