The Better Marketing Blog

Who says you need a multi-million-dollar budget for marketing? One company leveraged a little creativity and a few interesting facts to create an engaging, highly shareable video on something you would never expect: opossums.

The Not-Quite Pest

Did you know that opossums are nearly immune to rabies and that they can navigate mazes faster than rats and cats?

Neither did we.

American Pest, a pest control company, created a video dedicated to the underappreciated opossum. You might think that the company would describe the opossum’s negative qualities, from digging in crops and gardens to infesting basements and attics.

Instead, American Pest used its online platform to celebrate this underrated marsupial. According to the pest control company, opossums actually eat some of America’s most insidious pests, from cockroaches and mice to slugs.

Additionally, the company used its videos to dispel a popular myth. Unlike mice, rats, and other pets, opossums are poor carriers of Lyme disease. Since Lyme disease passes primarily through tick bites, opossums can actually cut down on the disease’s spread because they eat most of the ticks that attach themselves to their skin.

Who knew?

Content Marketing Done Right

Let’s take a look at a few things American Pest did well with its opossum video:

• Cute animals: Check! Everybody loves a cuddly animal, and American Pest did a great job through imagery and video of painting opossums as sweet and loving instead of wild and unpredictable. Watch out LOLcats — you have some competition.
• Fast Facts: Check! The video is, at its core, educational, but American Pest didn’t overload viewers with facts. Instead, it used short bits of text to communicate only essential information.
• Myths and Truths: Check! Consumers love when companies and marketers dispel myths and provide the real dirt. Not only did American Pest demonstrate that opossums can actually combat Lyme disease, but it also busted myths about the animals’ cleanliness, eating habits, and personalities.
• Hard Figures: Check! American Pest used figures from a recent study on opossums to bolster its claims. Many of the text overlays featured raw numbers and statistics. This form of proof can help lend credibility to a piece of content.
• CTA: Check! At the end of the video, American Pest includes a subtle call to action that invites viewers to contact the company for pest removal issues. Even better, American Pest mentioned a tick-free instead of an opossum-free environment, which fits with the video’s content.

Does the opossum video have great production quality? No. Are the fonts and colors a little cheesy? Sure. However, it works as a standalone piece of content marketing.

If you’re stuck in a content rut and you don’t know how to pull yourself out, grab the nearest camera. Create a video on a subject that fascinates or inspires you, then see where the content takes you.

In the meantime, we’re here to help inspire your content marketing strategy. Get a free trial so Media Shower can give your content the raw power needed to attract your target audience.