When it comes to marketing, the content remains the backbone of success, and rightly so. When properly done, video marketing could build strong connections between your brand and your audience, driving massive sales for your company. However, video marketing, like other forms of marketing, has its best practices, as well as mistakes that you should avoid at all costs. Here are 10 of those mistakes:
Poor Quality Videos
The only thing worse than not leveraging video marketing is using poor quality videos in marketing. While you might want to rush to get things kicking, it's important to get your priorities straight.
Anyone can make a video with just access to a smartphone. But that's probably not what you should aim for. Your video quality directly reflects what your brand is all about (at least to your audience). Poor content can ruin that, really fast.
You should consult the experts in this field and partner with the right firm or client. You want content that represents what your brand is all about, content that makes your audience confident about your products or services.
Failing To Promote Your Brand
You want to create high-quality videos that instill trust in your audience. However, it's as good as wasted if you're not driving your brand. It's easy to get your mind so fixed on the creation of a video you forget the main goal, which is to communicate and promote your business.
You want to include your logo, web address, or any other form of identity in your video, especially at the beginning. That said, if you're making video content just for the sake of it, with no clear goal, you should probably restrategize.
Making Videos Too Long
Making unnecessarily long videos is a no-no. Video marketing statistics show that 1 out of every five persons will hit that back button just 10 seconds into a video.
You want to make your videos punchy, engaging, and to the point. Stay within 60 to 90 seconds, and you should be okay. You also don't want to get your viewers lost in lengthy intros. Keep them short and go straight to the meat of the discourse.
Remember, you've got only 10 seconds to spark that interest!
Addressing Too Many Points In One Video
You have a lot of information to pass across. You have a diverse audience you intend to target. So it makes sense to cram it all in one video, right? Not at all. More often than not, your audience won't gain anything from all of that information. It would even be quite shocking if they watched it to the end. Plus, with too much information packed in, you'll probably lose control over the length of the video.
You want to focus on a single point and dissect it completely in a short time frame, ending in a definite take-home point. Also, you shouldn't try to address every single person on the net. Find your ideal audience and tailor your content to their needs.
Not Including A Clear Call to Action
Say you created a punchy, high-quality, targeted video, and it's racking up those views. It's all pointless if there's no call to action.
You don't want your viewers to watch your video, learn something useful, and be lost as to what to do next. There's no point having 5 million views if it leads nowhere.
Whether it's a simple "visit our website," "subscribe to our channel," "give us a call," or "follow us on social media," including a clear call to action tells your viewers exactly what they need to do.
Failing To Work On SEO
SEO has become a major part of content marketing, and rightly so. People are always searching for information. If you know what they're searching for (keyword research) and why they're searching for it (search intent), you can create content targeting these people.
It's no longer enough to post a video on YouTube simply. If you want to compete in the search results pages, you need to create great content, optimize keywords and metadata, and use the right captions and thumbnails.
Not Engaging Your Audience
The truth is, your customers are not there to help you, at least not until you've helped them. They're there for themselves, and if you can't give them what they want, they'll disappear.
You could mention this in a live video or a couple of side videos before this supposed one. Then ask for their thoughts and ideas on the subject, and what they'll like to see.
Incorporate some of these ideas in the final video and launch. They'd have contributed to it, and this will instill a sense of ownership in them.
Underutilizing Available Platforms and Formats
A lot of people watch videos on their smart gadgets, but on which platform? While you might want to focus on video content entirely, you might also want to take advantage of other similar content types. For example, you could use GIFs for a platform like Twitter. Here's
You'll be very wrong if you think everyone out there only watches videos on YouTube. You'll be even more wrong if you fail to take advantage of the many other platforms out there.
Traditionally, Facebook and YouTube were the main means of video marketing, but not anymore. From Instagram to Snapchat and LinkedIn, the options keep growing.
how to make a video into a GIF easily.
Overselling
You want to connect them to your brand naturally. Give them useful information, and tell (or show) them how your products or services are beneficial to them.
Think about content that connects to them and solves their problems, buyer guides that could compare your products and the competition's, or testimonials, tutorials, and demos.
You want to target every stage of their buyer's journey, not just spewing specifications.
As a rule of thumb, you want to make your videos at least 70 to 80% high-quality, useful content, and just about 20 to 30% sales.
Remember that it's not about you. So help your viewers and watch them get attached to your brand in the long run.
Failing To Measure Progress
It's easy to get lost in creating videos, forgetting to measure their impacts. Once you have created your video marketing strategy, and have started implementation, you want to run analytics. Check the stats against your company goals, and have the will to change things up a bit if you're not getting the desired results.
Tools that can give you information about who watches your videos, what part they watch more, how long they watch, and other such information. This will give you more information about your ideal customers.
Click here if you want to know more about video marketing strategies.
Bottom Line: Results Don't Come Instantly
Great things take time, and expecting instant results with video marketing only leads to frustration and diminishing interests. You want your video marketing strategy to be consistency-, patience-, and dedication-driven
