Video marketing has become a huge part of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. With every passing day, video marketers are getting more experienced and savvy, but many businesses who are just beginning to experiment with video are still making the worst video marketing mistakes, which are easy to avoid with a little pre-planning and thought (and knowing that there is, in fact, a list of “worst video marketing mistakes”).
Businesses use video marketing with the goal of building their brand with consumers. If you take a quick look at YouTube, you will see that there are many companies that upload new videos regularly to their brand-specific channels. The reason they do this is to build trust with their audience, increase reach, develop top of mind position and attract new customers to their brand.
So, video marketing can effectively help your business to build a brand name in your market. However, unless you conduct your video marketing campaign strategically, success will remain elusive and you will be flushing both precious time and your advertising budget down the drain.
Let’s dive into the 5 big video marketing mistakes you should steer clear of:
#1 – Uploading Long and Boring Videos
People today prefer quick, to-the-point videos. Therefore, if your video is long or boring, they will give up and stop watching. Not only have they ignored your marketing video but your video’s “watch time” is tanking, too. Watch time, how long your viewers are watching your videos, is a critical factor for video search engine rankings for both Google and YouTube. The thinking behind this ranking factor is simply that how long a viewer watches is a measurement of enjoyment. Search engines want to provide the very best search results and give consumers the best user experience.
Uploading long videos is one of the very worst videos marketing mistakes you can make because not only are your videos not getting watched but they’re not going to be found in search engines as well.
There are exceptions to this, if you have an audience and a following, people will watch your videos when you create educational pieces. Here is an example of what I mean – unless you’re a Wood Worker, or follow Pedulla’s work, you’re not going to sit through 45 minute video of a guy talking about work benches.
As a consumer, if I was looking for a work bench, I wouldn’t sit through that video – I just don’t have the time. But again, Pedulla is creating content for his followers, he’s not creating promotional videos. Promotional videos should provide the consumer with a brief overview of your brand and its benefits. If you need to provide detailed information in your videos, just make sure that you are creating a series of topic-specific videos, and try to keep each to less than 5 minutes. 2 to 3 minutes is optimum.
Mixing Too Many Messages
You have to be able to answer the question, “What is the main message I want my audience to take away from each marketing video?”
Each video that you upload should contain one main message that you want to convey to your audience. Just one. Do not insert too many thoughts, ideas, extraneous details, or even calls to action for your audience to juggle.
You should focus on sending only one message per video because your audience will not keep up with more than one message. Also, your audience can easily receive your message and remember it. Be sure to deliver your message clearly to avoid any possible misunderstanding.
(Tell them one thing.)
Not Focusing on Your Audience
Remember this key point: Your audience wants to watch your videos because they want to get something from your videos. If you focus only on yourself, your business, or your brand, then your audience will tune out. Your videos will be viewed as some random advertisement that has no relevance to your audience. No one likes “being advertised to.”
Personally, I like to focus on solving the problems my audience face. Everyone wants to relieve some pain, discomfort or uncertainty; you’re probably here right now because you want to make marketing videos that work and avoid making the worst video marketing mistakes and embarrassing yourself in public.
My marketing equation has always been to identify the pain point, agitate that pain and make it out to be a really big problem and then offer relief backed by user validation. I focus on the intended receiver of the message and try not to talk about myself. Make it more about the consumer, and less about me. Avoiding the worst video marketing mistakes is as easy as giving me what I’ve come for as quickly as possible and getting out of the way.
If you focus on giving consistent value to your audience, with a little (or a lot) creativity, your videos will get more views, customers will engage with your brand and they will share your videos because they know people that your video will also benefit. When your videos start getting viewed more than a few thousand times, I think it goes without saying that those views help to boost brand recognition, and affinity, significantly.
(Your audience wants something. Give it to them.)
Forgetting Your Brand Identity
How can your audience remember your brand if you do not insert your brand name or logo in your videos? Many people forget that brand-building should be the main focus on their video marketing campaign. You should insert your brand identity in each of your videos a minimum of 3 times. In addition to the visual brand identity, you also need to repeat the brand name several times throughout the audio track. By inserting your brand identity in your videos, consumers will readily remember your brand.
This also can help prevent copyright infringement and theft of your videos, which is often being called “freebooting.” Avoiding this on the list of worst video marketing mistakes has two important benefits.
(Always include your brand.)
Weak Call to Action (CTA):
Why is it important for you to insert a strong call to action in your videos? Because you want your viewers to take action immediately after watching your videos. With a persuasive call to action, you can direct your audience to fulfill its next obligation in your marketing strategy. This obligation could include subscribing to your channel, signing up for your mailing list, trying your free product, grabbing your special deal, or commenting on your videos.
The call to action is
importantcritical in every marketing promotion!
A strong call to action is what makes your marketing promotion a success. Failing to include the proper call to action in your videos will result in the audience losing their interest and not recalling your brand. Of the worst video marketing mistakes to make, this is the easiest, and probably the most important, to correct.
(Tell the consumer what to do.)
Best of luck!
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