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11 Common Video Marketing Mistakes You Should Avoid
Hari Krishnan - September 2, 2022 - Leave your thoughts.
A video marketing strategy is not merely about recording a video and uploading it. A competent video marketing strategy is designed to communicate your message to your target audience in a clear and concise manner through videos. The importance of video marketing cannot be overstated in a world where 86% of marketers have generated leads with video marketing.
A market leader like Grammarly owes a huge chunk of its success to its judicious video marketing strategy. However, a video marketing strategy can fall flat on its face if it is pockmarked with mistakes.
Here are some video marketing mistakes you should avoid to ensure that your video marketing strategy helps your business take off and does not fall flat.
Video Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
Video Marketing is no child’s play. It has its own sets of caveats and pitfalls, let’s have a look at them:
1. Lacking Definite Goals and Clarity: Do not dive into video marketing without knowing what you are really using it for. A lot of companies commit the blunder of making videos just because their competitors are doing the same and end up making haphazard videos.
It is important to carve a proper plan and roadmap to guarantee that you can make your video marketing journey a success. Ensure that you know what you are seeking out of your videos; be it creating awareness, generating leads, customer retention, conversions, etc.
2. Not Knowing The Target Audience: Do not use videos as if you are shooting in the dark. Making videos that are all over the place will only make you directionless. Conduct thorough audience research and define your target audience. Map out your ideal customer profiles and buyer personas so that you can make videos that cater to your target audience instead of spreading yourself thin.
3. Creating Lengthy Videos: In today’s time of dwindling attention spans and tight schedules, no one has the time to sit through 15-minute videos. Make sure that watching your video is an engaging experience for your audience. In fact, business videos lasting for more than 120 seconds can prove to be a deterrent. You can break large pieces of information into smaller portions of videos, as it is not required for you to stuff every piece of information inside a single video.
4. Lack of Video SEO: SEO is not just confined to articles, blogs, and landing pages. A video optimized for SEO can yield incredible results, and drive massive traffic to your website. Here are some video SEO tips to rank higher on the search engine results page(SERP):
- Ensure that the title and description contain keywords.
- Include captions and transcripts.
- Use a captivating thumbnail.
- Make it mobile-friendly as many watch videos on their handheld devices.
- Make use of relevant tags.
5. Not Including CTAs: The pulling power of a great CTA often goes under the radar. Including CTAs in your videos guarantees that your audience has comprehended the purpose of your videos. A video without CTA is dysfunctional like a pen without ink.
CTA can be included anywhere in the video. It can redirect your customer to anywhere you want them to go - landing pages, blogs, demo pages, etc.
6. Not Focusing on the Video Analytics: Imagine watching a live sports game without a scoreboard, that is exactly how it is when you do not keep an eye on your video statistics. You need to track the performance of your videos with incisive video analytics. You should be up-to-date with insightful metrics such as clickthrough rate, engagement rate, average view time, play rate, video heatmaps, and so on to check whether your video is producing the desired results.
7. Using a Single Video for Everything: One size does NOT fit all. You need to make videos for each step in your customer’s journey and marketing funnel. Depending on a single video to do wonders for your business would be a suicidal strategy on your part. Every aspect of your product and service deserves a video of its own, and so do each one of your buyer personas.
8. Being Self-Obsessed: We can understand that you pour sweat, blood, and tears into a product or a service, but that does not mean the customer is going to be regaled by your tales of greatness. Your audience wants to know how that product can add value to their lives. Before making any video, step into the customer’s shoes and deem how your product is going to benefit them and make your videos accordingly.
9. Not Making Your Videos Interactive: Interactive videos might come across as a futuristic tool, but they are already here. Interactive videos are more engaging, effective, insightful, and comprehensible for the audience. With the right video hotspots, you can make a great impact on your audience by making your videos interactive. You can make your video interactive by incorporating the following tools in your videos:
a) Chapters: You can divide your videos chapter-wise to help your customer navigate according to what they are looking for. The chapters coupled with timestamps will prove to be of great value to your viewers.
b) Text Overlay: You can enhance your videos by adding text overlays that will take your customer to another page when clicked. You can control when to place them and their display time according to your convenience.
c) Transparent Overlay: A transparent overlay is infused with the logo of your brand. They maintain their presence throughout the video, and whenever the logo is clicked, your customer is redirected to a different page.
d) Forms: Embedding forms help you collect information about the viewer and generate leads. It can also help you in gathering feedback from your customers. You can customize the placement of forms according to your convenience.
e) Quizzes: You might be apprehensive about including quizzes as they come across as interrogative, but they can also help you understand how successful your video is when communicating your message to the customers.
f) Surveys: Surveys can be a great interactive device to help you with what the customer likes and dislikes about your product. It can also help you with qualitative research about your audience.
g) Polls: Polls are an interactive and instantaneous form of A/B split testing for your business. For instance, you can showcase two mutually exclusive features of a product in your videos and ask your customers to pick one.
h) Call-to-Action: As mentioned above, a call-to-action is a must-have in any video, as a video will come across as pointless without it.
10. Lack of Branding: If you aim to create a distinct identity for your business, it only makes sense that your videos also highlight your brand. You can do it by using your logo as a watermark or by including your brand logo at the beginning or the end of a video. To take it a notch further, you can join hands with a proficient video hosting platform that allows you to customize its video player to suit your brand color and identity.
11. Choosing a Wrong Video Marketing Service: Imagine creating the perfect videos only to be failed by a wrong video marketing platform. Hire a video marketing service that breathes life and soul into your vision to ensure that you watch your video marketing strategy come to life the way you want it to.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What are the different types of video marketing videos?
Answer: The different types of videos in video marketing are:
- Explainer Videos: As the term suggests, this type of video is created to explain what your brand stands for.
- Product Demo Videos: These types of videos explain how a product works, its features, and its use cases.
- Customer Testimonial Videos: A customer vouching for your product in a video is a great way to generate trust and win over potential customers.
2. Is video marketing necessary?
Answer: In a world where the audiences are devouring videos with great interest, it makes no sense to omit video marketing. Ideally, it should take the center stage of your business’ marketing strategy considering the amount of video that is being consumed on a daily basis.
Conclusion
A foolproof video marketing strategy can help your business grow leaps and bounds. However, a flawed video marketing strategy can cause your business to encounter abyssal failure. You must collaborate with a credible video marketing company that has a deep understanding about everything related to videos to ensure that your video marketing is devoid of flaws.
