Debra MurphyNovember 5, 2021TwitterFacebookLinkedInFlipboard0
Video marketing campaigns have been buzzing all over social media platforms. This marketing strategy conveys product messages that people are often reluctant to find for themselves. As video content is becoming popular, marketers should take this opportunity to leverage their campaigns using this content format. But before jumping into video creation, be sure you execute a sound video content marketing strategy and avoid these common mistakes.
It’s worth mentioning that video content is predicted to occupy over half of the internet traffic by 2022. Cisco estimates about 82% of the traffic will be all videos, suggesting that more internet users love finding and browsing new information in the form of a video.
When it comes to product placement, however, videos once again have won over the content competition. Customers prefer watching a product video to reading articles about it, as 33% of them believe that videos help them remember the brand more.
Therefore, marketers now thrive on making the utmost marketing videos to run their product campaigns better.
What is Video Marketing?
Video marketing is a campaign strategy using video content to promote brands and products. It is a type of marketing that uses video rather than just plain text or image ads to sell services and products by increasing brand awareness and encouraging product sales.
Unlike other marketing strategies, video marketing has been proven to bring in more sales as customers prefer more videos to plain texts that don’t offer any real visuals. What’s more, video marketing campaigns have contributed to other benefits that businesses can obtain in no time, including:
Improve SEO rank
Businesses can benefit from better rankings among the first top ten results with videos featured on the Google search engine. This way, it’s easier to attract more potential customers to your brand when people discover your page faster. In addition, having your site planted on the first page of SERPs will also improve your brand’s credibility. This results in better corporate branding.
Enhance social media marketing
Videos are not only popular on YouTube. They are also shared on other social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter that allow users to watch, share, and comment. Once again, this leads to more exposure for business brands, products, or services offered.
Increase ROI (return of investment)
Businesses save money while taking advantage of video marketing campaigns as they get people talking about their brand without buying an ad spot every time. They simply need to create interesting videos posted online so others can spread the word by sharing them with family and their closest ones.
Video Marketing Mistakes Marketers Should Know
1. Have undefined goals
Goals are critical in every project campaign. Without goals, businesses are simply wasting their time in creating an effective video marketing campaign. Define your goals before you create a video. This helps you determine the type of video needed to meet the defined goals. Also, don’t forget to post your videos on social media platforms after it’s ready for its wide range of reach.
For example, if you aim for greater exposure to fit your TOFU (Top of Funnel), how-to videos will be the best content placement in your marketing campaigns. On the other hand, if you have a targeted audience and wish to nudge them down in your sales funnel, product demo videos fit these purposes.
2. Target the wrong audience
A major video marketing mistake is not knowing your audience at all. Such a mistake can create an imbalance between the product and the customer’s expectations, which results in failed campaigns.
However, there’s another mistake you should avoid: targeting the wrong audience. For instance, if your product is for gamers and you target car enthusiasts on social media, it can be considered an error of judgment. Make sure that you create videos for the right customers who are willing to buy your products.
It’d be a waste if you spend time making videos, which isn’t cheap in the first place, not knowing who you’ll capture the attention from.
3. Not following the right video format
Many marketers follow the 80:20 rule where more than 20% of their videos feature longer run times (2-3 minutes) because ads take that long to go live. These lengthy videos are good for more information, but they don’t work wonders when placed on social media networks with time limitations.
It’s important that your videos are short and engaging enough for people to keep watching your content. You should give them a reason why they need to continue learning about your product information in a short timeframe. This keeps moving them forward in becoming your customers.
4. Deliver unclear messages
Messages are essential elements in your marketing videos. They carry the core point you want your audience to understand from your video content. Many marketers ignore giving a compelling story. This makes their audience wonder if they are explaining what they are trying to tell.
If you fail to deliver a clear message, your viewers will not understand what your marketing videos are all about. A video marketing concept that provides unclear messages may lead to the loss of traffic and viewership.
Video editing is a crucial way to deliver your messages visually. If you have the funds, it’s a good idea to hire a video editor to help. But if that isn’t an option, consider these video editing programs to do it yourself or with your team.
5. Overwhelm people with too much information
The last mistake marketers make in their videos is to overwhelm people with too much information. You should know that most audiences don’t like long-drawn videos or presentations that take more than three minutes for them to get the main idea. They want a straightforward explanation.
Your customers may have questions on why they should buy your products. But some marketers don’t answer these questions in their video marketing. Always remember that this type of unanswered question may prevent potential customers from investing in your products or services, hindering you from making more sales.
6. Videos are too promotional
This is one of the common mistakes that marketers commit. Many marketers toss everything on a marketing video and make too much promotional content that people don’t want to watch.
When your videos are too aggressive in asking viewers to purchase, you’re doing the opposite of marketing. You may end up losing your potential buyers and audience if you don’t learn to “show” them the benefits and advantages of your products or services in the first place.
Avoid making promotional videos because this is not what viewers want to watch. Engaging in this approach will do more harm than good. It can result in distrust and negative perception about your business instead of showing them why they need to buy what you are offering.
7. Put a confusing call-to-action
Marketing videos are not created to only entertain people or generate views, likes, and shares (though these activities help considerably). If you want to make money out of your videos, then you need to include elements that encourage viewers to buy what you’re advertising, like an affiliate link with a call-to-action button at the end of the video.
A call-to-action is the one statement in the video that reassures viewers they are headed in the right direction if they click on your link. It tells them exactly what to do at the end of the video. You may want them to click on an opt-in button or to visit your website for more information about your business or product.
For instance, include “Visit our website now for more details” or “Buy this product now.” Make sure that it appears within three to ten seconds at the end of your video so that people don’t miss out on your call-to-action message.
Takeaway
Since videos have become popular in the past few years, this content format will effectively boost sales performance and drive business growth. You can create marketing videos and publish them on social media handles, such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Leveraging these platforms will help you reach out to a bigger audience as well as increase your chance of making conversions.
However, many marketers often ignore creativity and the right format in making marketing videos. They had made mistakes when producing their videos and failed to make a sale or reach a wider audience. This article should help you find the most common video marketing mistakes that marketers should know before making ones. So, you know which steps to avoid and which ones to improve.Twitter TweetFacebook Share
* This article was originally published here