When it’s done right, video marketing spreads reach, builds trust, and motivates prospects to choose your business over someone else’s—but done wrong, it can end up being a waste of time, energy, and money.
Here are 7 common video marketing mistakes to avoid, along with tips on how to prevent these potential pitfalls:
Video Marketing Mistake #1: Not Creating Buyer Personas
Without clearly-defined buyer personas, your marketing videos risk falling upon uninterested ears. Each marketing video you create should have a specific audience in mind.
How to Fix It: Create buyer personas by asking yourself these questions:
- What challenges do the various segments of your audience face? What will your videos solve for them? What are their goals?
- What are your goals? For instance, what do you want viewers to do after watching your video?
- What type of video will resonate with what type of audience? TikTok videos, for example, appeal to a younger-skewing, more internet-savvy audience like Gen Z, while Facebook videos tend to attract millennials and older.
Video Marketing Mistake #2: Not Writing a Script
You might think it’s a good idea to just turn the camera on and improv your way through it. Here’s why we don’t recommend that.
Simply turning the camera on and speaking can lead to repeating yourself, rambling on tangents, and even forgetting what you meant to say. If you don’t have a guideline, you might not realize that you didn’t capture everything you needed to until you’re all done and reviewing the footage.
How to Fix It: Even a simple outline can help you stay on track when you’re busy creating your marketing video. Sketch out the highlights you want to hit before moving on to the next steps in the process. If you’d prefer to know exactly what to say, write, read, re-read, and rehearse your script beforehand. Your preparedness will go a long way!
Video Marketing Mistake #3: Ignoring Platform Parameters
Don’t cut corners and make the common blunder of uploading the same video to every platform you can think of. Not only does each video hosting site or app have different technical requirements, but where and how you upload them can affect your video’s reach, too.
How to Fix It: Ask yourself…
- Does your video need sound to be comprehended, or can people watch it silently? Depending on the platform and the device, some videos autoplay without sound. Research your chosen platform and understand what technology your audience will use to view your video to see if you’ll need to add subtitles or include more visual elements.
- Will you boost your video so it will be seen by more people? If so, you’ll need to look into the options for each platform you plan to release your video on, set a budget, and track the resulting data to determine your ROI.
- Are you familiar with the demographics on the platform you’ve chosen? Do you know what keywords, thumbnails, and titles to use to attract (and keep) the attention of your ideal audience?
Need a refresher on social media videos? Check out our simple guide to social media videos here: 5 Quick Tips for Videos on Social Media
Video Marketing Mistake #4: Not Tracking Data
Success in video marketing goes a lot farther than just hitting a certain number of views on YouTube. How will you know if your efforts are successful?
How to Fix It: Depending on the specific goals you have for your video, the data you’ll need to measure varies greatly. Here are some example goals and the data you’ll need to track their success:
- Views can be a valuable tool for estimating brand awareness, but you’ll need to factor in things like how long the video has been online, how your viewers found the video, and whether the views are paid (meaning, you paid to advertise the video somewhere) or organic.
- Engagement tells you how many people interact with your video. In general, the more comments, likes, and shares you have, the better your video has accomplished this goal. Engagement is particularly important in proportion to views.
- Conversions refer to actions viewers take after watching your video—for example, following a link and making a purchase. You’ll need trackable links and landing pages to determine whether your video is effective at getting conversions.
Video Marketing Mistake #5: Not Using CTAs
If you don’t include a call to action (CTA) somewhere in your video, there’s a chance viewers won’t know what you want them to do—or worse, they’ll forget. (Attention spans are short, after all!) An effective CTA is the impetus for those viewers to take the next steps in becoming customers.
How to Fix It: Read more about how to create engaging CTAs—and get some more video marketing tips, too!—here: How to Create an Effective CTA in Video Marketing
Video Marketing Mistake #6: Focusing on You, Not Them
Sometimes, you can tell when people are just making a video because they like to look at themselves and hear themselves talk. That’s not a great way to market your business.
How to Fix It: People aren’t going to waste their time watching a video if it’s not going to tell them how you can help solve their problem. Instead of focusing on yourself, it’s a better idea to have satisfied customers sing your praises on camera. It makes you look trustworthy and gives you the credibility you need to convince fence-sitters that you’re the one to help.
Video Marketing Mistake #7: Wasting Money
Don’t buy expensive equipment if you don’t know how to use it. It’s far better to make a well-planned video using just your smartphone than to spend money on an expensive camera and assume it’ll make you look good.
How to Fix It: Be honest about your abilities: do you understand the basic principles of lighting? Sound? Are you aware of how different lens settings affect what you see?
If you have that knowledge, great! Put it to use. If not, it may be better to hire a team of professionals.
Contact Kirkpatrick Creative for Your Video Marketing Needs
The best way to avoid making these 7 video marketing mistakes is to hire an experienced team. Kirkpatrick Creative has been making effective marketing videos for decades, and we’re prepared to help your business achieve its goals, whether that’s awareness, sales, or a complete brand makeover.
Ready to get started? Call (501) 663-6364 or contact us online to get in touch.
Image source: Sam McGhee on Unsplash