Video marketing is on of the best digital tools to engage with and influence target audiences. In fact, recent studies say that 70% of all content will be consumed in video form by 2017. Video content is driving brand conversations and sales conversions. You better leverage this marketing tool by avoiding the following 10 common mistakes:
#1: Assuming B2B marketing is boring when compared with B2C?
Businessmen are people too. They enjoy a joke as much as the next person. B2B videos do not have to be stiff and humorless. Show the human & fun side of your brand. Show them that real people like them run your company. And watch a great conversation develop naturally.
#2: Trying to use every video as a sales pitch
Make an effort to understand your customers specific needs and interests. Try not to focus solely on selling. Instead, (like we’ve said earlier) build a relationship with your audience through a conversation. Engage them.
#3: Overpromising or exaggerating
Show your product for what it is. Don’t try grandiose titles or “Click-Bait”. Instead, offer them valuable content to help them be better buyers. Also remember, you don’t need the whole world to watch your video; just those ones who are interested in your product. Be honest. Be truthful. And the viewers who are interested will click on your video.
And besides, keep in mind the old advertising truth; “Exaggerated claims in advertising are the best way to destroy a product.”
#4: Underselling and being generic
While you don’t want to get over excited and hype your product to unbelievable levels – there is no harm in being creative either. Find a good story to tell about your product/brand and tell it well. A good story will work even if you tell it with direct titles. Just choose thumbnail splash screens that will encourage people to click. Auto-generated splash screens are often bland or poor shots!
#5: Saying too much, or too little in your video
Making a great video means staying focussed. Your video must fit your strategy and each video needs to have its own clear message. That means one message. Your audience needs to know what they’re going to get when they click, otherwise you’ll lose their interest, and their trust.
#6: Making a saga
It’s an advertising/marketing video; not a feature film. Many marketers forget this important difference and try to stuff too much information in the film.
Today’s audiences have limited attention spans. Short and to the point is more like it. If your videos are too long, audiences will click away from you. Cut out speaker introductions, long music and text intros, and other unnecessary add-ons that delay your message. Shoot for sixty to ninety seconds at most unless it’s an educational piece like a webinar.
Then again, maybe you do need a long video. In which case break up the video into smaller ones. Each video should focus on a different aspect. Make it like a video series – this will also keep your viewers coming back for more, which gives you more opportunities to convert them. Enough said.
#7: Thinking video marketing is only for brand awareness
Video is not just for top-line communication. One can also use the medium for education about brand and product through webinars and even webcasts while product demos help the sales process. Video can be used at every level of communication to engage and turn audiences into brand ambassadors…and customers.
#8: Missing out onCTAs or email gates
A video should never be only about the video. A proper Call-to-Action (CTA) and/or email gate can drive your viewer to the next step in the communications journey. Use the video to draw your viewer to another video, download an eBook, read a customer case study or sign up for a trial.
Gated video content helps you collect valuable data for analysis and future reference. When you know who is watching, you can discover what they are watching.
#9: Overlooking video analytics
Once you have customer data, it is vital to use video analytics to understand who is watching, what they’re watching, how long they’re watching, and which parts they’re watching. This gives you valuable insights on your customers and desired content.
It will tell you what customers are truly interested in. The analytics also tell you which content is performing the best, so you can edit current content and create new content that performs better than ever.
#10: Not integrating video with your other marketing efforts
You’ve spent money, time and energy creating a great video. Why waste its potential by using it just as content. Integrate it with your marketing automation platform and CRM system. The insights gained through analytics can help marketers nurture leads with targeted content that’s relevant to their interests.
That’s not all. Video has a direct impact on revenue and closed deals when it’s used with CRM systems, because Sales can use those insights to have better conversations with leads, more quickly and easily turning them into customers.
Now that you know what not to do with your video, here’s something you can do to make it a success -write in to us at v@ripplemedia.co