Can you believe that a dizzying 720,000 hours of fresh content is uploaded to YouTube every day?
From YouTube to TikTok, people love watching videos at work, while on the go, and elsewhere. This is why you should consider promoting your brand using this format. If you keep avoiding it, then you’ll be missing out on valuable exposure.
Are you wondering how you can ensure your video marketing agency campaign is a smashing success? Keep reading to learn all about the video marketing mistakes that you should avoid like the plague.
A Lack of Optimization
One of the most glaring video marketing mistakes involves a lack of optimization. If you try to upload huge videos to your website, for instance, then the chances of them buffering in time for your visitors to enjoy them will be slim. Optimization can compress the video while retaining the quality.
This will go a long way toward ensuring that your site and its content load as fast as possible. Since attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, you wouldn’t want to lose out on someone’s business because they decided to click elsewhere after waiting for your giant video to start playing.
No Subtitles
Nowadays, there are many situations in which a person can come across your video content without the sound on. For instance, you could run a video ad on Facebook but no one will hear the audio unless they go out of their way to turn it on. This is why subtitles have become a staple for this kind of marketing.
The last thing you’d want is for your viewers to try and read the lips in your video before giving up and scrolling on. You can also see this as an opportunity to make the video so interesting that people will read the subtitles and feel compelled to turn the audio on. Just be sure you use a readable font and color combo.
It’s also worth coming up with ads that don’t rely so much on dialogue and voiceover. This can simplify the whole process while being as effective if not more so.
Dialogue is one aspect, but a video can also be heightened by its sound effects, music, and other audible aspects. Rather than trying to create subtitles that do your video justice, you should encourage viewers with text that says, “Turn audio on.” This can pique their interest and give them that little nudge to listen instead of just watching the video.
Just be sure that you make it worth the potential customer’s while. If you get them to turn on the sound and disappointment them, then that could end up hurting your brand instead of helping it.
Bad or Nonexistent Video SEO
You may have heard about how important search engine optimization is for your website’s articles and pages, but it’s also important to use SEO for your video content. After working on your ads for hours on end, you owe it to yourself to get as many views as possible. You may be surprised to learn that something as seemingly simple as the video’s title can make a huge difference in the number of people who find it.
This is why you should spend time brainstorming a title that’s not too long but also powerful enough to rank high in relevant search result pages. There’s a fine line between a popular keyword that gets too much competition and a unique one that doesn’t get much traction at all. Sometimes it’s a good strategy to use a few competitive ones and then some medium-tier keywords as well.
Don’t forget that sites like YouTube allow you to incorporate metadata that can help others find your content both within the site and outside of it. You can also write out a traditional description of the video that can include keywords, links, hashtags, timestamps, and more.
Not Having a Clear Call to Action
Has anyone ever asked you, “What is video marketing?” Simply put, video marketing is a great way to get people excited about a product, service, or brand as a whole. However, it’s possible to lose sight of this goal.
How many commercials have you watched where you weren’t sure what they were selling? While a commercial should be creative and original, that doesn’t mean the message should get muddled in the process. This is why it’s important to define your goal at the beginning of the video project and make sure you stick with it.
There’s a fine line between an uninspired infomercial and an abstract video that you might find in an art museum and nowhere else.
The most effective content will have a clear call to action at the end. This could take the form of calling a specific number to make an order, visiting a website, or even downloading an app. You could have a few different calls to action but it’s best to keep things as simple as you can.
To make the message even clearer, you can use animations that point to a specific link. Even the types of colors you use can help with drawing the viewer’s eyes to a particular location.
Not Knowing Who Your Audience Is
If you’re looking for valuable video marketing tips, then you should be as familiar with your audience as possible. It’s best to do research ahead of time. This could take the form of polls, surveys, or even smaller ads.
For instance, you can run ads on social media and receive a wealth of data that you can use to your advantage. Of course, data is only as powerful as the person who is using it. This is why you should seek out a video marketing guide who is able to crunch numbers like there’s no tomorrow.
To ensure that your entire team is on the same page, the data should be represented in easily-understandable graphs. Once you have enough confidence in your target audience’s identity, you’ll get a great return on investment with each video you put out.
Issues With Consistency
If you’re making a video marketing campaign, then you’ll want to emphasize consistency. Without it, you could confuse potential customers who see more than one of your videos on the internet or elsewhere. From your logo to the artistic style of the videos, brand recognition is just as crucial as the call to action.
Aside from the videos feeling as though they’re part of the same project, they should also be relevant to your brand’s ethos. Tone can also have a huge effect on audience perception. A silly company shouldn’t release overly serious videos and vice versa.
Your brand’s style can also determine the type of thumbnail you use before someone hits the play button on your video. You shouldn’t underestimate the power of an effective thumbnail because this could end up being the sole reason someone decides to watch the video.
The most effective image will entice the potential viewer without being clickbait. A quick glance at it should be enough for someone to have a general idea of what to expect. The key is to make it enticing enough for them to want to figure out the whole story behind the thumbnail.
Overlong Videos
Most people don’t have the patience to watch a video that’s too long. Not only is it a time commitment but there’s a higher chance of your viewers getting bored. This is why you should be as brief as possible.
There’s a reason social media platforms like TikTok are thriving. People prefer bite-sized videos over ones that are 5 minutes long if not even longer than that.
YouTube is much more forgiving when it comes to lengthy video content but it’s still a risk. If long-form video is necessary for your brand, don’t worry. One thing you can do to entice people is by posting excerpts of the longer video on social media platforms that favor content that’s around a couple of minutes in length.
Are You Ready to Hire a Video Marketing Agency?
Now that you’ve learned about the video marketing mistakes that you should avoid, you can ensure that your campaign is as smooth and successful as possible. You should seek out a video marketing agency with enough experience and creativity to do your brand justice.
46Mile can provide you with comprehensive marketing services so that your business can tap into pools of potential customers you haven’t been able to reach. By analyzing the appropriate data, we can allow you to get the most out of your videos, website, social media presence, and much more.
Let’s get the ball rolling.
