“A video marketing strategy is about telling a unique, compelling, and related story with a series of videos – like a soap opera” – thevisualcube.com
Videos are everywhere – not a single channel or social media site seems free of them, and they are in fact the fastest growing method for a company / individual to convey a message through a combination of pictures, sounds, words, and expressions. Every company today must have a video marketing strategy woven into the overall marketing and promotional strategies. Video marketing is amongst the most engaging and effective methods of marketing and promotions available today. Given the hype and the possible reach of videos, several companies / brands have rushed into the realm of video campaigns, and unfortunately have not considered how videos would fit into their overall content and marketing strategies. While videos are an attractive and engaging way to engage and even convert target audiences to actual customers, there are some pitfalls and mistakes, which should be avoided in order to make a success of the video marketing strategy. Even if a company may be extremely proficient in producing and using videos for promotion and marketing, there would always be scope to improve and strengthen the marketing strategy, and achieve even better results.
Creating robust, engaging, and interesting video content for a business is a sure shot and great way to reach a wider market and audience, and to engage and interest them in the company. Many marketing experts swear by a video marketing strategy – they say that it is an extremely effective tool when handled and utilized well. Despite the efficacy of video marketing, companies still end up with poorly done videos that do more than good to their business. At any given point in time, people are watching videos and when those videos are from brands / companies, viewers search for the essence of the companies in them. Videos and the content therein, are a reflection of the brand, and hence companies must be extremely careful about the quality, images, content, and graphics used in their videos. It would therefore, make sense to look at some of the worst mistakes companies make when putting together their video marketing strategy.
Marketing experts advise against producing a video for the sake of it or because ‘everyone is making one’. Without adequate planning and a robust video marketing strategy, a company would never be able to accomplish whatever it would hope to achieve through the video. Just like any other marketing / promotional campaign, a video marketing strategy too requires thought, a clear objective, and should have a strategic purpose. If not, companies must wait until they do have answers and are certain about what they wish to accomplish through a video strategy.
The underlying premise of a video marketing strategy should be elevate and highlight the company’s brand. Imagine how you would feel if someone was able to remember the video your company published but was unable to recall which brand it was associated with – the very purpose of making the video would be defeated. Branding must be strong and bold – communicating the purpose and benefits for people if they were to connect with your business. Ensure that the company’s logo, website URL, and ‘tagline’ (if any) appears at the start, mid-way, and at the end of the video – the video is after all about the company and its brand, hence highlighting it throughout the video would be acceptable and would increase recall.
We have written in the past about customer attention span. The harsh reality is that it continues to diminish given the amounts of information, and promotional material that is ‘thrown’ at them from a wide variety of businesses. Given this fact, when preparing a video marketing strategy, companies must ensure that the videos produced must be entertaining, relevant, catchy, and very importantly not long – experts recommend about 60-90 seconds as being the ideal duration. The effort that goes into making a video would be wasted if people do not watch it to the end – research shows that about 20% people would switch off a video in the first 10 seconds if they did not find it interesting, engaging, and or relevant. More is not always good – something companies must remember when making their video marketing strategy.
We have repeatedly said that the content in the videos must be engaging and relevant. These aspects would make the videos useful. A useful video / content would be one that focuses on a single message – a clear and useful message that would arrest the attention and trust of the viewers. Talking about too many things within a frame of 60-90 seconds would just be a hotchpotch of everything about the company, without really ‘hitting home’ a message. A video with a definite takeaway and a focused message would be remembered and appreciated a lot more. It would be essential to follow the video with a ‘shout out’ that is a call to action. Let the viewers of the video know that your company appreciates their time, would love to seek their opinion and believes that if they shared and spread the video to their friends and associates, it would benefit the company. A call to action puts control in the hands of the viewers – remember we have mentioned that customers and prospects love to feel important and valued.
One of the worst mistakes when making a video marketing strategy is not including tactics and techniques to drive traffic to the website and the video. Just as SEO is vital for the content on websites and other online content, it is equally crucial for online videos. Utilizing proper SEO techniques would ensure a higher SERP for the video and the website. The video must have a title with keywords that would be connected directly to the content within the video, ensure that there is proper description of the video, keyword tags of the industry of the company, and the name of the brand. Proper SEO techniques will increase the ‘visibility’ of the video and thereby for the brand.
It is understandable that after all the effort, resources, and time a company would invest in producing high quality videos, they would expect instant and great results for the brand – however, this is one of the gravest mistakes a brand can make. A video marketing strategy must include realistic timelines and have a buffer period knowing that it takes time for a video to go viral and become a craze in the online world. Remember to factor in consistency, passion, dedication, tenacity, and overall patience when making a video marketing strategy. Ensure that the brand’s USP and major selling point appear in the beginning of the video, such that viewers feel encouraged to watch it to the end, and even if they do not reach the end, they would know what the brand stands for and would want to convey through the video.
We said earlier in the article that as part of the video marketing strategy, a video must convey one message at a time. This is to ensure that it addresses the needs of the main target audience of the company. While a company may inadvertently reach other audiences too, it would benefit the brand more if the video addressed the pain areas of a smaller target audience. Trying to ‘speak’ to too many people at once could mean sounding confused and all over the place.
It is important for a company to avoid these common yet worst mistakes when making their video marketing strategy, such that the videos connect, engage, and resonate with the target audience, and helps the company accomplish its goals.
