4 Video Marketing Mistakes You Cannot Afford to Make

Video marketing is the holy grail, but not every brand is reaping the benefits. If you want yours to be a success, don’t make these video marketing mistakes.

By 2021, the average person will be spending about 100 minutes every day watching online videos.

This stat says it all: digital video is the next frontier in marketing. Already, thousands of brands across the country are shifting to video – and they are reaping the benefits, which include increased sales and greater online presence.

That being said, video marketing isn’t a layman’s task. Numerous businesses big and small have made costly video marketing mistakes, and some have been unable to recover from those errors. Don’t be like these businesses.

In this article, we’re fleshing out a couple of mistakes you shouldn’t make as far as video marketing is concerned.

1. Being Overly Promotional in Your Marketing Videos

You aren’t investing in video marketing to just entertain your audience. Your primary goal is to make a sale, right?

While this is correct, don’t make the mistake of being too salesy in your marketing videos; otherwise, there wouldn’t be any difference between the ads we dread watching on television and the video you’re posting on your website or social channels.

You want your promotional message to be very subtle. This is the only way you’ll keep your audience coming back to watch your videos.

2. Not Knowing Your Target Audience’s Preferences

You would be making a major mistake if you create marketing videos without having a clear picture of your target audience’s video consumption preferences. Imagine posting your videos on Facebook all while your target consumers primarily consume content on Snapchat.

You need to know the platform your customers love to spend their time on. If your business targets boomers, for instance, Facebook is a good bet. But if you target millennials and Gen Zers, you’ll have betters results on Instagram and YouTube.

You also should know the kind of content your target audience likes. This helps you to not only create targeted content, but also content that strikes the right tone.

It’s also essential to ensure your small business video marketing strategy evolves with your customer’s changing video consumption preferences.

3. Making Long Videos

There’s no one-size-fits-all formula for determining the length of online videos, but one thing is clear: viewers don’t like long videos.

At a time when social platforms like Snapchat and TikTok are finding wild success with short-form mobile videos, you’d be making a mistake to create a video that’s longer than a couple of minutes. Sure, there are instances when a longer video makes sense, and people do watch lengthy videos from time to time, but the key is keeping your video brief and to the point.

4. Producing Poor Quality Videos

A brand video isn’t a user-generated video.

User-generated videos, like the vast majority you see on social media, can get away with poor quality. But with a brand video, you’ll hurt your reputation if you make poor-quality videos.

Invest in quality video production equipment and hire an in-house videographer or outsource the task to a video production company.

Don’t Make These Video Marketing Mistakes

Video marketing, when done right, can take your business to the next level. However, if you keep making the marketing mistakes fleshed out above, you’ll waste your time and money, and hurt customer experience. The best bit is you now know how to avoid these mistakes.

Keep reading our blog for more small business marketing tips.