A successful video marketing strategy needs a good camera, proper lighting, and a high production value.
Then, how do you explain videos like Cat Vibing to Ievan Polkka? Shot on a normal mobile camera, not that great lighting, low production value, and yet becomes a viral sensation!
The truth is, the audience makes a video marketing strategy successful. No more has this been proved than during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Small and big businesses took a 360-degree turn on their video marketing strategy to serve content-hungry folks. These are people isolated in their homes – they have the time and will to consume your video content. A staggering 68% of consumers say the pandemic has impacted the amount of video content they have watched online, with the overwhelming majority (96%) saying this has increased.
However, delivering a constant stream of videos in a desperate attempt to keep customers glued to your brand can lead to video marketing mistakes. These blunders can drive potential customers away, reducing conversions, and leaving a big hole in your marketing budget.
Here are six video marketing mistakes to avoid in 2021 to run your video campaigns like a boss.
Remember, the video that kept you engaged — it probably wasn’t the one you were bombarded with information about the brand. A video marketing strategy focused on selling than providing value to the audience will never fly.
Often, marketers feel they need to make a quick buck for all the resources spent on making the video. They force-feed the audience, hard selling them, till they make a purchase. However, it has an opposite reaction where the audience loses interest and bounces off.
Instead: Strike a balance between promotional content and delivering value to your audience. Ideally, build relationships by creating content that focuses on the audience needs, and then dive into the sales bit.
The next time you’re building your video marketing strategy, think about how you can create a story that informs, educates, or entertains your audience. You’ll end up with content that connects with the audience, who’ll keep coming back for more.
Take a look at this video where they have used humor to convey the product value, without saying a single word.
To get maximum eyeballs, marketers blindly share the same video on every social media platform. The one-size-fits-all approach ignores the fact that each video hosting platform has a unique audience that interacts with the platform in a certain way.
Perhaps the greatest pitfall of a video marketing strategy is where content distribution is not given the same care as content development. Your videos will be all over the place, except the right ones.
Instead: Know your target audience. It shapes your content distribution strategy, moving the focus to platforms where your target audience has a strong presence.
Once you find the right platform(s), customize your video marketing strategy to guarantee a positive response.
YouTube. If your target audience uses YouTube as its primary source of video consumption, create mobile-friendly videos since more than 70% of all YouTube videos are watched via mobile devices. Emphasize vertical videos since smartphone users hold their phone vertically.
Facebook. The Live Streaming feature gets the best organic reach and engagement and should be an important aspect of your Facebook video distribution strategy. Sephora, the French multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products, uses Facebook Live to conduct AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions with renowned industry experts.
Instagram. Link your IGTV videos to your Instagram Stories and promote long form video content. Food Network uses IGTV to promote recipes, cooking tips, and taste tests. It’s one of the top IGTV food channels with almost 11 million drooling followers.
There’s no point in being on the right platform if the audience can’t find your video.
A failure to optimize your video with the right SEO strategy will dip your viewership, ensuring you miss your video marketing targets.
Instead: Do in-depth keyword research before making a video to come up with a primary keyword. Ensure the primary keyword is a long tail keyword to enable relevant content discovery.
For instance, rather than using a broad term like video marketing, choose video marketing mistakes to generate a better ranking.
Install your primary keyword on the following:
Title: Include your primary keyword on your video title as Google crawlers prioritize the title. Try placing the keyword at the beginning of the video title, giving more clarity to crawlers and viewers.
Meta Description: Mention the primary keyword at least once in the description but don’t get carried away and start keyword stuffing.
Video Tags: Use relevant tags that complement the theme of your video. If you’re talking about video marketing mistakes, use tags like video marketing tips, digital marketing guides, etc.
Pro tip: Rank your video on both YouTube and Google to get traffic from the world’s two largest search engines. Focus on keywords targeted for beginners (like video marketing for beginners) to see your videos popping up on Google search.
Marketers tend to pack all the messaging in a single five-minute-long video yielding a lukewarm response from viewers. The attention span of the audience is no longer what it used to be. Cramming too much information reduces their ability to retain, leaving them bored and confused.
It’s hard to expect such an unengaged group of people to follow up after watching the video. In such scenarios, call-to-actions (CTAs) are just about as useful as a plumber in a cemetery.
Instead: Break the five-minute video into smaller segments to make each video clear and engaging. You’re essentially increasing retention by breaking long strings of information into bite-sized chunks, also called Chunking.
Follow each of these short videos with a strong CTA. The call-to-action should drive your audience from one video to another, helping them understand the entire marketing message.
NaturallyCurly explains their products with the help of an adorable content series called Kids, encouraging viewers to interact and take action.
You can’t create, publish, and leave your video into oblivion. How would you ever know if your video marketing strategy is working?
If you never or seldom review your video analytics, you’ll always be in the dark when it comes to having an objective view of your video marketing performance.
Instead: Periodically monitor and track your analytics to obtain information about who views your video, what do they view, how long do they view, which part of the video they prefer to watch more, etc.
The fresh insights give you clarity on your audiences’ viewing behavior that helps you tweak your video to make it more appealing. It’s how you make your video marketing stick!
Watch the YouTube analytics tutorial to improve your video marketing campaigns.
Marketers haphazardly rush with posting content to fill the overwhelming video consumption demands, while possibly engaging, these videos are disconnected from the core brand values. An off-brand video can hamper your brand recall value; your brand identity will be lost in the noise.
Instead: Be on-brand. It means to align your video assets with your brand identity. The concept of on-brand pushes you to think beyond just logos and URLs, and includes the design language to keep your messaging true to your brand values. However, it is impossible to manually scale the on-brand approach. Hence, creative automation.
Creative automation is a process where users can create and deploy creatives on a large scale. Identify the personality of your brand with visual elements like brand colors, fonts, tone — automate the entire process and make your video marketing and life a breeze.
Nityashree Yadunath 
