Whether you’ve been using video for years or you are just getting started with video marketing, you are bound to experience some mistakes as you move forward with your video campaigns.

In this article, I’m going to share with you some of the most common video marketing blunders. I’m also going to help you avoid them.

Video Marketing Blunder #1: Not Knowing Your Audience

So many businesses get stuck in the rut of “what” they want to say in their videos that they forget “who” they want to say it to.

Let’s assume you are a fitness expert. You might say, “Everyone needs a good workout regime,” and you would be right. But if that’s your video’s message, your phone won’t ring no mater how much you explain your amazing credentials.

You wouldn’t communicate your fitness services the same way to men as you would to women. Their needs are often different. And if we focus on the fitness needs of women, you wouldn’t sell your services the same way to a senior woman just getting use to new knee implants over a young woman wanting to remove some baby fat after giving birth.

You can still have all these varied clients. You just can’t communicate to them all in one single video, or even one single campaign. You cannot generalize your message inside your marketing video. And you cannot have the message be all about you and not about your viewers.

How to Avoid: One thing you can do is identify who your biggest group of clients is. Do you serve more realtors than financial experts? Do you serve more restaurants than retailers? Who is your current largest “group” or “category” of clients? Then reach out to them and ask them what they care most about. Listen carefully to key words they use and place those key words inside your marketing video.

Another thing you can do is dig deep into the exact person you would like to serve more. If you are a fitness expert, you might like the idea of helping young mothers take off that last bit of baby fat. Then target your message right to them. Point right at them with your video message. You must ignore everyone else in that message. You can target others later, in a different campaign.

 

Blunder #2: Ignoring Video SEO

“If you build it, they will come.” It’s a fun quote from a movie. But it’s a fairy tale. You can’t just make the marketing video and assume the job is done and that now your video will bring you tons of prospects. It doesn’t work like that.

I often hear that SEO is the framework for any online presence. It makes sense. Without SEO, it’s next to impossible for search engines to find you. The same goes for your video.

The basic understanding is that SEO requires text and that search engines need to be able to find key words in order for SEO to work. And so, businesses often assume that SEO isn’t a tool used for video. But there are ways to take advantage of SEO directly for your videos.

Video SEO Myth: First, we expose a myth. I’ve heard many times that posting a video onto your website can increase your website’s SEO ranking.

Search engine algorithms will recognize embedded videos, but this factor alone has no affect on Google’s or Bing’s ranking.

How to Avoid: When posting your video on your website or landing page, there are opportunities to include key words for it through add-on apps like Yoast and others. Talk to your web development team and construct a plan to boost your video’s visibility.

When you post your video on sites like YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook, visibility rules are very different. In fact, the search name even changes to SMO (social media optimization).

For YouTube, it’s all about the video’s thumbnail and title. Make your thumbnails relevant to the topic and make them eye-catching. Include key words in your video’s title.

For LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook, it’s all about hashtags. Video hashtags help these social sites find videos that match search requests and help users find similar videos by selecting the tags to search under.

 

Blunder #3: Wanting the video to go viral

It’s very rare for a video to go viral. And the truth is, a good video is really about the quality of your audience over quantity. I had a client call me so excited, just 5 days after he posted his video onto his website, telling me how he just landed his largest client who told him that it’s his video which was the convincing factor to hire him.

You can have a video that gets you a thousand views and no prospects and you can have a video that lands you your biggest client with your first viewing. It’s not worth it to stress out about how many views your marketing video is getting.

How to Avoid: The formula for a successful marketing video is actually very simple. You need to focus on three things:

1. Who is your audience – Drill right down on this one.
2. What is it that you want to say to your audience – Even if you are doing a live video as part of your marketing campaign, make notes or write down a summary of your key points before you go on air. Otherwise, I recommend a properly structured script and even a teleprompter.
3. Video SEO & SMO – Help your video find its audience.

If you focus on those 3 things, you will have a very successful marketing video that brings you exciting new prospects.