The 5 Absolute Worst Video Marketing Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)

Video marketing has become a huge part of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. With every passing day, video marketers are getting more experienced and savvy, but many businesses who are just beginning to experiment with video are still making the worst video marketing mistakes, which are easy to avoid with a little pre-planning and thought (and knowing that there is, in fact, a list of “worst video marketing mistakes”).

Your audience wants to watch your videos because they want to get something from your videos.

Businesses use video marketing with the goal of building their brand with consumers. If you take a quick look at YouTube, you will see that there are many companies that upload new videos regularly to their brand-specific channels. The reason they do this is to build trust with their audience, increase reach, develop top of mind position and attract new customers to their brand.

So, video marketing can effectively help your business to build a brand name in your market. However, unless you conduct your video marketing campaign strategically, success will remain elusive and you will be flushing both precious time and your advertising budget down the drain.

Below are 5 of the worst video marketing mistakes that you should absolutely avoid:

1. UPLOADING LONG AND BORING VIDEOS

Nobody will watch a multitude of videos on YouTube every day unless they are super bored. A lengthy video will tend to have very little impact on your brand building. Why? Your audience will not watch a long promotional video from start to finish.

Today’s viewers want a quick bite of information in a very succinct video format.

Therefore, if your video is long or boring, they will give up and stop watching. Not only have they ignored your marketing video but your video’s “watch time” is tanking, too. Watch time, how long your viewers are watching your videos, is a critical factor for video search engine rankings for both Google and YouTube. The thinking behind this ranking factor is simply that how long a viewer watches is a measurement of enjoyment. Search engines want to provide the very best search results and give consumers the best user experience.

Uploading long videos is one of the very worst videos marketing mistakes you can make because not only are your videos not getting watched but they’re not going to be found in search engines as well.

Promotional videos should provide the consumer with a brief overview of your brand and its benefits. If you need to provide detailed information in your videos, just make sure that you are creating a series of topic-specific videos, and try to keep each to less than 5 minutes. 2 to 3 minutes is optimum.

(Make short, entertaining videos that don’t suck.)

2. MIXING TOO MANY MESSAGES

You have to be able to answer the question, “What is the main message I want my audience to take away from each marketing video?”

Each video that you upload should contain one main message that you want to convey to your audience. Just one. Do not insert too many thoughts, ideas, extraneous details, or even calls to action for your audience to juggle.

You should focus on sending only one message per video because your audience will not keep up with more than one message. Also, your audience can easily receive your message and remember it. Be sure to deliver your message clearly to avoid any possible misunderstanding.

(Tell them one thing.)

3. NOT FOCUSING ON YOUR AUDIENCE

Remember this key point: Your audience wants to watch your videos because they want to get something from your videos. If you focus only on yourself, your business, or your brand, then your audience will tune out. Your videos will be viewed as some random advertisement that has no relevance to your audience. No one likes “being advertised to.”

Personally, I like to focus on solving the problems my audience face. Everyone wants to relieve some pain, discomfort or uncertainty; you’re probably here right now because you want to make marketing videos that work and avoid making the worst video marketing mistakes and embarrassing yourself in public.

My marketing equation has always been to identify the pain point, agitate that pain and make it out to be a really big problem and then offer relief backed by user validation.

My marketing script is a repeatable equation that goes something like this:

“You have a headache. That headache hurts and you cannot focus on anything else but the pain and the throbbing in your head. Close your eyes, does the pain go away? No. You’re irritable and your children are afraid of you when you’re grouchy. You should take a pain reliever but you don’t know which one is best for you.

Here’s, Bob, he gets headaches, too, just like yours. Bob says he takes my XYZ pain reliever because it makes him feel better and relieves his headaches really fast. Whenever Mary gets a headache she takes XYZ pain reliever because it doesn’t make her sick to her stomach and she knows that we only use the best and safest ingredients.

We understand because we get headaches, too, and we want to help. Your headaches are happening for the following 4 reasons. You can avoid future headaches in the future by doing this and avoiding that.

But for now, take XYZ pain reliever and you will be free from the pain, you’ll feel great and your children will love you again.”

Focus on the intended receiver of the message and try not to talk about yourself. Make it more about me (as the consumer) and less about you. Avoiding the worst video marketing mistakes is as easy as giving me what I’ve come for as quickly as possible and getting out of the way.

If you focus on giving consistent value to your audience, with a little (or a lot) creativity, your videos will get more views, customers will engage with your brand and they will share your videos because they know people that your video will also benefit. When your videos start getting viewed more than a few thousand times, I think it goes without saying that those views help to boost brand recognition, and affinity, significantly.

(Your audience wants something. Give it to them.)

4. OMITTING BRAND IDENTITY FROM YOUR VIDEOS

How can your audience remember your brand if you do not insert your brand name or logo in your videos? Many people forget that brand-building should be the main focus on their video marketing campaign. You should insert your brand identity in each of your videos a minimum of 3 times. In addition to the visual brand identity, you also need to repeat the brand name several times throughout the audio track. By inserting your brand identity in your videos, consumers will readily remember your brand.

This also can help prevent copyright infringement and theft of your videos, which is often being called “freebooting.” Avoiding this on the list of worst video marketing mistakes has two important benefits.

(Always include your brand.)

5. AN INSUFFICIENT CALL TO ACTION

Why is it important for you to insert a strong call to action in your videos? Because you want your viewers to take action immediately after watching your videos. With a persuasive call to action, you can direct your audience to fulfill its next obligation in your marketing strategy. This obligation could include subscribing to your channel, signing up for your mailing list, trying your free product, grabbing your special deal, or commenting on your videos.

The call to action is important critical in every marketing promotion!

A strong call to action is what makes your marketing promotion a success. Failing to include the proper call to action in your videos will result in the audience losing their interest and not recalling your brand. Of the worst video marketing mistakes to make, this is the easiest, and probably the most important, to correct.

(Tell the consumer what to do.)

Wait! Don’t miss this grand finale!

Your business is probably not doing as well as you know it can be. You’re wondering where the customers are… where the profit is after working so hard.

How will you make any money without customers? Right?

Bills are piling up and you feel like you’re never going to catch up with everything you need to get done. How many times have you worried that your business may fail? Can you remember them all? You know – 3 of every 5 businesses your size will fail, too.

Your competitor, Bob, has a line of customers beating his door down to buy from him though. He’s making money and you’re not. But why? Your business is as good as his is!

He started marketing with videos after you did but he’s CRUSHING IT while your videos aren’t being watched – at all. You see all the attention he’s getting, but you feel all alone – like your videos don’t matter and you’ve just wasted your time.

Mary had a business just like yours. She remembers what it was like trying to figure out how to make ends meet; just like you. She was video marketing, too, and remembers how her videos were doing really badly. Before giving up a friend suggested that she reach out to VideoToOrder.com; they’re experts in creating video marketing content. Scott understood her frustration because he works with businesses that are struggling all the time. He has seen the worst video marketing mistakes imaginable!

After watching her videos, Scott said to do the following 5 things:

1. Make interesting videos that are between 2 and 3 minutes long.
2. Make each video about one topic, and only one topic.
3. Focus on the customer and tell them what they want to know.
4. Brand your video content with a memorable visual image.
5. Tell the viewer exactly what to do when they’re done watching the video.

She went to work following VideoToOrder.com’s directions and hired their freelance video creators, editors and marketing experts to help her create stunning new videos for her business.

Her branded YouTube channel started getting video views and channel subscribers like crazy! Customers started buying from her and business skyrocketed! She was making money hand over fist and living the good life! Mary and her business was the talk of the town and everyone told her how much they loved her videos and couldn’t help but share them with their friends.

One day, a man from Acme, Inc. visited Mary and told her what a great job she was doing, then offered to buy her business. Mary sold her company and now lives on the beautiful Caribbean island of Cozumel in Mexico. It’s perfect. She loves spending her days in the pool drinking margaritas and couldn’t be happier. She sent VideoToOrder.com this photo:

You can be just like Mary.

Follow VideoToOrder.com’s 5 tips for making great marketing videos and hire freelance video professionals from their website. You’ll get the perfect videos quickly and your business will be thriving again in no time!

You will breathe easier knowing that your customers love your videos and want to give you their money. Your business will be really great and you won’t have a care in the world. You can send us your picture, too. – Just like Mary.

Visit us at VideoToOrder.com. Hundreds of freelance video professionals are waiting right now to help you get started.

You are going to be a star. We’ll be waiting for your autographed picture.

A little over the top? Probably. But if I’ve helped you avoid the worst video marketing mistakes then it was worth the time for me to write the script for you. 

Best of luck!