Make Your Video A Hit! Avoid These Ten Common Visual Marketing Mistakes

There’s no doubt that video marketing (whether film or animation) is a powerful way to increase your reach, engagement and sales. But, powerful as it is, there’s little to be gained by simply producing any old video content. 

There are a few common errors that people often make. Avoiding them will give you a much better return on the money and effort you put into your project.

1 No clear purpose

Video marketing became a bit of a bandwagon that everyone wanted to jump on. The growth of YouTube and visually-driven social media channels prompted a massive ‘fear of missing out.’  It also spawned a legion of videos made without a clear purpose. Always be very clear about the job your video is expected to do and where it sits in your sales funnel or process.

2 Confusing storylines 

No clear purpose is closely related to poor planning. The result is usually a video with a confusing story. This makes it hard work for viewers.

3 Too many messages

The optimum number of key messages for a marketing video is a number between zero and two. What point do you really want to get across and what thought do you want viewers to take away? Keep your camera equipment securely locked up until you can answer those questions. Perhaps this is why so many videos lack a clear call to action? They’re trying to say too many things.

4 Off brand

Making a video tends to release our inner Spielberg. Creativity is good, but remember to keep everything within the boundaries of your brand ID and communication guidelines. Recalling the message is one thing: you also want people to remember who told them.

5 Poor sound quality

Picture quality seems to get all the attention. Sound matters just as much, which means good acoustics and professional quality sound recording equipment. 

6 The wooden voiceover

So many videos are ruined by a DIY voiceover with dull delivery and intonations in all the wrong places. There are plenty of professional voiceover artists available who won’t cost you the earth and will be glad of the work.

7 No Captions

Marketing videos are not always watched in environments where people can have the sound switched on. Adding closed captions is relatively easy and will allow more people to benefit from your message.

8 Forgetting the medium

Depending on where people find your video they are likely to have different viewing habits. A channel like Instagram, for example, tends to get better engagement from videos under 60 seconds in length.  A five minute epic might say everything you ever wanted to say about your offer - but who would still be listening?

9 Forgetting about SEO

You probably want your video to be highly searchable. The basics here are to carefully research the keywords you need to use in the file name, title, tags, URL and link text.

10 A sense of perspective

Never assume that your video will be as important to your audience as it is to you. Many of them may not watch it right through to the end. So think hard about how you will keep people engaged and don’t leave all the important information to the end.

To find out more about how to create engaging explainer videos, contact us on 01278 433187.