Are you starting to create business videos to help market your business, build its brand, and establish a stronger online presence? Videos can help you to accomplish all of that and more – but only if you are able to produce the right kind of videos.
While there are a lot of areas that need to be covered to create good business videos, the best place to start is by avoiding some of the more common mistakes – some of which could cripple your videos and make them far less effective than they should be:
- Not having a clear goal and message, or having too many
Without a clear goal and message your videos effectiveness will be suspect right from the start. It will probably end up being unfocused, and won’t really push any specific message at all.
A similar mistake is trying to fulfill multiple goals with a single video and having numerous messages in it. That will make your video just as unfocused, and lead your audience nowhere.
- Trying to hard sell
Overall hard selling rarely works, and if your business videos come across as being too pushy or promotional – people won’t watch them. Instead of that you should adopt a softer approach, and let people know why they should be interested in your business and the products that it offers.
- Creating videos that are too long
People nowadays do like to watch videos, but they don’t like to sit through long videos – unless for a very specific reason. If your business videos are too long it is likely they’ll lose a significant number of viewers before they get to the call to action.
Typically it is advisable to create videos that are a minute or two in length. In some cases (e.g. social media) you may want to create videos that are shorter than that.
That being said it is best to focus less on the overall length, and more on making your video specific, focused, and concise.
- Not using visuals to your advantage
The reason videos are so powerful is because they have a unique capability to visually convey information. That is something you need to take advantage of, otherwise your video may end up being less effective than other types of content.
At risk of sounding cliché, the best advice in this regard is: Show, don’t tell. It really does apply when creating business videos however, and you should always try to find ways to visually show the information that you’re putting across.
The mistakes above need to be avoided regardless of the method of video capture that you use. If you are able to avoid them you should end up with business videos that are able to engage more viewers and fulfill their goals more effectively.
Above all else you should track how your business videos perform and use that data to gauge their success. Be sure you temper your expectations however, as it will take time for your videos to gain a strong footing.