Video Is NOT King: Talking You Out Of Video Marketing

Written on 24/01/2019.

In our last blog, we tackled one of the most misused marketing buzzwords: “storytelling”. This time we are addressing another popular issue – video marketing.

Despite all the gurus out there preaching “video is king”, and the sea of tools out there trying to make video creation more easier, we have encountered too many companies producing videos just for a “feel good”, without a true sense of results for marketing.

Here’s some symptoms of why many video campaigns aren’t successful, and how to change your strategies for the win:

It takes a village, and a small fortune, to do market-worthy videos

Chances are, you’ve tried some of these – RIPL, Viddyoze, Magisto, Promo, Pexel, Graphitii, Prospectrr, and many more…

These tools have good intentions in making video-making easy and seamless; with the ability to quickly chop up iPhone footages, put a filter on, overlay some text, cookie-cutter style. Done in 3 minutes.

Unfortunately, viewers can tell just after a while. When they start seeing videos made with the same template, and the content contextually irrelevant, they associate the brand as being half-hearted, lazy and inhuman.

We have all seen and hate this stuff, and yet we are still eager to repeat the same mistake.

The only way to truly connect to your customers via video is genuine production. By production we don’t mean 4K images and drone shots; though viewers need to feel that what they’re seeing is actually carefully crafted, with the intent to genuinely communicate.

That means writing a decent script, finding a venue, setting up cameras, memorise the script, put up a performance, transferring footages, editing, rendering, transcoding, and finally uploading your 30 second clip on Facebook that gets vanished in 5 minutes on someone’s News Feed.

Sounds like a lot of effort, right? If you’re an established business, you may spend money to outsource this (good luck finding a good video communicator rather than just a dude with expensive gear and slick editing plug-ins), or you can DIY with your iPhone camera and Final Cut Pro if you’ve got spare days to kill.

You’re asking people for their precious time

What is the first thing you notice when watching a YouTube video? The length. If it’s 3 minutes and 20 seconds? Forget it.

One of the most overlooked issues in video marketing is that no matter how smart you are in creating the most contextualised video in the shortest time possible, people are still required to stop and give the video their full attention. Unlike other mediums such as podcasts, people can’t multi-task when engaging with videos, and that sucks for those who are on the move all the time.

Now look at your social media feed: How many auto-playing silent videos are there as you scroll; all screaming for your attention, to the point of exhaustion?

It’s fair to say that time is more precious than money in this day in age. Where the rubber meets the road, asking someone to spend time watching what you have to say on camera is a big ask.

Scientifically speaking, the human brain doesn’t like burning calories. People that would consider viewing at least part of your video, is your warm audience that are interested enough to spare you their valuable time.

You have to get over yourself, but you don’t really have to

Most people give up or procrastinate on doing videos because they are not comfortable on camera. Well, Gary Vee has a tip for you – just execute the F words.

Some things are just not meant to be – not everybody is born with the public speaking gift. Alas, the world would be a boring place if that’s the case. When these people, who are obviously gifted elsewhere, finally get on camera in the name of “everyone’s doing video”, it ends up being a forced effort and your audience can immediate feel it.

Connections are lost right there.

If you’re good with writing, start blogging. Alternatively, read it out loud and turn it into a podcast. If you’re better with still images, invest into photography and graphic work. if you’re much more natural dealing with real human beings in a private setting than on camera, become a networking animal.

You don’t have to do videos because “video is king”, supposedly. It’s not. A ridiculous amount of people end up publishing videos, only to walk away with 2 views everyday and they’re just not telling you about it.

Even Marques Brownlee had to labour for years on YouTube before becoming Marques Brownlee.

And as addressed in our last blog, for the people who are comfortable on camera, most can’t resist the temptation of telling their own stories, instead of entering into their customers’ journey and give true value, because that’s their comfort zone.

People buy because they read or hear the words

Repeatedly in our consulting in SeeSharp, we can’t stress enough of the importance of words. Google, Amazon and eBay thrive on word-based product descriptions and they turnover billions.

Words are here to stay. It was king in the days of billboards and newspaper ads, it is the heart of good marketing videos, and when voice becomes the next big thing, people will still only be attracted when they are hearing the right words being said.

Rather than blindly following a trend, investing in expensive equipment and telling the wrong kind of stories on video, start focusing on your words; or in marketing terms, good-old copywriting.

If video is your thing, great. No doubt it’s a big trend right now. Just make sure you work your scripting hard to come up with good copy to strategically persuade your audience into engaging with you. Words matter the most.

Every month, we meet many business owners in our Marketing Makeover Workshop that have never realised the potential of powerful copywriting, and the impact it can make to their bottom line.

Whether you are on video, put out a graphic or write blogs, words carry the power to persuade people when used correctly. In our workshop, you will learn how to write the sort of copy that customers will listen to, and respond with action to.