A blanket of myths covers video marketing and we, as a reputable blog, feel compelled to push it off. In particular, there are certain common misconceptions that prevent businesses from investing in video content marketing.
Although some brands are reluctant to use this medium, video has certainly exploded in the last couple of years, becoming a staple of marketing. In fact, 85% of brands have chosen video as their marketing tool, according to HubSpot. They also report that 92% of marketers describe it as an important part of their marketing strategy.
Nevertheless, video marketing myths still exist and they’re keeping brands from reaching their full video potential. Indeed, some companies are even scared to shift from outdated outbound marketing to videos, even though they’re aware that 6 out of 10 customers say that they are more likely to watch video content than television (Google).
So, it’s safe to say that video is here to stay. And with technology constantly developing, we’ve come a long way! YouTube isn’t your only option to monetize and host your online videos anymore. Namely, there are those platforms that encourage small businesses to create, share, and analyze their content without the help marketing agencies.
Now, it’s time for you to familiarize yourself with certain video marketing myths that might be holding your brand back.
It’s Time-Consuming
If we’ve heard this once, we’ve heard it a thousand times. Many marketers automatically assume that it’s difficult to create videos. Not only difficult, but also time-consuming. And to be honest, it’s understandable why they are of this opinion.
It’s only natural to lay your eyes on graphics, filters, text, and animations, and think “How much time did they devote this?” or “They probably relied on a video production team.” However, believe it or not, videos are much easier to produce than you imagine.
With the development in technology, video production can now be more cost-effective than ever before. Specifically, you can promote your business by shooting a high-quality video with your smartphone. Our mobile devices have become so advanced nowadays that people will assume you used a professional camera.
With smartphones, you can capture videos of yourself and your office, and even your customers trying out your products or services and reviewing them. And don’t worry, you don’t need paid actors to promote your business — your staff will do. In fact, they are more acquainted with your brand than anyone else, so why not use this to your advantage.
Although you might expect that larger companies are the only ones investing in video content, this isn’t the case. According to a report, smaller businesses create the second most videos at 510 on average.
It’s Expensive
Go big or go home isn’t exactly applicable for videos. They don’t need to be expensive. This persistent myth has put many marketing and sales teams off the idea of tapping into video marketing. But they don’t have anything to fear. In other words, 59% of companies spend less than 10% of their marketing budget on video.
Therefore, you can produce engaging and touching videos for only a small portion of your total marketing budget. And we have to say, this is where the beauty of modern technology lies, i.e. it’s both accessible and affordable.
After all, today’s customers would choose authenticity over production value anytime. As a matter of fact, 86% of consumers highlight authenticity as the most important factor when selecting their go-to brand. This is especially true of millennials, with 90% of them singling out brand authenticity as crucial. So, based on this, you can determine that younger generations would prefer ‘real and organic’ to ‘perfect and well-packaged.’
Of course, there’s a number of inexpensive and free tools to choose from when you set out to make videos. As you can see, you don’t need to be spending thousands on production to strike a chord with your audience. Naturally, it’s the content that matters the most. If you come up with a compelling and engaging story for your next video, people will turn a blind eye to your production value. So, pay closer attention to the story than to the technical side.
It’s Hard to Track
Well, this is only true if you’re using free video hosting platforms like YouTube. Namely, it’s obvious that free services come with certain limitations and you can’t expect that they’ll provide you with in-depth analytics of your videos. On the other hand, if you invest in enterprise-level video platforms like Brid.TV, then you’ll have access to important video metrics that will tell you just how well your video content is performing.
Look at video metrics as a secret weapon you use to achieve the ultimate goal. Without them, you’d never know how many people stopped watching your video after only a few seconds. Not only that, but they will also track views, attention spans, conversion rate, and click-through rate, etc. With this information, you’ll know which videos have left an impression on your target audience, whether they’ve generated leads or resulted in your return on investment increasing.
So, it’s easy to see that videos are in fact highly trackable. People watch them from end-to-end, making it easy for software to detect what parts they watched, where they skipped, and where they returned. When you get this data, you can then infer which product or service is of interest to a particular consumer.
With this in mind, organizations are increasingly starting to adopt technology that helps them track their videos. In fact, 36% of businesses used video analytics software in 2019.
It Needs to Go Viral
A good video is only the one that goes viral is another common misconception in the marketing world. After all, is virility anyone’s ultimate goal? Sure, it won’t hurt if your marketing video goes viral, but this isn’t a true measure of success.
Videos are made to be seen, but this isn’t imperative in the B2B marketing world. What matters the most are conversions and actions taken by your consumers. Being seen by a huge number of people takes second place to being seen by the right people, i.e. your target audience.
Therefore, your objective should be to reach a specific audience, interact with them, and move them down the sales funnel. And you might not achieve this with a viral video seen by millions. After all, in video marketing, it’s quality over quantity and marketers use videos for the following purposes:
- Brand awareness
- Customer education
- Lead generation
See? No virality mentioned.
It’s Isn’t Versatile
We’ll wrap up our video marketing myths with this one. We’re not sure how anyone could say videos aren’t versatile with a straight face. Let’s be real, videos are perhaps the most repurposable type of content out there.
In fact, videos used in emails can increase open rates. Then, they can also boost click-through rates for your landing pages. Additionally, videos will encourage more shares on social media and even drive more leads than huge blocks of text.
Thus, video is a powerful tool to utilize if you want to reach your target audience and strike a chord with them. As a part of your marketing strategy, videos can preserve your loyal customers while attracting new ones.
Embrace Videos
Now that we’ve debunked persistent video marketing myths, it’s time for you to see that videos aren’t difficult or scary as they may appear at the first glance. So, don’t let your view on videos prevent you from producing them for your marketing efforts.And if you need a top-of-the-line platform that offers in-depth video analytics and monetization solutions, then check out Brid.TV as we are dedicated to helping your business grow. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us and we’ll gladly assist you.
