Debunking Video Marketing Myths that Affect Your Conversions
With great hype, also comes great myths. We’ve picked out the biggest video marketing myths you might be faced with
You’ve been told by marketers, business leaders, and all those online articles that video is a powerful, effective, and necessary tool if you want to take your marketing to the next level.
Despite this, you’re apprehensive about jumping into it.
It’s no surprise. There are a lot of myths out there to deter you.
Whether you think it’ll be too expensive or you don’t have the skills to make great videos, it’s time to bust those video marketing myths once and for all.
Myth #1 — Video marketing is expensive
Many marketing and sales teams are put off creating video content for fear it will be expensive.
This is one of the top myths about video marketing, but in reality, it’s very affordable.
While some businesses may fork out thousands on their videos, one survey found that 72 % of companies spend less than $1,000 per video, with 29 percent spending under $100.
So, if spending less than this on a video seems affordable to you, your business has the budget for video marketing.
Some types of video are more expensive than others. If you want to use influencer whitelisting to feature a well-known face, for example, you’ll need to pay them a fee.
If you want to make a simple product or software demo that showcases your product, however, costs can be incredibly low.
You can also sign up to a video editing platform for a monthly subscription rather than buying software or hiring an editor.
Myth #2 — You can’t track video marketing ROI
Whatever role you hold in a business, you know the importance of being able to track your efforts.
Whether it’s conversation analytics in a call center or the effectiveness of your sales team, we like to see clear analyses of each aspect of an enterprise.
Whenever your company spends money on a marketing campaign or puts time into its social media platforms, you want to feel confident you’re getting a good return on investment.
Another common myth about video marketing is that you can’t track its ROI.
To track a video’s ROI, you’ll need to keep an eye on the following, all of which can be done.
View count
See how many views your video got on video and social media platforms.
This will tell you how many people watched your video, though it won’t provide other details such as how long they watched.
Engagement
While view count simply tells you the number of views, engagement is the metric that tells you how long viewers watched your video.
Many platforms have tools that can show you this, such as YouTube Analytics or Facebook Insights, both of which will tell you the average view duration.
Conversion rate
Your video could get thousands of views and likes, but that doesn’t matter if it’s not converting.
Using Google Analytics, you can track YouTube campaign conversions with ease.
Social sharing
The number of shares your video gets is a great indicator of how popular it is.
On Twitter, this would be measured by retweets, and both YouTube and Facebook allow you to see the number of shares you have.
Feedback
Another useful measure of success is feedback.
This isn’t as quantifiable as the number of views or shares, but it does show you the human side of how your video is received.
These factors, especially conversions, should be measured against the total cost of your video to calculate the ROI.
Read more: Measuring Video Marketing ROI: The Metrics That Matter
Myth #3 — Video marketing is time-consuming
Another popular myth about video marketing is that it’s time-consuming and not worth it.
Marketers and businesses worry they’ll put hours, days, or even weeks into a video that doesn’t succeed and won’t increase conversion rate eCommerce.
Video marketing, like any form of content you’re creating, does take time to produce, though not necessarily any longer than crafting an email campaign or creating graphics for an Instagram story or post to bolster your business growth.
It’s even quicker if you hand it over to the professionals to take care of. This myth is therefore moot too.
Myth #4 — Your videos have to go viral to bring you results
While every business would love to create a video that goes viral, has millions of views, and makes them a household name, that’s not necessary to reap the benefits of video marketing.
Video marketing can offer the following for both B2C and B2B businesses whether the video gets a million views or 100.
Conversions
A video with thousands of views may get zero conversions, whereas a video with a few hundred may see many.
This is because quality matters over quantity. So long as you’re showcasing your business and reaching your target audience, it doesn’t matter if your video goes viral or not.
Brand awareness
Even if videos aren’t directly converting customers every time, they’re a great way to improve brand awareness, increase your social media following, and reach new customers.
Lead generation
For many businesses, lead generation is the ultimate goal of video marketing. If a video generates high-quality leads, no one will mind how many views it gets.
For example, if your business offers small business phone services, you don’t need loads of hits on your marketing videos — it just needs to reach the small businesses you’re targeting.
As you can see, it’s really about the quality of your video and how viewers interact with it rather than trying to become a viral sensation.
Myth #5 — You must be tech-savvy to create videos
Another common misconception about video marketing is you’ll need in-house or freelance videographers and editors to pull it off.
This simply isn’t true.
It’s getting easier and easier to create amazing video content. Nowadays, smartphones have high-quality cameras, so there is no need to hire a camera person.
Read more: The Complete List of Video Marketing Tools
Video editing platforms are much easier and more intuitive to use too, and you can chop and trim your video in minutes and often for free.
Chances are, your business is already more tech-savvy than you realize.
If you can manage an inbound contact center or a content management system, you can learn how to film and edit a marketing video.
Myth #6 — Video marketing isn’t versatile
Video is an incredibly dynamic, versatile, and repurposable form of content.
That’s why it’s surprising that lack of versatility is such a common and enduring myth.
The video content you create shouldn’t just go on YouTube.
You can embed it into your website with ease to create more exciting and appealing landing pages, as well as share your videos widely across social media.
Read more: 10 Facts About Social Media Videos [INFOGRAPHIC].
Video is also great for marketing emails.
Vidyard found that emails with video in them had a 35 percent higher than average open rate and a 157 percent higher than average click-through rate.
Myth #7 — Nobody will find your videos
You may be worried that with so much video content out there, it will be impossible to reach your target audience.
This isn’t the fault of the medium.
Instead, you should focus on optimizing your videos and creating useful content so they will be seen.
Optimizing your video isn’t that different from optimizing a web page for SEO.
Make sure the title, description, and subtitles mention your target keywords so you show up in search engines.
Likewise, use the right hashtags on social media to reach your audience.
Optimization aside, creating useful content is essential if you want your videos to be seen.
Many of us would rather watch an explainer video than read a how-to guide, so creating content your target customers will find valuable and useful is the best approach.
If you’re not sure what sort of content your customers want to see, look at your customer analytics and delve into what may drive them to buy your product.
Myth #8 — You must be great at writing scripts
Many marketers and businesses are put off creating videos because they worry they’re not good enough at scriptwriting.
You don’t need to be a pro to produce a great video for your brand, so don’t let this put you off.
The best video scripts are simple, have a hook, and deliver a message to their audience clearly and right away.
You already create written content for your emails, socials, and website, so build on work you’ve already produced.
There are a few standard things most video scripts have. These include:
- Scene descriptions — describe each scene and the action that will take place.
- Dialogue and/or voiceover — this is the spoken part of your video.
- Stage directions — what will the actors be doing in the video?
- Camera cues — what do you need the camera to do?
You may want to create a storyboard to visualize your video. And remember, if you’re worried about creating great dialogue, not every video needs spoken words.
Many video marketers are making the most of simple animated commercials or visual videos instead.
Myth #9 — Videos can’t be longer than three minutes
The length of your videos depends on their purpose, where they’ll be posted, and where they sit in your marketing funnel.
For example, short-form videos are great for social media as they’re good at attracting new customers or clients.
On YouTube and your website, however, you may want to create longer videos such as tutorials or product recommendations guides for potential clients.
Short videos are great — many social media ones are less than 30 seconds long. That doesn’t mean you should restrict yourself with every video.
Video marketing is successfully being used by companies across a range of niches and fields. You don’t need to be a tech expert or creative director to harness it for your business needs.
Now that these top video marketing myths have been debunked, what’s stopping you from including video in your next marketing campaign?
Author: Grace Lau is the Director of Growth Content at Dialpad, an AI-powered cloud communication platform and one of the leading Bitrix24 alternatives for better and easier team collaboration. She has over 10 years of experience in content writing and strategy. Currently, she is responsible for leading branded and editorial content strategies, partnering with SEO and Ops teams to build and nurture content. Here is her LinkedIn.
