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Ok, so your online video marketing doesn’t suck, but there’s a good amount that does. Why is that? Let’s look at the top 5 reasons and why you should avoid them in your online video marketing efforts.

5. Wrong Audience

Because the internet is so vast and accessible, it’s easy to think that you can just make a video, post it on the web, and cross your fingers hoping that the right people will see it. Although the internet has created the possibility that any video you make and post online can become the next YouTube sensation and garner 5 million views, the odds of that happening are slim to none and those hopes will most likely work against the realistic goals you should have for your video.

Instead of making a video that you hope 5 million people will like, focus on creating a video that 20, 50, or 100 people will not only like, but will act on. At the end of the day, one sale or one new client is much more valuable than thousands of views. Also, odds are that the person who acted on the video will likely forward it to someone else who will act on it as well. Sometimes the best marketing plan is to connect with that one person that is connected to everyone else. Keep that person in mind and make the video for them.

4. Too Long

Welcome to the ADD culture of the world wide web. People will gladly sit in a movie theater and watch a 2 hour movie, watch a 1 hour TV show on their couch, and 15 minute segment of the news when they’re getting ready for work, but usually won’t want to watch videos longer than a few minutes on the internet. Experts have determined all sorts of reasons for this, but it essentially comes down to expectation. When people are on their computers they expect things instantly. If it takes too long to find what they are looking for, they will quickly move on and look somewhere else.

Like the stranger sitting next to you on an airplane showing off every picture in their wallet, business owners want to show and tell everyone about “their baby”. Once they start going into the realm of TMI (too much info), people quickly tune out and regret their initial interest. Remember, the point of video marketing is to get your audience interested and that’s it. Once you know they are interested (based on their response to the video) then you can feel free to share a little bit more with them, but if your video is too long and doesn’t get to the point, the viewer may not stick around long enough to get interested.

3. It’s Boring

This one goes right along with reason #4. If your video doesn’t engage the viewer then you’ve not only wasted your money, you’ve wasted your audience’s time. The major advantage that video has over every other form of marketing is that it can draw on the emotion of seeing real people in action. If people want facts and data about your company, service, or product they can read about it in your brochures or on your website. People watch videos to experience stories and emotion.

Video marketing is a show and tell medium. Show them something unique about your company and tell them a funny or heartfelt story. Make your audience feel like they’re apart of the video and a part of your company and you’ll be well on your way to accomplishing your goals.

2. Features and Commodities instead of Benefits and Help

Listen to me carefully, this may be a little painful at first, but unless you are marketing to a group of engineers or techies, people DON’T CARE about the actual product or service you are marketing. What they care about is if it will help them.   Do you care about the tech specs of your car’s spark plugs or do you care about your car reliably and dependably helping you reach your destination?

Instead of spending your entire video talking about the actual product or service, show and tell them how your product or service can benefit them. You may have the best technology or the best method of servicing your clients, but if you can’t communicate to your audience how they will benefit from it, you won’t get their business. Your product or service should make their life better somehow and every second of your video should be communicating that.

1. It’s All About You

Video marketing is not a mirror for you to check yourself out. There are better times and places than your online marketing to see how you look. From start to finish your video should only be about one person, the person watching.

Customers and clients want to know that you care about them, the more personally the better. Treat the viewer as if they just walked into your store or office. Start off with the “How can I help you?” mentality as opposed to the self-centered “Let me tell you about myself” one. Let them know you care and want to help them.  Make it your goal that they have a fantastic, personal experience for the duration of the video.  Do this and not only will your video not suck, it will start achieving your goals and improving your business.

So last night was the end of the Men’s College Basketball Tournament with North Carolina putting a beat down on Michigan State for the championship.  Although my team lost,  the game and the tournament served as a great reminder of how the most tested and consistent winning efforts rise to the top 99.9% of the time.

If you’re not a basketball fan you’ll have to forgive me on this one because March Madness (the basketball tournament) is my favorite event of the year. Each year 65 teams from across the country compete in one huge tournament to determine the national champion. In the first couple of rounds there are exciting upsets where smaller, less talented teams create a unique (and sometimes gimmicky) game plan that catches the better team off guard so much that the lesser team wins the game.

This creates some great excitement, but as the tournament wears on, the better, more talented, and more tried and true teams rise to the top to become the national champion. Not once in the long history of the basketball tournament has an unheard of, little school won the entire tournament.

So how does this relate to marketing?

Much like the basketball tournament there are all sorts of companies and marketing efforts trying to win the attention (and sales) of their audience. At the beginning it is a free-for-all. Infomercials, web banners, tv commercials, in-person networking, conferences, social media marketing, direct mail marketing, etc. Everybody has a fair chance at winning.

Some of these marketing efforts are tried and true, consistently delivering results and some are new, unheard of, and unique (and sometimes gimmicky). Because of technology and the creativity involved, sometimes a new, cheaper, more creative marketing plan can catch an older, more established effort off-guard and produce better results.

However, as consumers become familiar with them, they begin looking for what they know is tried and trusted. Need an example? Remember tele-marketers and pop-up ads? When they first burst on to the scene they had success, but after consumers wised up, they quickly became a gimmicky annoyance and are no longer a serious threat to other, more authentic marketing efforts.

Much like the two basketball teams that played last night, who are very disciplined and concentrate their efforts on fundamentals that have proven themselves reliable and successful over time, you need to do the same with your marketing efforts.

While it’s important to utilize new technology and new strategies, remember to keep the tried and true characteristics of building relationships with your customers at the center of all your marketing efforts. While there may be the occasional upset when a new technology or plan comes along, over time the referral from a satisfied customer or a trusted friend will always prove more consistent and valuable.

So as you see the national champion North Carolina Tarheels in the newspapers and on TV over the next few days, remember that real victory is achieved by a consistent, well executed, long-term plan for success.

Like April Fools Day jokes, viral marketing is enjoyed by half the people, hated by the other half of people, but known to all.  If there is a prank that is pulled at your office or school, it doesn’t take long for word to spread.

Maybe the prank was hilarious and loved by everyone or maybe the prank was tactless or failed in its intention, either way by the end of the day everyone heard about it.

There are a few key characteristics of the April Fools Day prank that we should all keep in mind when planning a new viral campaign.

A good prank is:

• Unexpected
• Entertaining
• Communal

Unexpected: For any sort of advertising or marketing to be effective you have to first get the attention of your audience.  All day we go through routines and mundane processes that we become used to and start to tune out: brushing our teeth, the drive to and from work, eating at the same restaurants, etc.  When something unexpected like a prank comes along it provides a momentary jolt from that routine and stays fresh in our memory.  We may not remember what papers we filed on April 1st, but we’ll never forget the time when someone put a whoopee cushion under our boss’ chair.  In order to capture the attention of your audience, give them something unexpected.

Entertaining: Once you give them something unexpected and have your audience’s attention, the rest of your message needs to be entertaining.  Like a joke that starts out with a great one-liner but quickly fizzles into a long rambling story, your audience will start to tune out if you don’t entertain and engage them throughout the message.  This is best done by keeping your viral messages short and to the point.  If they can’t sit through the whole thing, don’t expect them to pass it along.

Communal: Possibly the best result of a good April Fools prank is that it starts conversations and creates a sense of community.  All the sudden those coworkers who don’t talk much or don’t know each other are sharing the story and laughing together.  By enjoying something together as a group, a special connection is made that could continue to grow from that day forward.  Likewise, word of mouth and the sense of community are the lifeblood of effective viral marketing.  Including your audience as part of the story and empowering them as the storytellers will make them feel valued and motivate them to spread the word.

Feel free to share your favorite April Fools prank with a comment below and we can see if it meets the standards of a good viral marketing effort.