The Number One Video Mistake to Avoid
These days, no one argues that video is the highest performing marketing asset a brand can produce. And there’s no doubt that many well-meaning marketers will make several videos this year. But most of them are going to make a horrible mistake when they do so. They’re going to produce videos that try to accomplish way too much.
Every video is a weapon of persuasion. And like the most weapons, each video can only hit one target at a time. In short, for a video to be successful, it must speak to one audience at a time (not multiple) and persuade that audience to do one thing in response to what they've seen (not multiple).
I’ve had many conversations that go something like this:
Prospective Client:
Hi, I'd like to make a video for our brand.
Me:
Great! Tell me about your audience and how you hope they respond to this video.
Prospective Client:
For sure! Well, we have two audiences actually. The first is our B2B customer who licenses our product, and the second is the customer who buys it from them. We want both of these audiences to learn about our product's benefits, feel like they trust us, go buy the product, and then go tell others about who we are.
Seeing it all written out like that looks a bit ridiculous. But that conversation happens all of the time. And I get it. Whenever I spend money on something important I want to get the most out of it too. No one is going to blame a responsible marketer for wanting to get the most “bang for their buck.” But trying to hit multiple targets with one video is a deadly mistake that renders video entirely useless.
So, to sum it up, what is the number one video mistake to avoid? Making a video without a single Key Persuasion™.
What’s a Key Persuasion™? It’s a framework we created at VeracityColab to help aim each video at a very specific target. And it goes like this, "After (fill in the blank audience) finishes watching this video we want them to (Feel/Think/Do blank).” And remember, you can only aim at one audience, and one action - Think, Feel, or Do. Aiming at more than one will dissolve the potency of the message, thus minimizing the effectiveness of the persuasion.
A video designed to stimulate the brain and help the audience to learn something new or THINK about something in a different way is crafted in a completely different way than a video that’s designed to persuade an audience to FEEL connected to a brand or product in a way that engages the emotions. And if you’re trying to get the audience to DO something after watching a video, then you’re producing a Direct Marketing campaign, and those videos should be formulaic and simple.
To create a potent video with high-performing results, you must pick one of the three targets and weave the fabric of your Key Persuasion™ into every part of your video.
A great example of a brand who committed to a Key Persuasion, so that they would deliver a potent "direct hit" emotionally, is Epson with their Pulsense Brand Video.
The Key Persuasion™ for this video was "After people who are serious about personal health and fitness watch this video, we want them to feel like the Pulsense light will guide them to accomplish their ultimate fitness goals. Mission accomplished.
If Epson had tried to include features and benefits, the emotional connection would have been lost. The result was a successful branding campaign that led to a high level of engagement with other more "down funnel" marketing assets.
And now it’s your turn to do the same by avoiding the number one marketing mistake. It takes a little bit of forethought and a lot of organization, but it’s possible.
For over a decade, hundreds of top brands have trusted VeracityColab to make thousands of great videos that were guided by a Key Persuasion™. We’d love to do the same for you.