Top three mistakes video marketers make.

Marketing with video and has seen an enormous jump recently and video production companies are working together with marketing companies to produce amazing videos for business marketing.
Video production companies in Johannesburg are moving more and more towards online marketing and away from broadcast video adverts. The problem is that many newcomers are taking short cuts and making bad decisions with video.

In this article I am going to look at some of the most common mistakes businesses make with marketing with video.
It is important to understand that there has been a divide between professional and non professional video creation. Many small time marketers like multi level marketers and affiliate marketers have pushed the message of self filming. This has brought a slew of bad ideas and bad productions.
So lets look at the three top ways that video marketing is being done badly.

Video Marketing mistake number 1:

One size fits all:                                 

With many online marketers there is a sense of video being a grudge purchase. Too many people see video as an obstacle to overcome so they want a fix-all solution that has worked for other people so they can do the same.
This approach has not worked in the off line marketing world and will certainly not work online.
Just because a video idea works amazingly for one company does not mean it will work for yours.
Simply copying and pasting ideas from one industry to another often falls flat.Even copying an idea within an industry can end badly because many of your potential customers will think you simply copied your competitor which doesn't say good things about your company.
While there are tried and tested techniques such as the flow of the advert, or marketing video, and a good call to action, simply copying a video verbatim is a really bad idea.This is especially the case where you may go the cheap route and make a cheap knock off of a video done by a professional video production company.
The question you should ask is "what is the problem or pain point that your customer has?"  and "how can you speak to that?" This way your message is targeted and way more effective.

Video Marketing mistake number 2:

Viral video

The myth of viral video has probably done some of the most harm to small businesses compared to anything else. Firstly, viral video will not bring more customers. It will simply bring more viewers from which you will probably gain nothing. The classic funny cat videos, can garner multiple millions of viewers and result in zero sales. This is because the entertainment factor is high and the shareability is high but the business message is exceptionally weak or non existent. The only people who make money from viral videos are content creators who post the videos on platforms like YouTube and make money from YouTube's advertising.
An effective video is not a viral video. An effective video targets your potential clients and gets them to follow through with a call to action. The approach of getting as many views as possible and then praying that it converts to sales is a really bad idea. Effective targeted video is what has helped many businesses grow.


Video Marketing mistake number 3:

Poor quality.

While newcomers are always looking for more cost effective ways to market their business, the short cuts have many pitfalls. The all too common mistake is to buy a camera or even worse grab your cell phone and begin shooting. This idea was possibly birthed by the affiliate and multi level marketing industry where personal interaction is gold. This approach can be very effective in a very specific niche. If you want to convince people that you are real and want them to connect to you personally then a shaky cell phone video can work.
The problem is that many small business think that this approach translates into business marketing. Nothing could be further from the truth. If your potential clients see you doing that sort of thing, their sense may be that you are a fly-by-night sort of a business and there is no trust whatsoever.
The video work, and overcoming being in front of the camera, can result in damage to your company image instead of boosting it. This is money badly spent and even worse, can damage your company in the eye of the viewer.
There is a place and a time for "low quality" video but it does not work in every situation, especially if you have high paying clients who expect quality, value and trust.


While there are many other mistakes that newcomers make with marketing with video, avoiding these three could make a huge difference for you. It is important to remember that there are no guarantees in marketing of any kind, even video. Many people have seen success with their video marketing but that does not guarantee that it will work for you and your business. That is why it is important to get professional advice when embarking on a video marketing campaign.
Online video marketing can be way more affordable compared to the old way of broadcast advertising but that does not mean that it is cheap, free or guaranteed to bring your business any results. Be sure that you understand your industry and get good solid advice on how to market your business.

Do you really need video for your online marketing?

It has become an accepted norm that all businesses need video for their online marketing but have you stopped to question if that's true for you and your business?
If you were to advertise in a newspaper or magazine in the past you would first look at the demographics of the readers and see if they fit with your client base. While video marketing has very precise demographics on many platforms that can help to make your marketing decisions easier, there still seems to be a one size fits all mentality when it comes to video for business. If your business is B2C, in other words your customers are the public as opposed to B2B where your clients are other businesses, then video marketing can work very well and on many different platforms.Its simply a matter of choosing wisely to target the right market. Where it often gets confusing is when B2B businesses try to market to their potential clients. There is much more to be thought about.


Firstly the video itself is not marketing. It is strange to see so many companies who spend a fortune on a high end video for their company and simply stick it on YouTube and hope for the best. It makes absolutely no sense to think the video, as beautiful as it may be, will just bring in viewers and new clients based purely on how great the video is. To place it in context, if you made a print advert which was beautifully designed and aesthetically pleasing, you would still know that the advert itself does nothing to bring in an audience or clients.You would use that advert in many targeted publications to attract attention and you would know that it would require some repetition before it would really have an effect. Somehow that instinctive behaviour and clear understanding of how marketing works suddenly goes out the window when a video is made. It is very important to understand that video is not marketing, in the same way that an original draft print of an advert is not marketing until it is used correctly.Also keep in mind that video production companies are not marketing companies.

Part of the reason why this confusion happens is that a marketing company will ask thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for a marketing campaign which includes a video. The many small businesses who cant afford that kind of expense turn to video production companies who will make a great video for a few hundred dollars. If you are very skilled at online marketing, then going to a video production company makes sense because you would have the video made and then you would use it correctly with online platforms to spread your message and advertise to new customers. This would bypass the expense of the marketing company. However if you have no skills in marketing then simply making a video can be completely pointless. Would you go to a local print shop, have a print advert made up and then sit back thinking the calls would roll in.Of course not. The problem for many small businesses is their false belief in what YouTube does. Many small business owners hear it being said "You should have a YouTube video, when that goes viral you will have millions of customers". This is a completely misinformed point of view.

Firstly most videos that go viral do so because they end up being promoted in some way by a person or YouTube channel that already has an enormous audience. In the same way that a radio station or TV station would have a huge audience that they would sell off to advertisers, so YouTube channels would either promote for money or because they like the video. If your video is mind glowingly funny or cute or have some wow factor, and you managed to get the right person to see it then maybe you stand a small chance of that approach working. Remember though that your video has to be more exciting than puppies, kittens, explosions, crashes and beautiful people combined to stand a small chance. More than likely you are simply going to have to pay someone to promote your advert video. If that's the case you are going to have to spend some time making sure you are hitting the right audience so that your money is well spent.

The burden placed on small video production companies to provide your company with millions of new customers is just ridiculous. They cant do it and if they can it's because they have marketing information and skills that they will charge you for just like a marketing company would. There is no short cut to fame and there is no short cut to marketing. The many online services, and ease of use of video, have absolutely improved the ability of small businesses to market more affordably and effectively but that does not mean that the marketing happens on its own and without spending any money on marketing.

Once you let go of the silly notion that marketing is now easy and cheap, you will begin to build a genuine marketing strategy to fit your business. It can also be helpful to test the waters in many online platforms to see which one brings you the best response.Don't put all your eggs in one basket and hope for the best. Test, test and test some more. When you find the right audience and the right platform the magic can begin.

Many video production companies Pretoria based and video production companies around the world have expressed their frustration at the unrealistic burden placed on them. Many have tried to create the facade that they are marketing companies in order to attract these unrealistic clients. This however can end badly as the unrealistic expectations come home to roost and the video production companies in Johannesburg and all around the world then have to fulfil those expectations.Some production companies in Johannesburg genuinely are marketing companies but they can be hard to distinguish from regular video production companies. Do some research or accept that they may just be great video production companies but are not marketers.

So the question remains "Do you really need video for your online marketing?" Video has become one of the most effective forms of marketing online. It is not the only useful form of marketing.Sometimes a simple picture and basic text can be as effective if not more effective than a video. It is important to spend some time asking your potential clients what they like and test that with different types of marketing to see which one works best for you.There is no answer that fits everyone or every business. Initially as much money should be spent testing as should be on the marketing itself. This question can only be answered after extensive introspection and large scale testing. Many industries are showing huge leaps in their marketing as a result of video but the same may not apply to you and your business. Video will dominate the future of business marketing but will it be the most effective for your business? Only a clear understanding of your business, your client base and knowing the route to the final transaction can guide you to answer this question.

Can Movie Tricks Be Used For Corporate Video Marketing Online?

Corporate video production has mostly been seen as far from movies and cinematic style as can be. In the past corporate video used for online marketing has very much had a "corporate"style. This style, although updated with graphics and other styling, has stayed very similar to past productions. High end advertising and commercial broadcast video productions have however been using movie techniques for a long while.These have been out of reach for most corporate video productions. The reason is that the advanced moving camera shots require expensive equipment.

Some of the equipment used by movie makers to create the cinematic look include such things as a dolly, a jib crane, and aerial vehicles such as helicopters, aeroplanes and high powered UAV or drones. These pieces of equipment are very expensive and mostly out of the reach of low budget movie makers and, more importantly for this discussion, of corporate video production companies in Johannesburg who need to produce low budget corporate video productions. Over time though cheaper replacements have become available to smaller productions. Although they are not as effective, in many ways are effective enough, to be usable and not be noticed as a substantial difference. The most important impact is that low budget corporate video productions now have access to equipment to recreate cinematic shots in what would normally be a very plain video production.

So to see how this works and how to take advantage of the new equipment we will look at these replacements.

Dollys replaced with with sliders and dolly wheels.

A dolly is a type of moving camera stand where the movement is in a lateral motion in a way that is smooth and stable. The movement is only in a side to side smooth movement. It can also be used in a forward or backwards movement as well but only in a horizontal way. These can be either a stand only for the camera or include a seat for the camera operator and would need another person to push the dolly along.
The slider and tripod dolly wheels.
These are much cheaper and able to do similar movements. Many would argue that a slider is nothing like a dolly because of its limited movement range. This may be the case but many dolly movements can be simulated with a slider and can actually do movements not possible with a dolly, which is to do very small movements for very close shots of smaller objects.There is also a cheaper replacement for the dolly which is a set of wheels which simply clip onto the camera tripod.These don't need an extra person to push the camera stand around but does need a very smooth surface to work on whereas a dolly can work on almost any surface. In offices or factories where most corporate video productions take place, where the floors are smooth, these can be perfect replacements.

 Steady cam replaced with image stabilisers.

The steady cam was a creation of a camera operator and engineer who made it specifically for a movie called "The Shining" and was then used in the movie "Rocky". These movies required a camera operator to follow an actor along an undulating surface and up and down stairs without shaking the camera. This system includes a combination or springs, arms and weights. It is a heavy piece of equipment that has to be attached to the camera operators body. The lower cost replacement is the camera stabilisers. The mechanical version is very effective and quite cheap.It uses a basic vertical arm with a weight at the bottom.It is light weight and very effective but takes a very long time to set up perfectly and takes a lot of practice to use correctly.There is a higher priced piece of equipment and that is the gimbal. This is an electronic camera stabiliser. It is also a reasonably heavy piece of equipment and with its higher price does put it more into the film industry range. It also behaves very differently to the mechanical camera stabilisers in that it corrects movement very quickly which makes some movements not possible.Others however love the accuracy of the gimbal. It is still cheaper than some steady cam designs but not cheap enough for low budget corporate videos.One reasonably new addition is actually in the camera and not as a seperate piece of equipment.That is the built in image stabiliser in the camera body or the lens. Combined with other equipment like a mechanical stabilizer or a jib can produce spectacular results.

Jib Crane with mini jib.

While there doesn't seem to be a difference between a Crane Jib and a mini jib, there is a huge difference in price and the convenience of use is vastly different. A jib crane used in the film industry often requires at least one additional operator besides the camera operator. The equipment is also a much more difficult to move and often require permits and have many safety rules and regulations that the mini jibs don't have. A mini jib, because of its size and weight can often be packed out easily and into a  bag or back pack and can be moved from one location to another making it much more cost effective for video production companies to move from one set to another.The difference, except for the extremely high angle shots, are almost indistinguishable between the crane and mini jib shot. The price difference though is dramatic. The full crane Jib can be in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars while most mini jibs range from just a few hundred dollars to as low as tens of dollars if are home made. The shots created are so spectacular that this should be seen as a required piece of equipment for almost all corporate video production.


Aerial shots with quadcopters or mini drones.


A helicopter is pretty obvious to most but most people don't know how the video camera use can vary. Some would assume that the camera is always mounted onto the helicopter but there is in fact a high percentage of film productions where the camera operator is simply seated in the helicopter with an open door or special window.The use of helicopters is prohibitively expensive and, in may cases, pointless because of the noise, dust blown up and legal and insurance issues. The film industry moved to high powered drones or UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) . These although cheaper than helicopters are still way too expensive for corporate video productions. This is where the quadcopter or mini drone came in.Its relatively cheap, very effective and easy to use for most shots. The problem for most drone operators though is the varying regulations for use from one country to another. Video production companies in Pretoria, for example, need to use a licensed drone operators and can only do shots in certain ways, whereas in many other places in the world no license is required or may just be completely illegal. When they can be used effectively drones have been some of the biggest game changers in video production equipment. Some beginner videographers have gone from doing basic shoots to epic corporate marketing videos.

Finally, not as a piece of physical equipment but in the world of software, many video editing software programs allow a video editor to fake camera movement as if it were done by physical equipment. In many other ways the software can also clean up the footage that was made with cheaper camera equipment to make it look like more expensive equipment was used such as image stabilisation as well as all the special effects that movie studios use.

The result of all these changes and additions of cheaper equipment have meant that corporate video productions can suddenly become as thrilling as big budget film or advertising productions. Production companies in Johannesburg who were stuck with a camera on a tripod can now change to creating spectacular visually appealing shots for their corporate clients without bringing in the insane budget.

While many video production companies will stay stuck in their old ways of thinking, pioneering spirited video creators will now be able to produce videos which effects similar to big budget movies.
While this will add some extra cost, the results so far out reach standard productions that ignoring them would be silly.

Here is an example of how a standard corporate budget can be used to turn a standard marketing video into a fun and exciting one.