The biggest mistake anyone can make in producing a marketing video is also the most common:  It’s what I call, ‘hosing down the business.’

Here ‘s an example:  Imagine you’re a firefighter and you arrive at the scene of a fire.   You see smoke beginning to come out of an upstairs window.  Do you take out a giant fire hose and begin spraying down the entire house?  Of course not.  You identify the specific area that’s burning, and go after that.  Not only do you get the fire out faster, you conserve a lot of water in the process.

The first temptation in creating a marketing video is to grab a camera, and shoot everything you feel is important about your business.    When you do that, you break just about every marketing rule there is.

  1. You ignore your target audience, their needs, and the concerns they have as they travel through your sales process.
  2. You market everything, even what doesn’t matter to your customers.
  3. You waste time, energy, and money in an economic climate that doesn’t allow for it.

The better approach is to identify specific steps of your sales process that cause concern for your customers – points where it’s easy for them make a decision to go somewhere else.  Remember: on the Internet a customer is only a click away from your competition.

To be effective, video marketing requires as much attention to detail as any other aspect of your marketing.  The more focused, the simpler, the shorter, the more concise – the better.