The Most Common Video Marketing Mistakes Start-ups Make

1. Throwing everything into the video. Keep it simple!

2. Telling ‘their’ story, as opposed to explaining simply what the product is and what solution it provides. If you’re a start-up, the key with video is to help you start selling and generating revenue. Your story can come later when you have built a customer base.

3. Not having a big enough budget. Because most start-ups are short on cash and have got where they are thanks to a lot of favours (barter/promises/begs/steals or borrows), they can have an unrealistic idea of how much to spend on a video. They can also have unrealistic expectations of what the video will look like and how it will be made. This can also lead to scope-pushing…

4. Scope-pushing (wanting a £1000 product but only being prepared to spend £100) is very common amongst start-ups, and it’s one reason that a lot of video companies find it tricky to work with them. Again, be realistic!

5. Not allocating the right person to oversee the project, and not having a correct workflow in place for giving feedback. Start-ups are particularly prone to showing the final version of a video to the boss only at the last minute. If the boss requires major changes, this can prove tricky.

6. Placing too much importance on the video. Start-ups should be prepared to fail in many ways, and they should realise that a video is not the be all and end all. It can (and should) help, but if their business isn’t fundamentally sound in the first place, no video can turn that around.

7. Not having a distribution strategy. This is paramount for any business, especially for a start-up. How are you going to get your video out there?

8. Not realising the sheer amount of time needed to be devoted to the project. In the maelstrom of actually starting a business from scratch, certain things tends to get overlooked, or not given enough attention. Videos can be one of them. They take one of the most precious resources at this point: time. It’s essential to make sure enough time is devoted to it.

9. Falling into the trap of making the video look like every other start-up video. This was especially the case two or three years ago, when it seemed that every new start-up video wanted to ape the style of Apple or Google. As a result, many videos got lost. Push the envelope and think outside of the box. It’s busy out there and attention spans are short. Don’t be afraid to take risks – if you want to get noticed then you have to really make some innovative noise to support your new offering.

10. Failing to keep records of who is sharing their material online, and commenting on it. This is the start of an essential user database, and apart from the time is takes to put it all together, it’s pretty much free! If you’re gaining fans and advocates across social media then its crucial to capitalise on the early adopters.

11. Forgetting to have a call to action or similar. If you’re attracting hundreds or thousands of potential new customers who are actively sharing your videos, you need to make sure you keep them in the loop on any further developments or releases. The internet is so vast, so rapidly changing, that people soon forget things that they may have initially appeared extremely keen on. If you’ve got their attention early on, then make sure you do your best to keep it.

Paul’s first book ‘Viral: The Social Video Handbook’ is now available on Amazon.