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6 Things You’re Doing Wrong With Your Video Ads

Yael Klass
By Yael Klass
March 14, 2018 · 6 min read

There’s a reason why 52% of marketing professionals say video is the best type of content with the best ROI. For one, 500 million people watch videos on Facebook every day. That ’s a lot of people. And, if you didn’t know, online shoppers who view demo videos are a whopping 1.81x more likely to make a purchase than those who don’t.

But it takes more than just patching together a few moving images to get that highly coveted conversion rate that everyone talks about. Here are a few things you might be doing wrong when it comes to your Facebook Video Ads from the people who know how to do it right (hint hint – that’s us, Promo!).

1. No Clear Audience

You may have started to think your audience is just whoever happens to see your videos or your followers on social media, but that’s not quite specific enough to create a winning piece of content. Make sure you know who exactly you’re talking to and use language they can understand. For example, if you’re talking to a tech-savvy community you can use more industry jargon and if you’re speaking to international eCommerce shoppers of every age, you’ll want to keep out slang and idioms.

A general rule is to create text that is not too high level, minimal slang they won’t understand or use slang your specific audience will understand and enjoy. Most importantly, your videos must speak to their “pain point” and unique needs. Communicate about WHY your offering will help them and consider the emotional response. It’s best to ask yourself, what do you what them to feel after seeing your video? Then review your video to see if that emotion comes through.

2. Too Much Text

We all have a ton of information to tell our customers. It almost feels never-ending we are so excited to share news and product details and a little about who we are. And that’s great! That said, it must be clear and consolidated to one point per video. When you learned how to add text to a video, you may have noticed that cramming too much text into each video can overwhelm the audience and make them stop watching. Also, make sure it doesn’t move to quickly. You don’t want to waste a perfectly good idea on text that flies by. Not only is it a red flag to have too much text due to the difficulty of viewers reading and digesting it fast enough, they simply don’t want to. If your audience is spending a moment thinking about the fact that they are reading something, you’ve lost ’em.

A good rule of thumb is to write a maximum of 1 sentence per 3 seconds. When using Promo we will even give you a little nudge should you over-write your video captions.

 

 

3. Mis-chosen Music

Music that doesn’t add to the feeling of your video content is a big no-no in the world of ad creation. This goes back to publishing content that elicits a strong feeling. Use the power of music to make a more professional and complete video that can excite, inspire and empower your viewers. How to add music to video is also about choosing the right piece of music that can add to the emotional response. Be sure it’s top quality sound – you want to look like the big brands after all.

With all that talk about the power of your musical selection, remember that 85% of Facebook video is watched on mute. That is to say, don’t rely only on your sound choice to tell the story of your video. You want to ensure that your content item works soundless and the value only increases when a viewers clicks sound – on.

4. No CTA

There’s no reason to create a wonderful video if your viewer doesn’t know what to DO after watching it. Would you like them to visit your website? Shop for something specific? Say so. It’s as simple as that. On the final slide of your video ad, make sure to include a CTA that brings your viewers to the next chosen destination. We’d recommend a tagline on the top and your website below as a go-to CTA. Then you can spice it up with a coupon code, specific link or event announcement when relevant. 

5. No Logo

A great video takes effort. Don’t waste your hard work and exceptional content by not including your logo and making sure everyone that sees your ad knows it’s YOU that created it. Not only is it necessary to brand your video asset as your own, it also makes the video look more professional and thus work better in your marketing efforts. Besides, it’s a one-click operation so why not?

Tell us you didn’t add your logo to your video and not that you don’t have a logo all together! This is a must. If you’ve been tight on cash and the logo creation process keeps falling to the bottom of the list, not anymore. There are loads of affordable logo creation tools online, like Fiverr and Logo Makr, that are perfect for your website and video ad needs.

6. Weak social caption

After creating a great video, you’ve got to post it online. Especially on social media, the caption you choose can make or break a piece of content. If you’ve been writing short paragraphs, convoluted of advanced copy or generally just a boring explanation of your video – your ad is not going to take off. Who wants to read all that? Who wants to re-read a social media caption? The answer: no one. 

Make sure your video caption is short, fun and gives a bit of insight into what your audience will be watching. The caption should add to the story of what your audience sees, not distract or repeat it. You can enjoy having a playful tone and add a little joke and an emoji to really spruce it up. We highly recommend doing a bit of hashtag research to find the relevant keywords that will allow you to grab an even larger audience based on hashtag following and trending content. This is most essential for Twitter and Instagram, but all social channels give a nod to good hashtag use. 

Ready to create your own videos online? Try Promo today!

 

*Originally posted as a guest author on the needls blog.

About the author

Yael Klass

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