Videos having poor performance can seriously hamper the reputation of both brands and video production houses.
Videos are primarily produced for two reasons. First, for internal branding and monetizing on Youtube and Instagram. Secondly, to increase sales of the products.
For instance, a television ad of a product does not lead to growth in sales or fail to generate revenues; the ROI on video production becomes zero. This implies that the video has performed poorly for the brand.
Another big ripple effect that takes place due to the poor performance of videos is the loss of the audience’s trust. The users will not see any value in the video and will skip it. Brands may lose out on their social media followers and subscribers on Youtube and Instagram as their algorithms do not favor low-performing video content.
If a brand’s videos continue to perform poorly and not showcase adequate results, it may totally hamper their video marketing growth. It might lead to opportunity costs as the competitors might scale up their video productions.
Well, we have spoken enough about the effects of poor-performing videos; let us understand what causes the poor performance of videos.
What leads to poor performance of videos?
Be it for television advertisements or social media branding, the poor performance of videos can be caused by inadequate creative output. The creative messaging in the video might not be engaging. But, the creative aspect is only one small reason for producing low ROI on the video content. Other factors may also have a share of contribution. Let us look at it :
- Poor briefing
Whether the video is produced by the internal video creators or outsourced to a video production house, it becomes imperative for the brand managers to give a clear creative briefing of the tonality and messaging of the videos. This helps in a strong and strategic pre-production process to churn out effective video content that fits the brand messaging.
- Lacks nuances
If you are producing a fictional ad video campaign for a product, you must understand the target audience’s emotions and cultural nuances. Without it, videos might fail to move the audience to consume the product.
A video can appear to lack inclusivity and be insensitive to audiences. This can hamper the long-term image of the brand.
Many such video ad campaigns might be banned or perceived as culturally and socially inappropriate, leading to poor performance.
For instance, in the 2000s, the erstwhile Fair and Lovely produced an ad for its new product where a dusky skin girl was denied a job, but after using the product, she became successful.
The audience boycotted the video, and the product sales slowed down after people watched the video on television.
- Poor optimization
For digital video ads or branding videos published on Instagram and Facebook, it needs to be optimized so that the social media algorithms favor it.
Okay, it might be difficult to understand, so let us break it down for you.
When a blog is written, keywords, meta descriptions, tags are inserted. This is done to optimize the blog for a high ranking on search engines like Google.
Youtube and Instagram are both video search engines where with the right keywords and hashtags, the videos’ ranking can improve.
- Not following platform guidelines
No matter how creatively brilliant the video is produced, it needs to be in alignment with algorithms. Youtube and Instagram algorithms favor those videos that follow the community guidelines of the platforms.
Brand managers must ensure that the content of the video might not flout the community rules of Instagram and Facebook. The brand might lose its social media channel if the videos get reported.
Videos must give credits to artists for music and visual elements; otherwise, it might lead to copyright infringement issues.
For Instagram videos, the captions should not include any banned hashtags as the algorithm might start to shadowban the content.
5) Not leveraging storytelling
Sometimes brands optimize their videos; they have value-added information but still fail to move the audience.
The audience does not feel connected with the video or the brand’s messaging present in it. Lack of relatability in the videos leads to poor performance as the brand has not leveraged the element of storytelling.
The brand’s products are designed for consumers, and consumers are interested in relatable stories.
Strong scripting is required in the pre-production process to ensure the videos have a good story. It should be crisp and cause a strong brand association that the audience can connect with.
If the videos leverage storytelling strategically, they can hook the audience and produce higher ROI in terms of sales or digital engagements.
6) Poor quality
Poorly produced videos lead to its poor performance. This can be in the scripting, production, or editing phase of the video production process.
Brand managers and video producers must ensure that quality is retained in the end-to-end process.
The creative team must include experienced professionals who understand storytelling and visual aesthetics.
Video producers must ensure that the video is shot in good lighting. It must be visually appealing and meet the brand’s creative brief.
The editing also needs to be strong so that the video’s narrative is crisp and grabs the attention of the audience. It should also have good color correction and sound quality for a better user experience.
7) No CTAs
CTAs or Call To Action is important for the performance of a brand video on digital platforms. It allows the users to determine their actions after watching the video. The CTAs can be mentioned at the start of the video or within the captions.
It can either buy a product or subscribe to the brand’s social media channel. Crisp and compelling CTAs help to attract the user’s attention.
A mistake that brands and creators make when it comes to the CTA is that after having a large subscriber pool, they stop putting CTAs. This can be viewed as arrogance and lead to the loss of new viewers.
8) Not much variety
The audience has many options these days and easily gets bored with similar types of video content. Brands need to experiment with trends and different styles of video content, or else the audience might lose interest in watching the content.
Many brands and creators fail to understand the audience’s requirements while producing video content. Hence, sound research and creative brainstorming are needed before churning out the videos.
By understanding these causes and rectifying them, brand managers and video producers can improve the performance of their video content.
