Video Marketing 101: 9 Things to Check Before Publishing Your Video

Your video is created and you’ve got it uploaded. Time to hit that big old submit button, right? Wrong.

There’s more that goes into video marketing than creating a video. If you publish one that’s full of misspelled subtitles or the audio is out of sync, it will seriously take the viewer out of the magic.

You also have to create a snappy title, killer description, and use the proper tags. If you don’t, your target audience won’t even be able to find your video.

These aren’t the only video marketing basics that you’ll need to keep in mind. Check out this guide for more.

1. Spelling and Grammar

If the internet will call you out on one thing, it’s a misspelled word. All it takes is to spend a few minutes watching your video to make sure your subtitles are spelled right.

If at any point in the video you display the name of your business, your address, or your phone number, you need to look over it. You don’t want to miss getting phone calls from potential clients because you forgot a single digit in your phone number.

2. You Need a Catchy Title 

You don’t want your title to sound too much like click-bait, but it shouldn’t be boring either. You want to grab your target audience’s attention when they look at it. There are a couple of ways you can do this.

The number one way is with a listicle. “3 Cooking Methods for Beginners”, “5 Video Production Tips Everyone Should Know”, etc. Listicles are a good way to give yourself some structure to work with and entice the audience.

Asking questions is great for engaging with your viewer. For example, “Am I Paying too Much for Homeowners Insurance”? Asking this question will force the viewer to think about their bill and watch the video to do a comparison.

3. Do You Have a Clear Message?

When it comes to YouTube video marketing, content is key. You need to make sure that whoever is watching the video can easily pick a message out of it. You don’t want to leave anything up to interpretation.

The struggle is that you only have 30 seconds to a minute to create this message. If the video drags on longer than that, you risk sounding like a long-winded advertisement.

Don’t worry if you can’t cram everything involving your new product into one video. Creating 5-6 small videos on your promotion is better than having 1 long one that constantly switches focus.

4. Is There Enough Eye-Catching Visuals? 

It’s a bad idea to use a bunch of flashy visuals. The viewer will get distracted and your message will be lost. On the flip side of this, you don’t want your video to be lacking visuals either.

Go back over your video after you’ve cut all your clips together and add in a few flourishes where it’s necessary. A fancy transition or visual effect here and there will be enough to keep the viewer’s eyes on the video without distracting them.

5. Description

YouTube and most other platforms give you the chance to pick out video keywords, write a description, and create tags that will lead people to the video. You need to make sure that whatever keyword you use pops up within the first two lines of the description.

You should also credit any musical artist whose work you use, add a link to your channel, put in a link to a related video if you have one up, and add links to your website and social media pages.

6. Tags 

When people search for a video, there’s an algorithm that will read the words they type in and suggest videos based on that. You want to make sure that yours appears when people search for something related to the content you post.

That means you have to be smart about the tags you use when publishing your video. For example, if your video title is “10 Cooking Tips for Beginners”, cooking tips or cooking tips for beginners would be great tags. Tips for beginners would be a bad choice because it’s too vague.

7. Make Sure Your Audio Syncs Up with Your Visuals 

Everyone uses some type of music for their videos. If you don’t use music, you need to stop reading this article right now and go add it in before you continue. You can’t use just any song, however. It needs to go with the overall theme you’ve got going on.

You don’t want to use a hard rock song in a video about birdwatching. You would use something a little more calm and serene. You also need to make sure that your speaking audio matches up to lip movements before you post.

8. Check to See if the Music You’re Using is Copyrighted 

Before you choose the music for your video you have to ask yourself, “is this song copyrighted“? If it is, YouTube will either mute or take down your video. Both of those scenarios are the last thing that you want to happen.

To this end, you need to make sure any song you use is public domain or royalty-free. This means that the music is free for anyone to use or that it can be used for a small fee.

9. Don’t Forget the CTA

Your CTA (or call to action) is what you want people to take away from your video. It’s the entire reason for you making the thing in the first place.

It prompts people to smash that like button, go to your website and order your product, or subscribe to your YouTube channel. If you didn’t add it in, you need to do so before you publish the video.

Video Marketing Mistakes to Lookout for

Video marketing is a little more complicated than recording video content and posting it on the internet. You need to have a clear message, a great call to action, and a little flare that will keep your audience’s eyes on the video. Without these things, we’re afraid to say your marketing campaign might not go as well as you would like.

Looking for more ways to navigate your way around the marketing world? Check out the technology section of our blog daily for all the latest internet tips.