I hear it all the time from other marketers. “I hate videos.” Just the other day, over at the Warrior Forum, somebody started a thread saying how they hate videos. And then, all these people started jumping on the bandwagon agreeing with the original post. “Yeah, I hate videos too.” Well, did you ever stop to think about WHY people hate videos? It’s not because they hate videos. It’s because they hate BAD videos. And why are your videos bad? Well, read this article and you’ll find out.

At the top of the list, they’re too long. That’s right. You drone on and on and on about absolutely nothing OR you try to squeeze the whole dictionary into them. People have a limited attention span. They are only going to sit down for so long to watch an informational video. After a certain length of time, they will start to tune you out. Okay, so what’s the ideal length for a video?

Ideally, you want your videos to be between five and ten minutes long. Once you start going past the 15 minute mark, that’s when you start getting into the area of “I’m starting to lose interest in what you’re saying to me.” So the shorter the better. Remember, we’re not talking about a feature film here where millions of dollars are put into something to make it interesting even if it’s three hours long. So keep your video short.

But length is not the only reason prospects hate your videos. Another reason is because you’re boring. You put no life into your video. You drone on and on. You don’t change the expression on your face. You don’t change the pitch of your voice. You don’t move. You don’t do anything but talk in a dull monotone for an ungodly amount of time. Look if YOU’RE not interested in what you’re saying, nobody else is going to be either. Show some enthusiasm.

Another problem is you don’t script your videos. Not everybody can speak off the cuff. It takes a lot of skill and talent to be able to do that successfully. So write out what you’re going to say but for heaven sake, don’t read it. Memorize it OR use a teleprompter. And if you DO use one of those things, don’t make it obvious that you’re using one. People want to believe that you’re looking at THEM when you’re speaking and not at some piece of equipment.

Finally…get to the point. If you have something to sell, sell it. Don’t talk about your cat, dog, mother in law or whoever. Nobody cares about your yacht or your villa in France. They want to know what you have to offer them, why you think it will help them, what it will do for them and how much it costs. Do that in under five minutes and you won’t have people telling you how much they hate YOUR videos.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to find out how to create killer videos like my friend Kevin Riley and rake in a 6 figure income like he and I do? Check out my review of his dynamite product at my blog at http://stevenwagenheim.blogspot.com/2008/06/kevin-rileys-recipe-for-success.html