Am I the only person who hates video content?

Video is just like anything else. If you have a idiot making a video, guess what? The video will suck. By far video is much better than written text.

Yep, that seriously P**** me off as well, nothing worse than loading up a video that goes for 2 hours, can't be fast forwarded, and has some twit, crapping on about his family, pet and how he was broke, blah, blah, blah!!!!


Cut the crap, and get to the part we are waiting for, or at least give us a gem, to stop us from reducing the video, and checking our emails, while he craps on about his life history!


IM marketers time is precious, and we don't need the fluff! Unfortunately some professional marketers out there say it increases conversions, etc by crapping on about your life history! Maybe that is true, for newbies or retiree's or possibly mothers, but IM'ers, NO! For us it is slash and burn, give us the gist so we can buy or do a runner!


Shane

Yeah, videos can be nice for demos, and to AUGMENT tutorials. Otherwise, FORGET IT!

Steve

In other words, you are expressing an opinion without any first hand proof at all...not to mention all the evidence to the contrary.

Are you contending that TV commercials are a waste of time and that many of the most successful companies in history have wasted billions and billions of dollars making short videos that can't gain customers?

If this is in "off-topic" because it's intended as a thread for people to whine about video and how grotesquely over-used, badly used, unnecessarily used and generally misused it very widely is, count me IN, please, gentlemen.

And if anyone wants to throw rotting fruit at the first "but it works", I'll happily supply the fruit.

I'm all out of "thanks" for the day, it seems, and can't even give Ron, Steve and others their due, here.

When I discuss internet marketing with my subscribers (in all my different niches), which I do intermittently and with quite a bit of interest in what I can learn from them because some of it's been really helpful to me, video (and its various widespread misuses and over-uses) is always very high on the list of things that people just intensely dislike, even without my mentioning it or asking them that specifically. Videos without controls, and videos that play automatically seem to be the worst offenders, but there are plenty of others, too.

But guess what? In a marketing forum, people with "video-service related signature-file links" are going to be in favor of videos.

^^^^^^^^^^ This.

The ones that really p*ss me off are the ones that begin playing automatically. These are generally at a deafening volume as well.

Just think about the guy or gal taking a sneaky peak at a site at their place of work.

All of a sudden the office silence is shattered by "Do you want to give your boss the sack?", or some such variant.

Even if they manage to keep their job, they are NOT going to buy anything from you - EVER!

I have no idea what this means.

Which is totally ironic, considering the way seasoned used his example to make a point, instead of making it directly.

Sorry, I've been here for a decade and still don't know what he's talking about most of the time and I still can't find my Stevense to English dictionary.

I disagree. It seems many on this thread are talking about sales letters and long video courses. I dislike them both too. I saw a WSO that "bragged" about having 10 hours of training videos. That wasn't a selling point. For me, it was THE reason I didn't buy.

However, there's much more to video than IM sales letters and courses and many things that are better in video format, like how to change an alternator or knit a sweater. I wanted to make Hatch enchillada sauce and went to Youtube and there's videos showing me how to prepare and scrape the chilis, which I just couldn't have gotten from text.

The funny thing is, of the two people that visit the Off Topic forum the most, you and John Durham are the two that could really use videos. Every time you go looking for shiny objects could be a training/entertainment video. John is both big in local/off line markeing and guitars, both great for video creation and marketing.

If done right, can't video help a small company looking for a break? Something that catches the eye and is no longer than 4 minutes could help attract customers. And as long as it's not mandatory to watch, and doesn't start automatically why not place it on your page?

I agree. Intros are great for branding, but should be kept to 10 seconds or less.

Plus, a rule of video making is that the intro should NEVER be of higher quality than the video itself, as it leads to a let down.

I don't love or hate anything associated with IM or business in general. I don't put that much emotional investment into it.:p

I like videos when they are technical "how tos" for software installation/use, fixing something or whatever. They show me which button to push - which line to fill out, etc - and make things faster. That said, I like it when the entire process is covered - instead of 20 videos that each address one simple task in an installation process.

I dislike videos of jabber - even when there is a point to be made. I am an extremely fast reader and easily bored out of my mind by people who speak slowly or have strong accents that are hard to understand.

I appreciate sellers who offer both a written and video approach so the buyer has a choice.

Yep, they blow your eardrums with an insanely loud intro, then, you have to turn it up to hear them, only to get blasted again at the end!!!! Grrrrrr!

Only thing that is worse are ad's you can't get around that are insanely loud!

Maybe P**** off a customer and making them deaf, increases sales????

Or maybe they are a dumb marketer, that got their video done for $5, and didn't bother checking it out first!

Either way unless they are selling hearing aids to the partially deaf, they will probably go out of business eventually! :p

Good riddance, the stupidly loud ad's on tv are bad enough!

Shane

Hay guys, have you ever wanted.....blah, blah, blah.

Then our eyes glaze over, and we make the video area smaller and check our emails, waiting for the story about his rags to riches, crap gets out the way, including the endless screen shots of Clickbank results, which are really meaningless, (they just use their and their friends huge lists)!

But l do, take a peek when he talks about his mansion, holiday cars, etc.

Then after 10 to 15 minutes of this crap about his beautiful wife, luxery houses, and holidays and how he has to pinch himself every day, we finally get to something that can help us!

Although most of the time it is just pushing some software!


Another thing that is annoying is how they hype up their oh-hum offers, and act like it's gods gift to humanity.

You know.....Hi Jake, (promoter) l can't believe how effective this BS Exterminator system is, l just clicked on a couple of buttons, and my bank account was flooded, with BS, and l am a total moron online, so anyone could do this......Arrrrrgggg

Yep, anyone who has been online for at least 3 to 4 years!

Shane

Yeah, that is another thing, l recently saw a video, (l won't drop names) but l have been a subscriber with him for years.

And he went on about, not following through with his advise, and gave an example of someone following his advise who after spending $250 on advertising got virtually nothing, while someone else did the same and made a great profit.

Obviously he tested it more, etc, but then he went on saying how the person who blew $250 shouldn't give up and move on.

Good advise on the surface, but not if this person has limited funds, then his system may not be the best one?

Its obviously better to test something for $50 than a couple of hundred, so if some do a runner it may not be because they are quitters, just that they can't afford his system!

Not sure whether this "my system is the best, and quitters are losers" syndrome is widespread, or not?

What most are looking for online is something they can do, that won't cost a fortune to get going and where they can make what they want!

So, its not that they are quitters, just looking for something better, (not taking into account "shiny object syndrome)!

Shane

As someone who prefers to read versus watch videos (generally speaking), I find these comments very interesting.

I, too, HATE when someone drones on and on endlessly, doesn't get to the point, gives me an hour-long video when a 10-min. one will do just as well, etc. I also DESPISE it when 1) someone doesn't allow me to pause, rewind or fast forward the video and/or 2) has JUST a video on the sales page.

HOWEVER, I don't necessarily buy into what everyone is saying here. We ARE a TV/video society. The vast majority of Americans spend untold hours in front of their TV and TV has a HUGE influence on our society. And as someone whose day job is doing tech support for phone, Internet and cable services, I have personal experience with how irate people get when their TV's not working.

So don't tell me video isn't important or influential. That's complete B.S. America IS a dumbed-down society of TV-watching zombies. I've had my fair share of not-so-smart people cussing me out because their cable was out and gosh!, what were they gonna do now??? (Literally.)

But you all are right in that it's often not used well or effectively.

I, too, am a fast reader and prefer to read. However, in looking at my own buying behavior, I realized I came to feel like I actually knew someone if I had seen them live, on video. And therefore, I'm much more likely to buy from them, especially if it's a higher-priced course ($1K and up).

Given that we rarely ever meet the people we buy from online, video is the next best thing for letting people see you and get to "know" you. Short 2-10-minute videos with tips or tutorials are a great way to build the know-like-trust factor. And I prefer to let video SUPPLEMENT the sales page or PDF (or whatever), instead of provide ONLY video.

I took a video course last year and am just now getting around to actually USING it. I'm not a video kind of person and am very uncomfortable being on camera. But I also know if I can learn to do short videos with me on camera, it will go a long way towards building rapport and a solid relationship with my peeps.

So I'm on a mission to get past my own video fears and phobias and do this. But I think less is more and will use it as a SUPPLEMENT. I don't see myself ever using it as the main content, either for a marketing campaign or for a course itself.

Michelle

Guys;

Of course we like reading more than video. This is a forum with printed posts. It's our media of choice.

But for every person reading at this minute, there are more that are watching TV, a video, a movie.....

Most people simply don't read enough to make it easier than watching a video. Me? I'm with you guys. I can skim a sales page faster than any video, and I'll get more out of it. But I'm not most people, and neither are you.

High end Webinars sell far more than any sales letter, especially if the speaker is interesting and the webinar is compelling. I'll listen to a 90 minute webinar. But would you read a 70 page sales letter? Maybe. Maybe not.

What I do hate is getting a video I can't pause, or stop. Maybe they convert better, I don't know. But they don't convert me better.

And I'm getting very worried.. Seasoned's (Steve's) last post made perfect sense to me.

Do I have a fever? Is this a dream? Are you my mommy?

omg - because I really didn't notice the date -
sorry