Leave It to The Pros
If your customers were looking for amateur ziplining footage, they would’ve gone to YouTube. Your website, however, sets the tone of your business and the experience you’re selling, so keep it high-quality at all times.
And I really do mean your whole website, not just your home page. No matter where the videos are, they speak to your brand. Anything that looks like a school project will do more harm than good for your image.
Harpers Ferry Canopy Tour offers a perfect example of a well-done video on its home page getting overshadowed by low-quality videos elsewhere on its site.
Except for being a little on the long side, the video on Harpers Ferry’s home page checks all the boxes of a top-notch video.
Remember, with videos it’s always quality over quantity. If you have one home-run video on your website, stick with that. Don’t undermine your hard work by pointing customers to YouTube flops.
Unfortunately, Harpers Ferry does just that. If someone views the four-star production on the home page and excitedly proceeds to the “Videos” page for more, she’s sorely disappointed by what she finds.
Let’s start with the first video in the list, shot by a reporter from the local newspaper. Media relations are great, but remember there’s a reason why that person is a reporter and not a producer. I can only make it to the 15-second mark of his 3-minute video before the wind in the background begins to blast in my ears.
This video highlights all the reasons why it’s important to invest in professional footage. Zip tours and aerial parks are not always forgiving environments. They’re usually wooded, which presents lighting obstacles, and speeding through the air can sound awful without the right editing equipment. You need someone with not only the tools but also the knowledge to mitigate these glaring imperfections on film.
These poorly-crafted videos misrepresent the Harpers Ferry experience and undo all the success of the home page video. As I warned before, video marketing giveth but it also taketh away.
Here’s Bell again: “It’s like anything in marketing–if you’re going to do it poorly, you might as well not do it at all.”
