Why “Use More Video” is a BAD New Year’s Resolution

It’s that time of year again. Time to quit doing all the bad things you do — chewing your nails, watching too much TV, drinking tequila, and so on — and resolve to start anew in 2010.
For us marketers, that means resolving to improve our lead generation process by really pounding away at the best practices, coming up with creative marketing ploys, and otherwise impressing the pants off the boss.
But how? Well, if you’ve read anything any of us at Flimp have ever written (and we won’t fault you if you haven’t yet; welcome!) you’ll know our answer. You can give your lead generation a sizeable boost by using video.
Great! you’re thinking. Then my Q1 resolution will be to use more video.
Hold it right there, compadre. “Use more video” might sound okay as a resolution, but it sucks as a strategy. After all, you could create a bunch of “viral” videos, plaster YouTube with them, get a dismal response rate, and still have satisfied your resolution.
Remember: your resolution this year should be to increase the effectiveness of your lead generation efforts, not create a bunch of directionless videos simply because we told you that video was really hot right now. (Yes, in my dreams I have that kind of influence.)
No; you need a plan. You need your videos to help turn theoretical buyers into actual buyers. Fortunately for you there are a lot of really good ways to do this. (YouTube isn’t one of them.)
Video is great for email marketing, PPC advertising, on-page SEO, social media marketing, and blogging. (Yes, we resolve to do more video blogging this year.) If you want to create a meaningful video strategy, as opposed to some pithy resolution, then pick one of these areas and focus your video creation efforts there.
Of course, if you’re a bit more ambitious, you might want to improve in all of these areas. In that case you’ll need a solution that allows you to distribute video across a variety of media. That solution? The ever-so-humble landing page. It does everything you want it to do, and with certain landing page creation platforms, you are even able to create and distribute videos without any programming know-how. 
So stop resolving and start strategizing. And here’s to a prosperous 2010.