Today, video plays a part in many companies’ marketing strategies. In fact, 81 percent of businesses are using video as a content marketing tactic—that’s up 18 percent from 2017’s numbers. This makes sense; video is dynamic, it’s engaging, it increases your SEO, and it helps your audience learn about you in a different way.
We know video marketing works because that’s what the data tells us. According to a report from HubSpot where 570 respondents were surveyed, 85% of people would like to see more video from brands in 2018. Increases the frequency of video content would benefit brands as 81% of people have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video. Lastly, video does a great job of driving traffic to your website. 76% said it helped them increase traffic and 80% of marketers said it has increased dwell time on their website.
But how do you know if it’s working for you? Measuring ROI for yourself isn’t always easy, but there are a few things you can do as well as a few indicators you can look for that can give you insights as to whether your video is paying off or not.
Set Measurable Goals
You can’t know if you’re achieving anything if you don’t know what it is you want to achieve. If you’re brand new to video, there may be a bit of a learning curve to determine what goals are realistic, but you must start somewhere. Will you measure new page likes or followers? Shares? Clicks to your website? Video views? Remember, “measurable” is the key word here. Setting a goal of increased brand awareness is a great start, but the best way to track your ROI is to aim for a metric goal that you can quantify. No matter what it is, every campaign should start with a goal. It’s the seed that directs the growth of every aspect of your project.
Track Your Campaign with Analytic Tools
Say you’ve decided to measure how many people share your video on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and halfway through the campaign you realize you’re nowhere close to meeting your goal. Why hasn’t your video been successful thus far? Using an analytic tool like HootSuite, you might notice that while your video is receiving few shares on Facebook or LinkedIn, Twitter users are retweeting it like mad at a certain time of day. Now you’ve learned something; this campaign can be successful, you just need to refocus your targeting. It’s time to adjust and get back on track to meeting your goal.
Look for Unintended Results
Using the aforementioned example, say you’re measuring your video’s total shares and your original goal doesn’t quite come to fruition, but thanks to Google Analytics, you discover that this video has a ridiculously high referral rate to your website. All is not lost!
Additionally, consider how you can retarget any of these referred users to your website with Google Ads or Facebook Ads. That’s why measurable goals and tracking the analytics are so important with video campaigns. Complement your video’s message with a honed retargeted ad, so your follow-up with the same customer rounds out your branding.
Quality Beats Quantity
Measuring ROI is, of course, a numbers game, but bigger isn’t always better. Having 10,000 people view your video on, let’s say, portable generators is fantastic. But if 7,000 of those people are way outside of your service area, you’ll probably need to adjust the metrics. If the video cost you $500 to create and $100 to advertise on Facebook, then you’re curious what that $600 got you.
The simplest way to calculate ROI is to measure how many leads you directly got from that video. Unfortunately, that can be hard to track. Did your new customer watch the video first and then click over to your website? Did the video push your new customer over the edge to submit an online inquiry? Or did they just pick up the phone?
Let’s assume three users who clicked on the video actually bought your $1,000 portable generator. Then, ROI is what you made on the sales minus the cost over the cost of producing the video. You’ll end up with a percentage.
There are other ways to estimate the return generated by the video. If 3,000 of those relevant users viewed your video, how much is that worth to you? They’re inside your service area. They’re potentially able to buy your portable generator. That has to be worth something. Let’s assume it’s worth $.05 per user. Then your video gained you $150 of value returned from showing to those 3,000 relevant users.
Here’s another scenario. Let’s assume a portion of those 3,000 relevant users clicked on the video to visit your website. If 100 users did so, then you can remarket with banner advertising. How much is that worth to you?
One last scenario. Let’s assume a portion of those 100 who clicked on the video stayed on the portable generator webpage for longer than three minutes. How much is that worth to you?
From historical trends, you know that if a user stays on your site for more than three minutes, there’s a 20% chance that they convert into a completed sale. How much is that worth to you?
Ask yourself these important questions about the value generated from your marketing endeavors. Once you attach a number to a type of interaction, it makes the goal setting and ROI measuring easier.
When it comes down to it, all of the tips we’ve shared mean nothing if you don’t have great content—meaning creative. So while doing all of the above will maximize the potential outcome, the single most important factor is the creative content itself—in other words, how good your video is in terms of creative ideas, strategy, relevancy, and execution. Start with great creative and keep our tips in mind to help improve your video marketing ROI.
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