Video has emerged as one of the most powerful tools in marketing, offering an effective and efficient way to reach your audience. Video can captivate viewers, convey a compelling story, introduce a business, and educate audiences on trending topics in a more engaging manner.
With 92% of marketers claiming that video is an important part of their strategy, video marketing is a trend that’s worth investing time and resources in.
Understanding Your Video Marketing Goals
Every marketing initiative should start with clearly defined goals if you want to be able to measure the success of your campaigns and, therefore, improve upon your discoveries as you develop additional Initiatives and campaigns.
While it might seem like a straightforward notion for some, many individuals overlook the importance of precisely defining their goals. It’s even more crucial to prioritize one goal at a time to effectively align yourself with the appropriate audience and tailor your messaging accordingly.
Here are some video marketing benefits that will likely be among your business goals:
- Increased brand awareness
- High user engagement
- Increased positivity associated with the brand
- Initiating interest and considerations in the service or product
- Increased conversions, be it a signup or sale
As you consider and determine what goal you want to focus on, this would be a great time to collaborate with your team to have a video brainstorming session and clearly determine the best goals based on your current needs.
As you reflect on your marketing strategy, keep in mind the different phases involved and how each one relates to your current position. Whether it’s building awareness, fostering consideration, or guiding towards a decision, each phase is crucial. Ensure your communication funnel progresses and aligns with each phase to effectively engage your audience.
Engagement Metrics for Video Marketing
I bet you are hoping to publish your video and reach as many people as possible. Of course, you want your audience to like your video, engage with it, and take action, or at the very least, remember it, right?
Here are some key performance indicators (KPIs) to check if that’s the case:
1. View Counts
A basic metric showing how many viewers you have. It’s worth noting that most social media websites consider three seconds as a view, while YouTube considers this time to be 30 seconds.
2. Watch Time
This includes all hours and minutes users have watched your videos. It comes with complete and partial views. YouTube favors videos with more watch time, as this is an indicator of relevant, fresh, and engaging content.
3. Likes, Comments, and Shares
These give you a glimpse into people’s attitudes toward your brand and content. Unlike the previous two metrics, this one is not quantitative and will not be represented in numbers. Rather, it shows what emotions and opinions your videos provoke.
Conversion Metrics
It’s great when viewers enjoy your videos, but it’s even better when they take action.
Click-through rates (CTRs) measure the number of times users have chosen to watch your video, among others that appear on the platform they use. When this number is high, it means you have an eye-catching title and did a good job creating the video overall.
Conversion rates are critical metrics that show how many viewers have taken the action you desire. To evaluate whether your videos serve as a surefire lead magnet, you can implement the so-called “gate content strategy.” This means your viewers must share an email, for example, to access your content. This method makes it that much easier to track conversions and success and nurture the user for future campaigns.
Lastly, you can sync your video platform with marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) systems to track interactions and sales. Applying these types of integrations allows you to view reports, analyze lead generation, and assess your video’s impact on deals and conversions.
Audience Metrics
Knowing your audience is a necessary component of successful content marketing strategies. The same is true of video marketing. Don’t forget to account for factors such as demographics, subscriber growth, and device data.
For instance, the YouTube demographic report provides details about the gender, age, and geographical location of your viewers. This demonstrates which groups of people are most interested in what you have to offer. This step is handy for tailoring your content to better suit their interests. Furthermore, tracking viewer devices and browsers can help optimize content.
When users subscribe to a YouTube channel, they receive notifications each time a new video is uploaded. Subscriber growth indicates the increasing number of viewers interested in regularly watching your content. It signifies the development of a loyal subscriber community, which has the potential to transition into valuable leads and clients over time.
Social Media Impact
It’s a well-known fact that social media is a strong weapon to popularize your brand
As social shares of your videos increase, so does the potential audience reach and engagement. This amplifies the effectiveness of your video marketing efforts, highlighting the importance of monitoring social media shares. Enhance the discoverability of your videos by incorporating relevant hashtags, which function similarly to keywords in SEO. Utilize branded hashtags and participate in trending conversations to maintain audience engagement.
Most social media platforms provide built-in analytics tools, such as Facebook Insights, Instagram Insights, LinkedIn Analytics, and Twitter Analytics. These tools offer essential metrics such as views, impressions, and engagement to track the performance of your videos effectively.
Analyzing Bounce Rates
Video abandonment rates reflect the percentage of viewers who stop watching a video before it ends.
We’ve all seen videos that look interesting at first glance, but when we hit play, we get bored or understand it’s not what we are looking for and leave. That’s exactly what you need to avoid with your videos. Here are several strategies that can help you:
- Improve engagement and user experience: It’s easier said than done, but it’s a must-do. Make sure your video content is truly helpful and solves problems for your audience. Put yourself in their shoes: if you are searching for something in particular, would you even continue to watch the video to solve your search? If not, make the necessary changes until you can honestly say “yes.”
- Build trust for your brand: Using conversational and friendly language predisposes your audience to feel comfortable watching your video. They will also appreciate customer testimonials and a behind-the-scenes look.
- Optimize for search: Optimize your website’s SEO by including relevant keywords in video titles, descriptions, and tags. Transcribing and captioning your videos will make them more accessible and indexable by search engines, improving visibility and engagement.
ROI Measurement
A video marketing strategy should balance cost-effectiveness and return on investment (ROI), assessing success by comparing effort versus results. Analyzing engagement metrics and production costs helps determine cost-effectiveness. Understanding cost impacts and returns helps businesses decide strategy worthiness.
Calculating usually includes the total cost of production and distribution of your video content.
For instance, suppose a video requires an investment of $25,000 for production. If this video achieves a conversion rate of 1.5%, resulting in 375 new clients, each contributing $10,000 in revenue.
Here’s the breakdown of this equation:
- First, find out the total revenue generated:
Total revenue = Number of new clients x revenue per client
Total revenue = 375 clients x $10,000
Total revenue = $3,750,000
- Then you can calculate ROI:
ROI (%) = [(Total revenue – Total Cost) / Total Cost] x 100%
ROI (%) = [($3,750,000 – $25,000) / $25,000] x 100%
ROI (%) = ($3,750,000 / $25,000) x 100%
ROI (%) = 150 x 100%
Optimizing campaigns doesn’t mean overspending on resources; tracking results and actively analyzing, learning how to calculate your sales tools’ ROI, and adjusting strategies can ensure success without sacrificing the video budget.
Tools for Monitoring Metrics
Monitoring metrics is essential to understanding whether your video marketing strategy needs to be changed immediately or if it’s performing well.
One of Google’s best free tools, Google Analytics should be part of your digital marketing strategy right from the start. It allows you to see traffic sources, such as visitors coming from organic search, social networks, direct traffic, or referral sites.
Thus, if you see that a particular video marketing campaign generates a large amount of traffic to the site, you can change your future strategy to achieve similar, the same, or better results.
When it comes to YouTube, YouTube Analytics gives a lot of information about your campaign’s performance. YouTube Analytics’ Overview tab offers channel-based metrics like views, watch time, and subscriber data for tracking performance. You can also delve into specifics, such as average view duration, top posts, and impressions, to name a few.
Tips for Continuous Improvement
To reap the benefits of your efforts in video marketing, perseverance will be pivotal, coupled with an openness to experiment. Here are our four tips for success:
- Determine which platforms you want to cover and adjust your videos to their audience. For example, on social networks, shorter and more entertaining videos are usually the better choice.
- Make your videos compatible with different devices. People now use phones more than computers, so optimize your content for mobile.
- Test various formats, such as AR/VR or Instagram and TikTok reels, to see what works best for you. Keep in mind that Google tends to value multimedia content, so adding video to your website is good for SEO.
- Reliable resources can help you stay updated about the latest trends in video marketing or marketing as a whole. For example, you can learn from industry experts by attending conferences and webinars.
Conclusion
Video content allows users to immerse themselves in the world of your brand, company story, and product. It is an effective marketing tool that allows you to reach more people, and thanks to the Internet, it is also much cheaper than traditional TV advertising.
At Bottle Rocket Media, every project we undertake is tailored to your unique business needs and reflects your brand’s personality, all while resonating with your target audience. We believe in the power of video to amplify your message, connect with people on a deeper level, and drive tangible results. Take advantage of our professional SEO and video marketing services. Let us guide you in crafting video content that sets you apart. Get in touch to start your project today!
Author
Velislava Georgieva is an Outreach and Content Manager at Inbound Blogging, specializing in Content Marketing and Outreach Strategies. Besides her passion for digital marketing, she likes yoga, fitness, and hiking. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.