Marketers don’t have unlimited budget. That’s why any good strategy has ROI goals. Video marketing strategy is no exception. The good news is that more and more marketers are kicking butt with video production. According to a 2013 Copypress survey of “marketing decision-makers,” video marketing offers the second best return on investment of all content marketing tactics. But that’s not why you’re reading this blog post. You’re reading this because of the other not-so-glowing stats in the survey:
50% – Feel that video is “difficult to create”
50% – Feel that video is “overpriced”
What this tells me is that there is still an inherent lack of understanding of video—how to efficiently create it, how to go about paying a vendor to create it, but most important….
How to Measure Video Marketing ROI
Measuring ROI isn’t something you just add to your list of things to do. It should be front and center when planning anything that you want to be successful.
To help, here are 3 very simple steps to help you measure that video marketing ROI.
1) Establish a Goal
When creating any marketing or content video, it’s crucial to do so with a singular goal in mind.
Yes, you want your viewer to take action, but get more specific. Do you want them to spend more time on your website? Download an eBook? Subscribe to your YouTube channel? Maybe you want it to create a certain amount of qualified leads? Whatever the goal is, it should be easily boiled down to a number or two.
This will help you track your success. Also, by having an uber-specific goal in mind, you’ll be able to better tailor the message and creative of your video marketing content.
What’s this ROI worth to you? This will help you with determining how much budget or bandwidth needs to be invested in video production.
2) Develop Audience Strategy
No video marketing content can succeed in a vacuum. You need a qualified audience. This is where many video strategies fail. The video content is created and then the delivery methods are developed. This is backwards. How you build/reach your target audience IS the most important part of a marketing strategy. Tactics to accomplish this might include social media, tradeshows, networking, drip campaigns, paid traffic and marketing automation. What’s your mix? How will you use it to get the eyeballs on your video marketing content? This will shape your goal (above) and the creative/message of your video.
3) Track the Results
Once you’ve got your goal(s), audience strategy and video creation dealt with… it’s time to measure and react accordingly.
What are you looking for? Yes, your specific goal metrics but look at as much as possible. Chances are you’re not a seasoned veteran at video (content) marketing, so keep your eyes open.
Don’t just look at the performance in terms of success and failure. Look for indicators that will help you do it better next time.
Where did your audience watch the video, and on what device? Did they even click play when they saw the video was there? (this is a big one)
How long did they watch before turning their attention elsewhere? What was their next move? Answering questions like these can help tailor future videos or help you tweak how the video is presented(web page layout) to your audience.
As far as where the stats are, look in the usual places—Google Analytics, YouTube.
Also, explore some advanced tracking methods offered by marketing platforms like Marketo and Hubspot to name just a couple.
In short, tracking video marketing ROI is a process that begins before you even start the video creation effort and then relies on quality metrics. The big question you’re trying to answer: “Is this change in behavior/awareness worth X dollars or time?” It’s ok to not be 100% sure in the beginning, but after you’ve done it a few times, your confidence should be building and you should know what works and what doesn’t. In fact, you might just be a few steps away from building a video strategy that doesn’t suck.