It’s safe to say that having online video as part of a company’s marketing efforts is finally universally accepted.
Measuring online video Return On Investment (ROI) is not much different than a traditional marketing campaign. If anything, it presents opportunity for analytics that a traditional campaign would not be able to deliver with a much more targeted reach. When videos on YouTube are able to receive millions of views within days and Comscore releases reports stating that on average a person watches 14.8 hours of online video a month; it’s not the matter of trying to prove that online video marketing is effective.The quick pace of new media in today’s marketing landscape has us trying to keep up with the latest trends more often than not with C-levels wanting to see numbers justifying these efforts. The C suite wants to know that the marketing dollars are achieving the highest value and ROI while receiving the desired results.
So how do you measure ROI of online video?
No matter what kind of video initiative your company wants to execute – whether it’s internal communications or consumer oriented – you’ve got to be able to show the results. Here are some tips that can help you.
1. Know your objectives.
The most essential component of executing a campaign successfully is having clear goals. The simplest way to measure return on what you’re investing is knowing your target audience and what message you are trying to deliver.
Your objectives may vary. For example, if you’re trying to promote product sampling, your objective may be to have individuals register for a coupon on your website after viewing the video. On the contrary, if you’re executing an online video for internal communications between various offices, your objective may be saving on travel costs. Whatever it may be, figure it out prior to execution.
2. Use Available Analytics.
With various analytics tools, it is easier than ever before to evaluate how others are interacting with your video. You are able to examine which videos are being watched until the very end, at what point others may drop off, the demographic of your audience and how far the video is shared.
You are also able to create a model to calculate what the engagements are worth based on your messaging objective and how others are interacting with your video. If you’re looking to promote sampling and want to calculate what the engagement is worth, assigning a value for each sign up is a great way to measure success. For example, every person who watches your video and engages fully by registering for your sampling promo can each equal to $100 of investment. Working with these numbers will make it easier to draw comparisons between media channels.
Similarly, ROI doesn’t necessarily have to equal a dollar figure. It can be social interactions, conversations around your brand and those very important recommendations by your brand ambassadors. If your video is getting shared by your target demographic and this audience is recommending your video to their friends, the reach and engagement is just as valuable as a dollar figure.
3. Partner up with experts.
There is no point in producing expensive high quality content without a distribution strategy. Online platforms have an advantage over traditional platforms in being able to target the right demographic and this is something your campaign should benefit from.
It’s rare that a video goes viral and is shared without a push and without a doubt, a successful online video campaigns require the same level of planning for a targeted distribution to ensure desired exposure to a relevant audience.
If you are able to, it’s beneficial to partner up with experts to help your campaign achieve maximum return – whether it’s perfecting your analytics or helping your video receive the target views it needs. Video marketing agencies like VMG Cinematic specialize in not only producing broadcast quality content for the web but also ensuring that the video gets in front of targeted eye balls.
Let’s take Canadian luxury fashion retailer, Holt Renfrew, as an example. At one time, The HR YouTube channel hosted 22 videos with a total of 92,000 video views; however 84% of those views came from only 2 of the 22 videos with the help of VMG. Furthermore, these two videos have also accounted for total of 84% of total consumer interaction on brand’s channel.
Partnering up with online video industry leaders can provide you access to numbers and reports that provide in depth analytics and more importantly, results that justify your online video ROI.
4. Don’t be afraid to get creative.
Measuring online video ROI isn’t always an exact science and with a non traditional platform, you have room to come up with creative and different ways to validate your efforts.
Online video can often drives traffic back to your website and one way is to look at what that traffic would have cost if it had been acquired by a push advertisement.
For example, comparing the pay per click model and the received traffic you can use the following:
Running banner ads on a website with $3 per click which results in 300 unique visitors to your website. This traffic of 300 people to your website is then worth $900.
Although this approach offers an easy dollar figure, it’s crucial to note that the difference in pay per click banner ad traffic and organic post video engagement differs greatly and the value through organic engagement is much higher.
To conclude, online video enhances and creates the most engaging online user experiences. When it comes to ROI, the measurement metrics differ greatly depending on the specific goals. However, success lays in in the ability to target a specific audience based on demographic, geographic and contextual parameters.
