Analytics are everywhere. I mean, there are probably apps out there now that track your newborns sleep patterns, and crazy stuff like that...which is cool if you are a numbers person like me. But, analytics are sometimes super cumbersome, and understanding which numbers to key in on, regardless of your business goals or KPI's is crucial to measuring success. With video marketing, it's difficult to wrap your head around how your videos are performing, even more, what should you be focusing on to gauge success? Video marketing analytics, much like measuring site traffic or lead production can be a key indicator in a niche aspect of your marketing goals. More importantly, focusing on the numbers that matter can help lead to better placement and production of videos you want to use as something more than for someone to just sit and watch. With video marketing breaking through into a bigger space of importance, I want to help walk you through what you should be measuring, and how you can digest these numbers into directive answers and next steps.
Step One: Chosing A Video Marketing Host
We've heard of YouTube & Vimeo/spent countless hours watching content on these sites (my previous searches include "Fly Fishing Colorado", and "The Office bloopers"). But when you think of YouTube or Vimeo, at least in my mind, I think of mass video hosting/the social aspect these tools envelop. In the end, YouTube is the "google search of videos", and honestly, they do a great job of being that type of site. But that won't get you the analytics you need if you are a company looking to drive results from video. Enter: Wistia.
From an analytics standpoint, Wistia does it all. Delivering video analytics on views, form submissions if your video is a little higher level when it comes to content, as well as showing heatmaps of certain time points in your video where you might have the most viewership. If you're looking to really hone in on "HOW" your video is performing, you need Wistia, for many reasons:
- Wistia integrates with major marketing hosting platforms, such as HubSpot and Magento
- The customization of your videos to deliver a clean, branded video to your audience
- Keying in on major KPI elements that can help you take your lead generation and analytic disection to a new level
Step Two: The KPI's That Matter
Now, you have the tools to gather the numbers, but what do you need to focus on? What areas will help you key in on making your videos effective? It can range depending on your usage of videos, but there are clearly some areas that no matter what your goal for the video, you can measure with ease. With Wistia, let's discuss a few major analytic areas to measure:
(All images below are taken from inside of Wistia)
Views
Much like site visits, views helps keep track of the amount of views your video, or videos, is/are getting.
Video Heatmaps
If engagement and interaction is important to you (why wouldn't it be?), keying in on video heatmaps (I have only seen this on Wistia's platform) and how long a contact is watching your content, regardless of the length or message, can help you dive into potential leads that are more "hot" than others.
Form Submissions (Leads)
Whether your form is on a page before a visitor can watch the video, or if it's caked right in with a tool like Turnstile, your video content can quickly turn into a lead generation machine. Remember, every video is unique, and where that fits into the sales cycle (awareness, consideration, decision), treat those leads accordingly.
Average Engagement
One of the most underrated KPI's is average engagement. Whether we are talking about a 45 minute webinar recording, or a 30 second "meet the team" video, your engagement is crucial. To go deeper, if you have a 5 second snippet of your video which is the most important piece to relate to your product or service, not only will you want to measure engagement across the board, but specifically in that segment. If your engagement is low, is your video being promoted in the correct environment to the proper people? Are you seeing a portion of your video that is significantly lower in terms of engagement? Do you know why that would be the case? You can't just "set it and forget it".
Step Three: Set Goals
This step will help guide your video to succeed (if it's destined to...you never know...). If this is your first marketing video, you will go through a period of collection when it comes to benchmarking your stats...every company is different, especially when it boils down to the most important factor to help you build goals, which is website traffic. If you know some baseline averages around traffic and lead volume, it will help you get set up for goaling video engagement volume...keep in mind, not every video is created equal.
If you are video marketing pro/legend, goaling may be a little easier, for the simple reason that you most likely have a good idea of benchmarking from previous video stats. Using the KPI's above, and before you release your video to the public, set goals you want to hit...make them lofty, but achievable. Alongside this, think about what marketing areas you will use to promote. Are you going to be sending out in a set of emails? Are you simply plopping this on a site page? Is the video more light hearted that you will strictly use from social media? All aspects should be structured and thought out...the tools you use to promote could play a role in the goals you set. To get you started, let's list out an example of goals and marketing actions to be taken:
Example Video Goals And Structure
Video Description - A 15 minute tutorial about your number one most popular product. This video is a bottom of the funnel piece that will hopefully drive qualified leads, by using screenshare and educational points on your products. The video also utilizes a few motion graphics, and branding towards your company. Your timeframe is to measure statistics over a 3 month period, starting when you make the video live.
Marketing Structure
- You plan to promote this video across the board...meaning you will be embedding the video on either your homepage, or a highly visible site page, asking people to fill out their information, because this video is a "higher level" educational type offer (much like a webinar).
- Besides hosting somewhere on your site (gated by a BOFU form), you plan to run a 3 month, bi-weekly email campaign to a list of 5,000 contacts who fall under a "decision maker" job role.
- You plan to promote this video on your social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and targeted LinkedIn groups) at least 3 times a week to each account. Collectively, your social reach is 10,000 followers.
Key Points & Questions To Help Structure Your Goals
- Gather your average monthly site traffic (I would go as far back as measuring over the past 12 months). How many leads do you typically receive in a month? What percentage of those are qualified?
- Gather your average email engagement based on emails you have sent to this list of 5,000 contacts before (focus on the open rate and click-through rate). Has this list been a lead producing list in the past? What percentage of these contacts would you consider "ideal prospects"?
- Take a look at your social media engagement. How many clicks and interactions do you average a month? How many posts do you typically send a month? What is the average social reach growth you experience? What is the lead volume you have seen from your social media efforts?
- What questions are you going to require on the form for a contact to watch the video? Keep in mind, we would consider this video a piece of content that should hopefully result in more qualified leads based on the level of content inside.
In the end, focusing on every potential avenue for your video goals is important. It's not enough to just have a kick ass video floating around with no real goals in mind, even if you set ONE goal...stay focused, don't leave the video lifeless. If you can't put a price tag on the video and content it projects, then you can't be lazy when it comes to measuring your video analytics. If you're ready to see how we utilize video, and the stats they deliver, drop us a line.