Get your ducks in a row before you create video content
If you’re reading this blog post, most likely you already understand the importance of establishing KPIs, key performance indicators, at the beginning of your marketing campaign. But the rest of your company may need further explanation for why this is important. They may not be as on top of it as the rest of the marketers.
The Argument
Creating video without the expectation of any benchmarks would be driving somewhere you’ve never been before, without any directions. You may eventually get there, but you’re going to waste a ton of time taking the wrong turns.
Having said that, before you can create the KPIs for video content, you’ll need an end goal that you’re trying to reach. But, in order to understand what goals you’re trying to reach, you first need to consider where your customer falls into the buyer’s journey when they view your content. To recap, the buyer’s journey is made up of three different stages that represent the research and process a potential customer goes through before they make a purchasing decision. The three stages are as follows:
Awareness
Consideration
Decision
Here are the common goals through the different stages of the buyer’s journey:
Awareness
This is the first stage where potential customers have a problem, desire, or curiosity, and seek information to potentially find the answer/solution. This is your brand’s chance to play it cool, and make a great first impression. You shouldn’t necessarily push your brand yet, only provide knowledgeable information.
Since you’re casting a larger net in this stage, you’ll likely have a higher spend because you are looking to educate and influence new customers. Key metrics worth considering are total number of impressions, views, unique visitors to your site, and user engagement (likes, shares, comments, etc.).
Consideration
Your potential customers are more knowledgeable now, and they need specific information to help guide their next step. They have defined their problem and are looking at potential approaches or methods available to pursue the goal or solve the challenge.
In this stage, your brand needs to get a little more detailed, and specifically talk about YOUR solution. Your brand should also be thinking about any issues that will prevent the potential customer from moving onto the final decision stage, and how they can be resolved.
Number of views, play through rate and user engagement are important metrics in this stage. For videos added to a specific page on your website, you can also look at your web analytics to compare the time spent on page, bounce rate, and conversions both prior to and after adding the video to your site.
Decision
This is the final stage of the buyer’s journey. It will hopefully result in a purchase or subscription, but your brand’s fate isn’t sealed. Your potential customer needs affirmation - they want to know that they are making the best possible decision. It’s time for you to answer the important question: why is your brand the best solution?
Whatever the next move is that you are hoping for them to take, will dictate the other KPIs you want to include. If you’re tracking sales, which you should be, look at the number of orders or subscriptions, average order size/subscription level, total clicks, and any other actions after viewing a video.Once you establish goals for each one of your videos and visualize what type of content your potential customers will see at each stage in the buyer’s journey, you can set specific KPIs and begin to evaluate user actions and collect data to plan for future campaigns. And props to Wipster, for providing the inspiration behind this blog! KPIs are essential to establish with your video content in order to measure the effectiveness. Partner with a video agencyif you need to properly planthe best video strategy for every stage of the buyer’s journey.
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