Why You Should Care About Your Video Metrics

 

Ready for some tough love?

With the amount of technology and data we have at our fingertips today, and the level of insight CRM systems and video distribution platforms now offer, there’s no excuse for blindly pushing video content out into the world. It’s unacceptable to create and distribute without also doing your part to ensure the video you produced adds value to the massive swell of information currently drowning audiences.

Why should you care about your video metrics? Because you can, and your viewers wish you would.

Now that’s out of the way — let’s get down to brass tacks. When people think about measuring video, their brain automatically goes to ROI metrics. But there’s actually another more valuable way to measure the success of your video campaigns. Let’s take a look:

1. Return on Investment (ROI): ROI is a quantitative approach to measuring video success that strictly focuses on monetary value; how much money a particular video generated for the organization. Core metrics related to ROI include:
   • Re-watch rate: how many viewers watch at least part of your video a second time
   • Engagement rate: how long a video is watched versus the total length of the video
   • Play rate: number of plays versus number of loads on page

2. Return on Engagement (ROE): ROE is a qualitative approach to measuring video success that focuses more universally on how your video strengthened the overall brand (i.e. how captivating was your video and did it help make your brand a stronger entity in the market). Core metrics related to ROE include:
   • View duration
   • Number of times watched
   • Number of shares
   • Number of positive interactions (comments)
   • Number of fans transformed into loyalists/brand advocates

When looking at these two approaches to measuring video success it’s difficult to decipher which grouping of metrics is more valuable, ROI or ROE? The answer usually changes depending on who you talk to. Top-level executives and stakeholders will likely only care about two things — how much money went in and how much money came out. But from an internal or external marketing standpoint, your primary focus should actually be on ROE.

Why ROE is The New ROI

A hardy spike in revenue is always a welcomed event, but making money isn’t the primary goal for internal or external marketers. Consumer-facing brands are focused on creating a community around their organization, becoming a thought leader, inspiring action, generating “buzz” and ultimately — recruiting fans and advocates that will stick with their brand through all the ebbs and flows of business. On the other hand, internal communications teams care about whether their messages are being heard by employees (breaking through information overload), and if video content is helping to groom more effective workers that collectively bolster the organization’s cultural cohesiveness, productivity and success.

In either application, ROE metrics provide important and necessary information for marketers to improve or maintain engagement, and ensure their videos support their goals.

How does ROE benefit the bottom line?

Ideally, greater customer engagement will drum up a ton of referral and repeat business for consumer-facing brands. And as you already know, repeat and referral business is less expensive to generate than acquiring brand new customers, which equates to greater ROI.

As for internal communications, one study found that increased employee engagement resulted in a 4 percent increase in sales growth, greater than 4 percent increase in shareholder returns and an 87 percent reduction in employee turnover.

Use ROE metrics to refine video messaging and really focus in on what your target audiences like. Though rare — your diligent ROE tracking could lead to the creation of the next viral sensation.

Are you currently using video content in your marketing communication strategy? How have you seen video egngage your customers and/or your employees?