How to get ROI and grow your business with Video Content Marketing

Video has proven to be the best medium for content marketing. It improves every aspect of engagement statistics which are central to any online marketing objective (including search). A major challenge for most campaigns is how to generate a clear measurement of ROI.

To do this quickly you may have to compromise between content that generates awareness and improves your reputation (which has a longer lasting effect), and taking a more direct approach by trying to develop leads that can be nurtured and converted quickly. These two approaches can be combined but most companies don’t have the luxury of being able to push content out and then wait until the phone rings.

The 3 key things for ROI in Video Content Marketing:

1. Be targeted - Clearly define your message, objective and audience. Don’t try and be all things to all people.

2. Be engaging - If the quality of your content is poor, people will stop watching.

3. Manage conversions - Monitor and understand the noise you generate, then turn this noise into real people or companies.

Strategy

This video demonstrates the basic workflow and strategy for a video content marketing campaign (white paper available here). But video by itself is not the golden ticket. Beyond this you need to understand how to manage the key stages effectively and surround your content with all the tools it needs to thrive.

Successful campaigns implement at least 2 of the following 3 components:

1. Social

Social networks are the backbone of any campaign. Without them you will never get off the ground. Twitter now has even more relevance to search alongside Google+ (which always has the highest conversion rate of any social network). LinkedIn also has a high conversion rate.

2. Search

Video is the best medium to drive search results. Use targeted keywords so your content can shape your narrative and digital positioning. Doing this will mean your SEO or SEM will develop more sustainably as a by-product of your videos. YouTube is the only option for this.

3. Seeding

Seeding your content to the right people is the most effective way to drive results (which often requires additional budget) whether you are looking for a general demographic audience (which can be sector specific), influencers or customers based on a very specific target profile (position, geography and industry). LinkedIn is the best platform for this.

Video_Content_Marketing_and_Inbound_Marketing

Inbound Marketing

The final piece of the puzzle is Inbound Marketing. All of this work is worthless if you can't tell what’s going on under the bonnet. There are many suppliers in this space (we partner with HubSpot although there are alternatives). It is essential to understand the noise or impact your video has made by tracking your sources and seeing how everything interlinks. Creating an inbound marketing framework enables you to combine all of the following (and more):

Blogs / news
Social networks
E-mail marketing
Page rank / keyword performance

This is then combined with the relevant events as they occur. These events can be:

Social interactions
Mentions or links
Tracked IP addresses for people / companies who visit your content
Relevant sources for search terms

Conversions come from:

Landing pages
Calls-to-action
Sign-up / lead capture forms

These are the things that ensure your audience to stand up and be counted. Video is now regarded as an essential content marketing tool but it means nothing without a strong search and seeding strategy and a social backbone. To maximise your ROI you need to manage the user journey and harness your information with inbound marketing. Video is no longer used as a one-off project every few years to promote what you do. It must be integrated throughout your marketing calendar and treated in the same way as all content - build a solid foundation, execute a launch to relevant audiences and make sure you are able to understand its success.This way you can use video content marketing to drive real leads to your business and understand what you get for what you spend.

Introduction to Video Content Marketing for Business

For more information on growing your business with video content marketing have a look at our recent guide which includes: