How to Create A Video Marketing Strategy That Gets Results

Among your doubts about venturing into video marketing is how it translates into results. Truth be told, we know that you often think about the end goal, AKA, your bottom line but the origin of your doubts is in another part of your plan: the strategy. You need one in every area of your business, and video should be the same way. It’s not just that you have these assets, you just need to know how to best analyze them in conjunction with your overall goals and what tools can facilitate that. Once you have the performance evaluation part taken care of, then you can build the strategy.
First things first, decide your KPIs
They say there are plenty of fish in the sea, and the same goes for KPIs. Just as we have a love/hate relationship with our CRMs, KPIs either drive or make us dread the performance evaluation meetings with our supervisors at the end of the reporting period: month, quarter, semester, or annual period. No matter how often you’re submitting progress reports or the duration of your initiative, there are so many more KPIs out there than just “views.” Sure, the number of views is great, but there’s a reason why we also look at engagement and conversions besides reach and traffic.
Depending on your strategy goals, you should be using KPIs that are going to be the most precise in measuring your video marketing strategy targets. But, what if you have no clue what KPIs are useful for video marketing? Don’t sweat it, here are some KPIs that are useful depending on your overall video strategy goal courtesy of Google BrandLab:

It’s safe to say that some of these above KPIs are familiar to you from other digital marketing initiatives. They come in all stripes, from the number of impressions of your paid ad campaign or the number of people who sign up to your mailing list on MailChimp. They could also include how many more people go to the website that’s in the call-to-action at the end of your video just like you put the URL at the end of your tweet or Facebook post.
Once you’ve got your KPIs, know which tools help to gauge your metrics best
The good news about measuring results is that more likely than not; you’re already using several of the tools out there that make measuring the success of your digital marketing strategy even easier. Many of these tools have third-party integrations that can help you get the insights you need already incorporated into your existing analytics operation. Already employ GoogleAnalytics, have a corporate YouTube account, or run paid social advertising using Google AdWords? Good news, with these G-Suite products you’re able to monitor the following metrics with these analytical tools:

Now, this is great and all, but you might also be thinking that the ability to integrate the video marketing KPIs into your overall social listening or other measurement platforms may be lacking. Hold it right there! That shouldn’t stop you from investing in video marketing because there’s less holding you back than you think. Many of the video platforms out there on the market have capabilities that let you integrate the insights you’ll get from the video platforms into that overall analytics strategy. We want to highlight two in particular:

• Vidyard is one of our favorite video platforms out there. They’ll help you determine which types of video content are the most effective, your viewers’ attention span, and one of the best insights you can get out of their platform is the ability to look at the data in one specific geographic area. For global video projects (which is our specialty), you can see the types content that speak bests to the regions in which you operate, and helping you better target the content produced in the future. They can integrate into Marketo, HubSpot, Salesforce, ExactTarget, Eloqua, and Act-On. So if you use any of these tools, we highly suggest you take a look at it.
• In December, Ooyala came out with its Ooyala IQ video analytics software that’s now included in every Ooyala account, that gives users the power to track the performance of individual pieces of content and use the Ooyala categorization system to seek out new opportunities for video automization and optimization. If you’re really worried about the impact on the bottom line, the Ooyala platform works to get customers to discover untapped value streams in AVOD (for advertising-based video on demand), TVOD (transactional video on demand), and SVOD (subscription video on demand), if choosing one of these paths is something you’re considering in your overall distribution strategy. VICE, ESPN, Univisión, and more are Ooyala customers.

So now we’ve got the KPIs and the tools to measure metric performance, what’s next?
Think about the short term and the long-term
Google BrandLab recommends that when you’re first starting with with a video marketing strategy to test out more short-term actions first before you decide to go all-in on a long-term initiative. This makes sense if you’re in a rush to prove to those who hold the purse strings that video marketing is a good idea (and we at Stark Crew ALWAYS think it’s a good idea). And that’s where we come in with our Video Strategy Services.
Our four tiers of services come in both 6-month and 12-month pricing plans, giving you plenty of time to get things into motion and define how you’ll implement video going forward. Our Foundation plan helps figure out the branding implications that need to be down pat when arguing into video:

• A service/product analysis: Here we’ll see which areas of your business can be highlighted on video, with your chosen KPIs in mind. If you haven’t had the time to look at KPIs yet, we can help you out with that too
• A video brandbook: The aesthetic of your videos should always be consistent. Just like how Hootsuite recommends that you choose a select number of filters for your Instagram photos to optimize your look in their Optimizing Your Social Media Profiles course, all your video assets should have a uniting look and feel to them
• Brand anthems: This is where we get into the meat of your videos-the themes you want oozing all throughout you videos
• Genres: One of the ways we can make sure you achieve the KPIs you want from your videos is to make sure that we’re making an appropriate type of video that best propels the content to your desired results.
• Video Integration: Where on the customer journey is the video going to be placed? Different videos belong in different areas of this journey, so that’s why  if you’re trying to get people to buy a product or service, so you want to know your purpose, and where in the Sales Funnel your assets are going to be.

After we do all of this, and work through our Stark Crew Video Production Brief Template, you’ll get a selection of genres and concepts for one video a month plus a price quote for all needs related to the project.
As you progress into the upper tiers of our strategy plans, you’ll get more add-ins. In our Growth plan, you’ll get the concepts for two videos per month as well as a distribution strategy. The distribution strategy is equally important in making sure your videos get the results you want based on your chosen KPIs.
Want to get the most out of your video assets? Our Enterprise Plan leaves the social media distribution of your videos to us, as well as finding ways to use every single piece of content we have into new ways. That’s why we highly recommend you make more than one video at a time so you have even more stock footage we can rearrange to create something new and equally complementary to your overall goals.
And if you’re looking to be a video high-roller, than our Publisher Plan gives you the most top-of-the-line video concepts with more than four videos a month. Talk about starting out strong!
Convinced you’re ready you want to achieve your KPIs with help from the experts along the way, figure out which 6 or 12-month Stark Crew Video Strategy Plan is best for you and we’ll get you on the road to the 84% of content that will be visual next year.