5 Strategies to Use Video Analytics to Grow Your Business
Video analytics is one of the most powerful marketing tools in your business arsenal. Or at least it should be!
Most entrepreneurs use analytics simply to measure performance of their video content. And don’t get me wrong, this is important… but if this is all you’re doing with this tool, you are leaving money on the table.
Video analytics isn’t just for watching numbers go up (as fun as that is!). It provides your company with actionable data that can help you:
- Boost lead generation
- Increase conversions
- Drive highly targeted traffic
- Boost engagement on videos
- Consistently produce high-performing content
And more.
That’s why today I’m going to share with you 5 video analytics strategies that will help you grow your business — in all the ways I’ve just mentioned!
Read on, and you will learn how to leverage simple video data like views, engagement, keywords, and more to drive massive growth and conversions.
Sound good? Then let’s dive right in…
1. Make your remarketing campaigns 10X more effective
Most people who end up watching your videos will not convert into leads — let alone paying customers — right away. The vast majority (as many as 98%) will leave and probably never come back…
…unless you actively entice them to return using remarketing (also known as retargeting) ads.
And even those viewers aren’t created equal! Some of them bounce right away because they aren’t a fit. Others will watch the entire video and study your offer without taking action. Still others might watch partway through and then bail.
If you don’t have a way to differentiate between them, your remarketing campaigns can get really expensive, really fast — and not necessarily produce the ROI you need.
Well, you can use your video analytics to refine your remarketing campaign and focus only on those viewers who have a higher chance to convert!
For example, you can target people who:
- Have watched at least 25% of the video
- Clicked on your video CTA
- Liked and/or shared the video
- Subscribed to your YouTube channel
Etc. The exact actions will vary based on the remarketing service you’re using, as well as your video hosting platform of choice (YouTube, Wistia etc.).
And that’s how video analytics can help you run a much more effective campaign — saving you those ad bucks and boosting your conversions in the process!
2. Strategically boost engagement on your video content
Of all the data that video analytics can reveal to you, viewer retention is one of the most important — and the most actionable!
Viewer retention shows you how far into a given video most people get before they drop off. Knowing where exactly you lose viewers is super useful, because you can harness that data to increase engagement on your videos!
For example:
- If people bail on your video halfway through, it could be a sign that you need to re-do that middle part so it’s clearer and more engaging. Another common dropoff point is the 3/4 mark, which can cause viewers to miss your call to action (more on that in Strategy #3).
- If a lot of viewers bounce off right away — as in, in the first 5 seconds — that means you want to take a long, hard look at your thumbnail and video title. Maybe they are sending the wrong message to your audience about the content, creating mismatched expectations. Or it could be that you need to improve your video introduction (always a good idea)!
- Retention data can also tell you if your audience prefers longer or shorter videos. Never assume that “shorter” = “more engaging” — always check your assumptions against video analytics!
One last thing: optimizing your video content this way is only worth it if it’s performing well in the first place. This strategy isn’t meant for salvaging bad videos — it’s for making your great videos even better. So be very picky about where you use it!
3. Capture more leads with well-timed calls to action
Even if you decide to pass on Strategy #2, you can still use viewer retention stats to grow your business. More specifically, this data can help you increase lead generation.
Here’s how…
Do you have a video that gets a ton of views but doesn’t have a great conversion rate? Well, it could be because most viewers never get to see your call to action! E.g. if your CTA is at the end, but 70% of viewers hop off at the halfway mark, then how could they see it?
So what can you do about it? Well, first things first: use your video analytics to determine…
- How many viewers you’re losing by the end of the video, and…
- Where the biggest dropoff happens
Then, insert your CTA just before that big cutoff point happens!
It helps if your video hosting platform allows putting calls to action directly in the video as an opt-in form or a clickable link. That way, you don’t have to make any changes to the video footage itself!
Wistia and Vimeo both have interactive forms and links that show up directly in the video player. YouTube, however, only offers a much less flexible option with “cards” — clickable elements that appear in the top-right corner, and then open up a menu on the right side of the video (where your links will be).
One final tip:
You don’t have to stop at one video! Putting additional calls to action part-way through your video content is a great technique that should be in your marketing arsenal.
As you gather more data about your audience’s viewing patterns, you’ll be able to predict where to insert those CTAs for maximum exposure. Just don’t overdo it — limit yourself to +1 CTA per video. Let’s keep it classy. *wink*
4. Drive more organic traffic to your videos
Video SEO is incredibly important if you want your marketing videos to be easily discoverable online. I’m guessing you already research relevant keywords for each video you produce, and optimize it around them, in which case — awesome!
But there’s another video analytics strategy you could use to take your video SEO to the next level.
It’s a very simple 2-step process:
Step 1. Check your traffic sources for keywords people are already using to discover your video content. To keep things simple, analyze just your 5 best-performing videos — by views or by conversions, up to you.
I guarantee that you will find new keywords that you’ve never even thought about!
For example, let’s say that you’ve intentionally optimized one of your videos around the keyword “small business marketing.” And sure enough, it ranks very well for that particular term.
But then you discover that your video also shows up in SERP (search results) for keywords like “small business marketing plan” and “small business marketing case study.” It’s not in the top 10 or anything… but it could be.
Are you sensing an opportunity here? If you could optimize your marketing videos around these new keywords, you could substantially increase your traffic! Which brings us to…
Step 2. Write down all the keywords you’ve discovered this way, and research how viable they are. Discussing this in depth would be outside the scope of this article, but look at:
- Monthly search volume (on YouTube and Google — or just Google if you don’t host videos on YT)
- Number of search results, so you know how competitive these keywords are
- The number of viewers you already get from the new keywords (pre-optimization)
Finally, pick the least competitive, highest-volume keywords you’ve identified — and optimize your top 5 videos around them.
And then say hello to even more targeted traffic!
5. Shape and enhance your content strategy
Last but not least, your video analytics can give you actionable insights about what type of content you should create in the future.
Retention, clickthrough rates, views per video, viewership dynamics over time… all these stats reveal your audience’s likes and dislikes in a way that direct feedback doesn’t. Individually, your customers won’t tell you much beyond their own preferences — which can be important and helpful…
…but it’s quantitative data that reveals where your viewers allocate their attention and engagement collectively. And so it provides a much more solid foundation for your strategic content decisions!
For instance, here are just a few ways video analytics can inform content creation and promotion:
- You can use data like engagement and number of views to create follow-ups, sequels, and updated versions of your top performing videos. If a video did well in the past, this is a strong indicator that your audience will love more content like it!
- You can analyze your traffic sources to find potential opportunities for cross promotion and joint ventures with sites that send you viewers — because their audience clearly overlaps with your target market.
- Similar to Strategy #4, you can evaluate the keywords that lead viewers to your content — and produce new videos optimized around them, boosting your organic traffic even further.
- You can create new lead-generating assets based on your best-performing videos, like content upgrades and lead magnets. And you can promote them through those same videos, converting more incoming traffic!
- And finally, it’s always a great idea to repurpose your most viewed / highest-converting video content into other formats — text, audio, infographics, slide decks etc., so you can massively amplify the reach of your marketing.
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