The Return on Investment for Video Content

So you finally took the plunge and had a video produced for your company.

You laid out a plan, invested time and money, and released it on all your online platforms—Now what?

Let’s take a dive into how the abstract benefits of video content can lead to real world monetary gains.

Video Content Leads To Brand Awareness

Think of a brand like Starbucks. This multibillion-dollar company opened its first store back in 1971. Since then, it has gone on to become one of the most internationally known coffee brands in the world.

How has a company that was founded nearly 50 years ago maintained popularity with both older and younger generations? One probable answer is that Starbucks stays up to date with trends. They are constantly shifting their marketing efforts to focus on what's popular, including out-of-the-box video content that attracts young consumers.

Starbucks has always made its brand reflect the idea of being a customer’s “third place.”

As in, your stop between home and work, where you can grab a coffee and make connections with other people in the community.

Starbucks demonstrates this in an episode from an animated series they produced called “1st & Main,” where you can see a college student attempting to write her college essay in one of their cafes.

Throughout the short, we see that she is not only well acquainted with the staff, but also friends with most of the customers in the shop, leading the viewer to believe Starbucks is her “home away from home.”

“Everything about the video reinforces the brand’s fundamental ideals.”

While the Starbucks video is entertaining, it is also a form of strategic marketing. Everything about the video reinforces the brand’s fundamental ideals. Starbucks is not only a great place to get work done, but also a haven to meet friends and enjoy coffee made by a friendly barista. While the mission statement can be read on the company’s website, this short web series is an engaging, yet subtle way to reinforce this concept to the consumer.

This type of marketing is why Starbucks, though founded after one of its largest competitors, Dunkin Donuts, saw a yearly revenue of $24.7 billion in 2018, over Dunkin’s $1.32 billion.

The power of brand awareness allowed Starbucks, once a small startup, to become a part of millions of customers’ daily commute. The effort put towards updated video content has continued to prove a profitable venture as Starbucks remains a household name in communities around the world.

How Do You Measure A Video’s Success?

While video has become an increasingly popular form of advertising, it is still a relatively new concept in terms of social media marketing. It can often be hard to measure the success of a video and whether or not the investment was worthwhile.

“However, the views, likes and clicks can often be misleading when it comes to determining a film’s overall success.”

All social media platforms are interactive and can show real-time analytics, making success or failure of a video seem instantaneous. However, the views, likes, and clicks can often be misleading when it comes to determining a film’s overall “success.” In fact, the view count on a video is usually seen as a vanity metric, as in a statistic that seems promising rather than a reliable indicator of ROI.

The success of a marketing video is ultimately determined by the impact it has on a viewer. The goal is to make your brand or business memorable and more likely to be at the forefront of a potential customer’s mind. However, this metric can take time and consistency to develop.

It's important to remember that once you post a video, it remains visible and has the ability to be reshared indefinitely, unless you set an expiration date or decide to remove it. This is what we refer to as "evergreen content." It’s a marketing tool that you can always reuse as people are more likely to rewatch and share an interesting video than revisit a photo or article they’ve already seen.

Overall, allowing a video time to circulate and make an impression on people can result in both new and returning customers. It can help recommendations via word of mouth, which is an incredibly influential marketing tool leading to roughly 20 to 50 percent of all consumer purchases. And it can remind existing customers that you still exist!

Treat A Viewer Like An Audience, Rather Than A Consumer

In this day and age, there are multiple platforms for users to experience advertising. What used to be television commercials or ads in a magazine, are now paid posts on social media feeds and unskippable clips before a YouTube video. People are on high alert for businesses trying to sell them a product, meaning they are much less patient with advertisements.

Companies that invest in engaging video content that entertains viewers, rather than sells a product, are more likely to see a spike in revenue. Wistia found this strategy effective when they created a fun brand ad that cost them around $0.05 per view and yielded $45 per email sign-up. They compared this to the previous two years, where they were paying around $2 per-click from media specifically aimed at acquiring new visitors to their site.

Unless a consumer is seeking out a product, most won’t be excited when an advertisement pops up in the midst of their scrolling trying to sell them a service they didn't ask for. That is, unless the video does what other social media aims to do: entertain. The product or service you provide may seem like it doesn’t lend itself to funny or enthralling narratives, but it’s all about how you choose to spin it.

“The product or service you provide may seem like it doesn’t lend itself to a funny or enthralling narratives, but it’s all about how you choose to spin it.”

When you think of a brand with memorable commercials, Geico Insurance Company comes to mind. Selling car insurance sounds like a fairly cut and dry service. It seemingly lends itself to a simple commercial featuring workers typing in an office, a happy customer shaking a salesperson’s hand and a flash of branding above a shiny car.

While this imagery may accurately convey the product, it is not particularly interesting or memorable. Instead, Geico focused a substantial amount of their investments into advertising that featured funny concepts and characters making them stand out against competitors.

Because of their focus on quirky, memorable commercials, such as the Geico Gecko, the sarcastic caveman or the happy camel excited about Wednesday, they now net a large portion of the insurance market share in America.

A Bloomberg article entitled Geico’s Silly Ads Are Working, reported the insurance company spent almost three times the average amount when it came to advertising, yet saw an 11% increase in their premium income in one year.

This focus on witty commercials has made Geico the second-largest Auto Insurance Company in the United States. Not to mention, Geico started a trend in humourous insurance commercials that led companies such as Progressive, AllState, State Farm, and Liberty Mutual to follow suit.

Whether you’re a multimillion dollar brand or a small local business, creating memorable commercials is not done overnight, but the investment in distinctive advertising can result in substantial financial gains!

Turning Views Into Dollars

Overall, it’s important to remember that when video content is created effectively, it can result in lucrative benefits over time. From broadcast commercials to social media content, videos can establish your brand within a community. They have an online shelf life that is significantly longer than other advertising mediums and engage audiences the same way a funny viral video garners national attention.

The return on investment of entertaining advertising is undeniable, and video content is one of the best ways to help your company grow. However, you don’t have to create the next Geico Gecko in order to be successful.

Take time defining your brand. Be funny, be creative, but more importantly, be yourself. Your online video content will make its mark!