3 Steps to Guarantee Your Video Gets ROI

You’ve heard that video is the most powerful and persuasive form of content on the web....and it is! The data is clear: 52% of marketers believe that video is the type of content that drives the best ROI. 

Plus, brands that use video get:

• 3x more monthly website visitors
• 157% more organic traffic
• 88% more time on your website
• 3x more inbound links
• 4x more content consumption

It’s hard to ignore the effectiveness of video, but many healthcare marketers are facing increasingly tight budgets. And because video is more expensive than text, it’s often put on the back-burner.

As marketers, we all have constraints. But it would be a mistake to miss out on the immense ROI that video can provide.

That’s why we’ve developed a process that guarantees your videos will generate ROI.

Check it out...

The Formula for Video ROI

Videos drive ROI based on the following formula:

[Business Impact] x [Exposure] - [Cost] = Expected ROI

Here, the business impact and exposure variables are most important, although cost is certainly an important factor as well.  

Business Impact: Your videos need to serve a purpose for your business; they should either help generate leads or move prospects along in your sales process. The degree to which each video achieves one of those two goals is your business impact.

So when you’re just getting started with video, you should prioritize the topics that have the biggest impact.

Exposure: Impact alone isn’t enough. A video may have a very high business impact, but if only one person watches it, it’s not going to generate much ROI. So the second most important variable is getting your video exposure with prospective customers.

Cost: Every business has several video topics that will provide a high business impact and a high potential for exposure (home page explainer videos, for example). With these videos, cost isn’t much of a factor because the potential ROI is so high. But after you’ve created the obvious videos for your business, cost becomes a more significant variable. Even then, you can still ensure ROI by only producing videos that will be used long-term as a strategic asset for your business.

So the question is: how can you choose topics that will have a high business impact, get lots of exposure, and become an asset your sales and marketing teams will use for years to come?

Fortunately, we’ve broken it down into a 3-step process...

Step 1: Choose a Topic with a High Business Impact and Long-Term Value

Because video requires a larger investment than text-based content, you need to choose video topics that have a high business impact.

In other words, your videos need to serve a specific purpose in helping you reach your sales and marketing goals. Otherwise, you’re simply wasting valuable resources on assets that don’t influence your audience — or your bottom line.

Remember that “Business Impact” is one of the most important factors of the ROI equation. So if you get this step right, you’ll be able to focus on ways to lower cost and increase exposure.

Here are four video topic categories that will typically have a higher business impact:

• Videos that Establish Product Demand - When you understand your prospects problems or challenges, you can then position your videos to address those problems and tie them back to the solution your products offer.

• Videos that Move Prospects Through Your Sales Funnel - Video doesn’t just help you close the deal at the end of the sales process. Videos can also play a major role in persuading your prospects to take the next step with you in the buyer’s journey.

• Sales Enablement Videos - By using videos to answer questions and overcome objections, your sales team can help prospects become buyers in a shorter amount of time. That means a shorter sales cycle, more buyers, and higher ROI on those helpful sales videos.

• Turn High-Value Content into Video - Video improves memory recall and is 4x more likely to be consumed than text. Turning any of your content that’s already performing well into video means an increase in consumption and response.

How to choose the right video topics for YOUR business...

If you want to discover high-impact video topics that you can use long-term, just fill out the form at the bottom of the page to schedule a free, no-obligation call with our video marketing strategists.

We’ll learn everything we can about your business and goals, then help you identify profitable topics for your business.

Step 2: Create Your Video the Right Way the First Time

There’s nothing more tragic than a video that misses the mark.

At best, you miss out on a significant chunk of ROI. But at worst, your video flops and you’ll need to shoot it again.

So when you’re creating an asset for your team, make sure that you create it the right way, the first time. That process starts with strategy and pre-production.

At WireBuzz, our pre-production process focuses on four main areas:

1. Budget: Know how much things cost before you commit to including them in the production. If there are big-ticket items tied to the budget, make sure they will have a significant impact on the end product.
   
   
2. Script Writing: Great video scripts should empathize towards your audience’s problems and desires, and follow a proven copywriting framework.
   
   
3. Storyboarding: Storyboards paint a picture of the sequence and flow of your video. They also help the production process be more efficient by eliminating any misunderstandings, saving you time and money.
   
   
4. Production Schedule & Call Sheet: Your production schedule keeps everyone on track during the shoot day. Staying efficient is critical, because extra shoot days will push you over budget. And if you have extra time, you can always film more videos, which drives down your production costs.

The quality of your video matters — both for holding the attention of your viewers, and for persuading them to take action. Spending a little extra time in pre-production will help you craft a high-quality video that will get you long-term ROI.

Step 3: Use the Video Routinely in Your Sales and Marketing

Once your video is complete, it’s time to put it to use.

Remember, exposure plays a major role in your video’s ability to generate ROI. So if it doesn’t get the attention it deserves, you won’t get the results you’re looking for.

That means you shouldn’t post your video in a ghost town.

You either need to:

1. Put the video in a place that already gets lots of traffic
2. Incorporate the video into a system that ensures it gets used routinely in your sales and marketing processes

Don’t waste a great video by just posting it somewhere on your website or YouTube, expecting everyone who visits to watch and respond to it.

If you want to increase exposure and drive ROI, your videos need to be used routinely.

Here are some examples of ways to ensure your videos get high exposure:

• Host your video on high-traffic web pages: We know that people are 4x more likely to watch a video than read text, so video is a great way to engage your website visitors and keep them on your site — especially on the pages that see the highest traffic.
  
  
• Use Your Video in Email Sequences: When prospects see “video” in the subject line, open rates increase 54% on average, and click-through rates increase up to 200-300% when an email includes a video. They also found that those emails converted 21% more recipients into customers, so using video in your email automation can help you see a big jump in ROI.
  
  
• Create Email Templates for Your Sales Team: As your sales team follows up with prospects, your videos can help to handle their questions and objections. With a simple click, your videos have a greater impact throughout the sales process.
  

• Generate Leads with Your Videos on Social Media: Social media is free, right? Regularly scheduling lead-generating videos on social media platforms gives your videos extra reach and engages new prospects at no cost. Just remember not to over do it. We’ve found that you can share a video weekly on Twitter and twice-monthly on Facebook without any negative consequences.

Exposure is a major factor in driving your video’s ROI, as we saw in the ROI equation.Be intentional about where you plan to use your video ahead of time, and what role it will play in your sales and marketing.

Can You Really Guarantee Your Video Will Get ROI?

With tight marketing budgets, getting a return on your video investment needs to be a priority.

Your videos need to be as serious about driving business as you are. They can’t just look pretty or use the latest animation or graphics. They also need to have a high business impact and exposure with your target customers to get the best results.

And that all starts with strategy.