How do I prove the ROI of my video production project to my CEO?

From social media to TV, videos can grab viewers' attention and set a positive impression for your brand. With an effective video strategy, you can encourage sales, gain followers, and establish a solid return on investment (ROI).

Learning how to measure ROI on video productions can help you set realistic goals and create high-quality content for your business. 

Importance of Video Marketing in Today's Landscape

From social media reels to TV commercials and product demos to live events, high-quality video productions can significantly improve your marketing and branding. Captivating visuals will grab people's attention and hook them into your message. With a strong call to action (CTA), you can easily convert viewers into potential customers and clients.

An effective video strategy is essential for social media marketing. Short-form videos are often the most popular type of social media content, especially if they have music and an extensive comment section. Even if they don't contain direct CTAs, videos can be great for branding your business to various mobile users, particularly if people share or repost your content.

Different platforms and hashtags can help you hone in on your target audience. For instance, TikTok is great for advertising to young adults, while LinkedIn supports business-to-business (B2B) marketing.

Search Engine Optimization

Beyond direct social media engagement, online videos can boost your ranking on Google and other search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) uses keywords, internal links, and more to direct relevant search engine users to your site.

Integrating keywords into your video's title, caption, and subtitles can organically boost your page's or website's popularity. For example, many product tutorials aim to answer common search queries, such as "How do I recharge my camera?"

Metrics To Measure Video Success

Simply looking at sales or views isn't enough to judge your video's success. Instead, you'll need to gather and compare many metrics to effectively measure ROI on your video production. 

Engagement Rates Analysis

Tracking your engagement rates on different platforms can help you identify your most effective marketing strategies. Since most social media algorithms recommend content based on engagement, honing in on your most engaging videos can organically improve your reach online. 

That said, the best types of engagement vary based on which platform you post your videos on. The most common engagement metrics include:

• Views: Pay attention to how many people watch each video and, if possible, how much of the video the average person watches. This can help you identify which videos are and aren't grabbing viewers and which videos you need to shorten. 
• Likes and shares: Posts with lots of likes and shares tend to rank higher in users' feeds. Compare these metrics with each video's views to discover which content people have watched and want to see more of. 
• Comments: Comments are great for engagement because they encourage potential customers to get involved in the conversation, especially if you monitor your comment sections. Videos with direct calls to action and questions in their captions can encourage more people to comment, ranking your video even higher and increasing product sales. 
  
  

Conversion Rates Assessment

Your video conversion rate calculates the number of viewers who actually took action after seeing your ad. Depending on your business goals, your video's call to action may lead viewers to a product page, a sign-up link, or other destinations. Track your sales and webpage visits after posting each video to see which marketing strategies create direct results. 

Many marketing teams create specialized embedded links for different video projects and social media platforms. While each link leads to the same page — such as to your product — analytics tools can track how many times people click each unique link. This tells you exactly how many viewers each video successfully converts into customers.

Viewer Retention Insights

Many platforms and analytics tools let you track how long viewers watched your video. In many cases, your "average watch duration" and "watched full video" metrics are more important than your total number of views, especially if you save your CTA for the end of the video.

Tracking viewer retention can help you identify strategies to improve engagement and conversion rates. For example, if your longer video isn't taking off, you may need to shorten it, give it more visual effects (VFX), or move your CTA from the intro to the conclusion. 

Conducting ROI Analysis

You'll need to calculate your return on investment at least twice in the video content process: before producing and after posting your video. Your anticipated ROI and past ROI data can help you determine how much time and money your current video project will ultimately be worth.

Anticipated ROI vs. Actual ROI

To estimate your ROI ahead of time, consider your:

• Video's target audience
• The platforms you'll post it on
• Your project timeline
• Your CTA

Reflect on your previous videos' success, especially if you've previously posted similar types of videos. If your video doesn't have a direct call to action, set a realistic goal for your other engagement metrics, such as views and shares. 

Since every platform differs, you should wait at least a few days — or even a couple of weeks — before measuring your return on investment. While some videos may "peak" within an hour of posting, others may be picked up by the algorithm much later. 

To measure ROI on your videos, compile and compare your engagement and conversion metrics, including views and link usages. If your video had a CTA, track how much your sales or site visits increased compared to before you posted the video. 

Of course, branding is about long-term business success, so you won't always see an immediate financial return on your investment. Still, making a good impression can drive conversions and sales later on, especially if you plan multiple videos.

Analyzing Cost-Benefit Ratios

Knowing how to measure ROI on video productions can help you set realistic goals and budgets for your long-term marketing plan. Consider your marketing and engagement goals as you prepare your video project's production plan and budget. Specifically, compare your overall project cost with the ultimate metric you'd like to see in return, whether that's a product sale, a subscription, or a certain number of views. 

Setting an average ROI on video marketing can be especially beneficial when planning multiple videos. Some projects will reasonably need to be more expensive than others, especially if you integrate visual and special effects (SFX). So, if your most expensive video doesn't have a CTA, you may need to adjust some parts of your script or your budget. 

A professional video production company can help you estimate your budget during pre-production and find ways to cut costs. For example, working with a production team that already has camera equipment can save you the cost of renting or buying the gear yourself. 

Aligning With Broader Content Marketing Strategy

Even if your video is for a specific product, it should still align with your business's greater marketing goals. This leaves many factors for you to consider when learning how to improve ROI on your videos. 

Ensuring Strategic Fit With Organizational Goals

Your brand should be the most important part of your branding strategy. Setting the wrong image for your business can turn potential customers away, especially if you give them the wrong idea about your product or services. 

If you haven't already, create brand guidelines for your business's marketing. These should clearly state expectations for your brand's language, colors, fonts, restrictions, and more. Your guidelines guarantee that everyone working on your marketing content, including employees and video production teams, stays on the same page. 

Furthermore, you should establish a fixed chain of command for anything shared on social media. Make sure that someone who understands your brand guidelines and marketing goals reviews every video before it's posted.

Exploring Technological Capabilities To Support Videos

Many businesses use specific tools and strategies to boost their videos' success, including when creating and posting content. Consider the following strategies to improve ROI on your videos:

• Adding SFX and VFX: Visual and special effects can increase your video's content quality and make viewers more likely to stick around. This can be as simple as animated block text.
• Adjusting aspect ratios: While TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook prioritize portrait-style videos, LinkedIn and YouTube still mostly use landscape videos. Exporting your video content according to each platform's preferred aspect ratio can maximize every post's potential.
• Scheduling posts: What time you post your video on certain social media platforms significantly impacts its success. For example, a video posted at 3 a.m. may have few initial viewers, meaning the algorithm may ignore it entirely. Many businesses schedule their posts to guarantee they share all videos at the most beneficial time.
  
  

Ready To Talk About Video Production?

If you want to make a great impression online, your business needs professional video production. At Charter & Co, our expert production team specializes in ROI-focused videos. We can help you analyze your marketing channels and the best types of content for your goals. 

Contact us today to learn how to measure ROI on video production and more.