Susan Shelby, FSMPS, CPSM President & CEO Rhino PR
The Secrets to Achieving Measurable ROI with Video Marketing
This is the story of a video that landed a multi million-dollar project – and more. While this kind of outcome can’t be expected for every PR or marketing campaign, it is achievable with the right strategy and tools. In this edition of Rhino’s “Connecting the Dots” blog series, learn important lessons about how to plan for, and measure, return on investment (ROI) with video marketing.
Video: A Measurable and Engaging Marketing Tool
An executive at a global medical device company was facing a large construction project, when he happened upon a video that offered a passerby’s view through a construction fence, and into the site of a 160,000 SF project in Norwood, Mass. The video was one of a five-part series that offered viewers a behind-the-scenes look into: how design and construction teams work together, how concrete is manufactured, how a rain-screen system works, and how a building is created – from early designs to the finished building. It was a personalized and engaging story behind a common, and very complex, process.
The executive picked up the phone, and called the design and construction team that had created the video.
That team – Margulies Perruzzi Architects and Columbia Construction – won the medical device company’s global headquarters project as a direct result of that first impression made by a video. The team went on to complete two more projects for the same client, and won a $17 million project for another new client who had also seen the same video series.
The video series cost a total investment of $12,500. Talk about ROI.
ROI is Difficult to Quantify for Marketing and PR – But Not Impossible
It’s rare that marketing or PR can be directly tied to a specific new business win – especially in the A/E/C industry where projects are costly with long timelines. Much of the time, marketing and PR campaigns result in steady, long-lead progress in the form of:
- Increasing visibility and brand recognition
- Reaching thought leader status
- Developing trust
- Turning cold calls into warm calls
- Increasing leads and project wins
However, it is part of our job as marketers to help our firm leadership connect those dots and understand the impact that our strategy and actions have on the bottom line. To achieve this, we have several tools at our disposal, the most useful of which are data and analytics.
Data is Crucial – But You Need to Have Specific Goals
The ease with which we can access data and analytics regarding marketing efforts is both good and bad. While it certainly leads the way toward more specific and measurable ROI for our industry, it can be greatly misunderstood without clear goals and targets in place from the beginning of a project.
In order to successfully measure the ROI for a marketing or PR project, it is critical to first identify:
- What you want to achieve – and why
- Who you are trying to reach
- How you will reach them
- What your primary message(s) should be
- What your competition is doing in this same area, and how you can stand out (benchmarking)
- How you will determine success
- What measurements will be used – these may include:
- Website analytics
- Email analytics
- Press clips
- Social media statistics
- Search engine rankings
- Referral traffic
- How to quantify and assess progress over time, and at completion
- How often you will measure and review progress
- What measurements will be used – these may include:
For the video case study above, the project team knew upfront that video was an effective and measurable tool for reaching their target audience. In fact, research has shown that 59% of senior executives prefer video to written communications, and a video can increase an email’s click-through rate by 300%. Pretty impressive statistics. The team was able to multiply their reach more than 30 times by partnering with each other and the client, as well as 12 other firms that were featured in the videos, sharing the video on their social media channels, and asking their colleagues and partners to share as well. Combined with creative concepts and high quality production value, the video campaign met its goals to bring in new work – which had been identified from the very beginning – and was a huge branding and sales success.
With clear, measurable goals in place, a defined approach for how to assess progress and success, and a creative and thoughtful marketing strategy, you can establish a valuable method for determining ROI for your marketing and PR activities.
