You’ve created your video, you’ve shared it on your owned, paid, and earned channels, and you want to know how to optimize your video content now and in the future.
This is the most insightful step of the entire video creation process — it’s where you get to learn not only about the content you’ve created, but about your viewers and their behavior.
1. Analyze the data you’ve gathered.
You’ve kept on eye on your most important and relevant KPIs and you’ve hopefully drawn some insights. At this stage, you should start developing an idea of what’s working and what isn’t.
For instance, if you’ve got a high view rate during the first eight seconds of your video, but then your view rate drops dramatically, your video is not engaging viewers. If you’ve got a low view count, but a high percentage of clicks, your video is doing a great job converting, but needs to reach more people.
When you start seeing trends in your data, you can begin making inferences about the effectiveness of your video. Outline any inferences you can make so you know what to focus on for your optimization efforts.
This brand video tells the story of the Corlears School, introducing them to a new audience and establishing a relationship with the viewer.
2. Learn about your viewers.
Gathering viewer data is also crucial in learning how to best communicate with your audience.
What device are they watching on? Their desktop or their mobile phones? Where are they located? Are they turning the sound on, or watching it with closed captioning?
These details can inform your video optimization efforts — if your viewers are primarily using their phones, you might need a bigger text font or bigger calls to action. If they’re coming from one state in particular, you can edit your audience targeting a little further. Look for demographic trends, too. Maybe the majority of your viewers are 25 to 34 years old, but those converting are 45 to 54. This can not only help you optimize your video, but gives you valuable consumer information, as well.
Viewer attention is short, so we edited Corlears School’s brand video down to a shorter length, focusing only on the highlights that would be most captivating.
3. Use this information to optimize your current video.
You’ve got insights — now it’s time to put them to use! Though you may not be able to edit the original version of your video once you upload it to your hosting platform, you can upload other versions to use throughout your marketing campaigns. You can also use your insights to optimize other things, like the copy around your video, the pages it’s on, to whom it’s sent, and more.
Here are a few ways you can optimize your video after it’s published.
- Add a lead capture or stronger CTA. If your video isn’t converting, you may need a stronger call to action or lead capture. Instead, try a less intrusive ask, or use a different button or end card to get people clicking where you want them to. If your goal is to acquire more leads, gate your video behind an email form so you capture leads instantly.
- Optimize the pages your video is on. Whether it’s your website, email funnel, or social media pages, providing higher-quality content around your video will increase how often visitors engage with it. Give viewers a little more context. Provide related links or a video transcript. If your video performs better on certain pages, ask yourself what the correlation is and how you can recreate it.
- Create different versions of your video. If your two-minute video isn’t meeting your goals, try a shorter, 30-second version. Upload sound bites, quotes, or behind the scenes footage from your shoot. See how your visitors respond to shorter, more engaging content. You can also create different versions of your video for different distribution channels, like short, fun clips for Instagram, and longer, more detailed videos for your homepage.
We then created a Facebook-specific video with more graphics and text that could serve as an engaging organic post or paid advertisement.
4. Plan future content with these insights in mind.
No matter what your video’s ultimate goal is, keep in mind any performance data you have from previous videos. This data should inform your video strategy, creation, and distribution processes. Learn from past content, past audiences, past successes and failures. Use analytics, including view-through rates, audience retention, clicks, and conversions as a measurement of what worked and what didn’t. This should guide your strategy and inform what kind of video you should create.
Need help creating the perfect brand video? We’ve created over 5,000 videos since 2014 and our team of experts is ready to help you figure out how you can accomplish your marketing goals. Get started today with a free, 15-minute creative call!
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