Do You View Video with the Same Lens as Other Content Marketing Initiatives?

Last month, the CMI Executive Forum took place in San Francisco. The event brings together large B2B and B2C brands to talk about the challenges and opportunities in content marketing. In a post last week, the founder of Content Marketing Institute (CMI), Joe Pulizzi highlighted several content marketing questions that marketers are still not addressing today.

The questions Joe presented were around broad marketing strategies that encompass all types of content including video. This got me thinking about the challenges marketers face specific to using video to drive higher conversion rates and nurture customer relationships. Many enterprise organizations still use YouTube as their sole video destination and count views and likes, rather than measuring the results like an email campaign – with real metrics and KPIs. In addition, marketers struggle with integrating marketing channels and customer data into a marketing automation and/or CRM platform. Often times, video strategies are not viewed as a marketing function like an email or whitepaper campaign leaving marketers disenchanted.

The data certainly proves the value of using video for sales velocity, in fact, IDG, surveyed more than 2,200 business and IT decision-makers and nearly 95 percent of respondents use video to research a technology product or service. And viewing tech-related videos positively correlates with their purchase behaviors. Of the B2B tech buyers that watched product or service related videos, 46 percent said they purchased a product after viewing a related video.

The good news is we can certainly see significant return on marketing investment using video to move sales and strengthen customer engagement, so why aren’t we all seeing it in the revenue numbers? The short answer is – the process. For many organizations, the workflow, to date, has not been based on a streamlined content marketing strategy.

Before adding video to your content marketing equation, make sure your video strategy and associated technology can answer your most important marketing questions including:

• Do you know which video content to present at which stage to drive the highest conversion?
• Is your video strategy nurturing social media communities?
• Can you tie a video view to a sale?
• Which are my most valuable videos?
• Is your video technology future proofed for emerging standards and destinations?
• Can you deliver your video to any website, third-party system or mobile app?

The principles of good content will never change, many of the tactics, channels, and even the way people consume content will continue to evolve. Understanding how and where your customers want to consume content are critical elements of executing and distributing an effective content marketing strategy – and it will make your sales team very happy…