Does Every Video Marketing Campaign Need To Bring Sales?

It’s the age of old question that businesses will continue to ask forever.

Should every video marketing campaign bring sales? Does every campaign need to have a visible ROI, directly improving the bottom line?

The short of it, is no. Here’s why.

Prime The Market

Let’s think of a brand new business. They’ve had no sales. They have no customers. They have no revenue. Completely fresh, straight out of birth.

Before they can even start to build a customer base, make sales, and start making revenue, people need to know of their business. People need to know it exists.

Is it realistic then that their first ever campaign is going to yield a positive ROI? It’s highly unlikely.

They first must prime the market for their product or service and build brand awareness.

Reframing The Question

And this is where we need to reframe the question.

Instead of asking “does every video marketing campaign need to bring sales?”, we should be asking “what stage of brand awareness are our target audience in?”.

Why is this a better framed question?

Each campaign has an intended target audience. This target audience isn’t necessarily going to be the same for every campaign. And thus, because of this, the audience may be completely unaware of who the business is (for a campaign aimed at attracting new customers), or the audience may be incredibly familiar with the business (for a campaign aimed at building repeat purchases). Or the audience could be anywhere in between.

Therefore, before identifying what ROI (if any) this campaign should bring, we first must understand who the target audience are, and what phase of their relationship with the brand in question, they are in.

There's More To It Than Just A Direct ROI

Anyone with any experience in sales or marketing will tell you that it takes more than one touchpoint to convert a lead into a customer.

The average sales cycle is made up of 7 touch points, before a lead is converted into a customer.

This means it is incredibly important to look at video marketing as part of the sales cycle.

It is incredibly foolish to look at a single campaign of any value and determine it of delivering a good or bad ROI.

A single campaign may not have delivered any new leads, however it may have done an incredibly good job of educating the market on your brand and building brand engagement.

This is why it’s important to remember that marketing is everything that goes before a campaign, and everything that comes after it.

First, we must make the market aware your brand exists.

Then, we must educate them on the product or service you offer.

From here, we need to connect with them on a deeper level. Diving deeper and deeper with each touch point.

Then connect on similar core values.

All whilst subtly and sub-consciously promoting your product or service.

By this stage, they might actually click on your website, and in the case of B2C, add items to a cart (but not purchase yet). Or in the case of B2B, send a message via a contact us form.

By this point, it’s taken a 5-7 touchpoint just to create a lead.

Then, it’s all about having the correct foundations in place. Email follow ups and website pop ups for B2C. And an expert sales team for B2B.

It’s all about customer experience now.

Marketing: The Bigger Picture

But a video marketing campaign could be used in every single one of these instances.

This is how wide marketing is.

It’s more than just a single campaign. It’s related to your whole operational structure as a business. From staffing, to customer experience. All of it is a part of marketing your business.

Imaging you had never heard of Nike before.

You see a video from a campaign about their latest running shoe. Would you buy it straight away? Probably not.

Then, over a period of months, or even years, you learn more about the brand.

You learn that they value empowering others. You learn that they are leading the way in introducing the latest tech to make running shoes more comfortable for everyday people.

You see video after video, from campaign after campaign, educating you on why they do what they do, why they so strongly believe in you aiming to achieve your best.

From here, you begin to feel empowered, and more motivated in your life. And these feelings are sub-consciously attributed to Nike, and their campaigns.

Now, 10-months after seeing their first campaign video, you see their latest film, and they’ve just released a new shoe.

You buy it.

But it’s taken 10-months, the best part of at least 4 different campaigns, and learning about what the brand values, building your relationship and engagement with them, before you’ve finally brought a pair of runners from them.

Don't Fall Into The Trap

For business owners, marketing teams and executives, it is incredibly easy to fall into the trap of numbers, and argue that every campaign must bring a visible ROI immediately.

But in reality, marketing is fluid. It is forever moving. The sales cycle is a cycle for a reason.

If all of your target market were in the same phase at the same time, your business would achieve “overnight success”, record breaking sales in your first 12 months of operations, and then cease to exist after your lead turns into a customer.

Instead, your target market are at many different stages of their relationship with you.

Therefore, it is crucial to look at marketing as a whole, and understand that one single video marketing campaign will not bring a positive ROI.

However, a number of campaigns, each hitting individual areas of the customer relationship journey, will bring a positive ROI.

Individually they will not. But collectively they will.

Ultimately, if your marketing spend increases year on year, but your revenue increases at a rate exceeding your marketing spend, then you can be pretty adamant that you’re receiving a positive ROI on your video marketing campaigns.

But you need to look over a long time horizon. This is where the true success lies. Focusing on the short term gains never helps anyone. And they certainly never help a business grow.

Need A Hand Forging A Deep Connection With Your Clients?

It’s not always easy to forge a deep connection with your clients. Which is why we’re here to help.

Brand story films are your brand’s north star. They help you to make decisions internally, and act as the centrepiece of your marketing strategy.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you forge a deep, emotive connection with your consumer through a brand story film, contact us via:

didier@fixonmedia.com.au

+61 400 801 891

All the best,

Didier Le Miere

Director | Fixon Media Group