by Kim Karagosian, Senior Director of Marketing & Communications
Audiences digest information differently. Some people are more visual learners, while others need to hear the content. Needless to say, with all the non-profits AH works with, there are different digesters. For me, I’m a visual learner, I’d choose watching a video over reading a story, and I love statistics, so I thought I would get on the video train and share some interesting things with you.
Even though I have been a marketing professional for over 13 years, it’s evident to me, and anyone, that if you’re not using video as part of your overall marketing and communications strategy, you’re missing out on huge opportunities for increased membership, donors, event attendance, and general awareness for your organization.
Keep in mind, though, that quality over quantity is also important when talking about video views. It’s not always the number of people who are watching videos that’s important, it’s the reasons why they watch it, the actions they take, and their engagement level.
When you post a video to your website or video channel, you’ve got a greater chance of engaging with a busy executive who is specifically looking to join your organization as a member, sign up for your meeting, or give a donation, but might not have reached out to your staff to schedule a call or meeting to learn more. Videos are great ways to share your organization’s mission, vision, benefits, and core values to generate quality leads.
Incorporating Video into Conference Campaigns
AH’s client partner, the National Air Duct Cleaners Association (NADCA), the HVAC Inspection, Maintenance and Restoration Association, decided to incorporate videos in its conference marketing plan in order to add more dimension to the overall conference campaign. Through tracking and analysis, AH discovered that certain emails got a higher open and clickthrough rate.
For example, an email message that first introduced the speaker preview video for the 2014 meeting had a higher click-rate than the six previously sent emails. In fact, 18.6 percent of the individuals clicked links within the message — this is higher than the industry average of a 10.35 percent click-through rate!
AH also noticed that the next two emails that were sent, without any videos, did not perform as well as the email that contained the video. While the emails were still above industry average for clicks, they were not nearly as high. AH then did a test and included the word “video” in the subject line of an email message that featured a NADCA member’s video about his session at the annual meeting. This email message exceeded the industry average for opens and once again, performed well over the industry average for clicks, at 17.1 percent.
The Caboose
Video marketing can increase awareness and conversations for your organization if you know your 
audience. It’s important to test different scenarios, for example, using the word “video” in your email subject line, sharing videos on your YouTube channel and seeing if your web traffic increases for the month, and showing videos at in-person events to gauge the audience’s reaction.
From research and AH experience, organizations that incorporate video into their overall marketing strategy see higher engagement rates, higher click-through rates, and higher conversion rates. It’s important to measure and look at the analytics behind your video marketing campaigns, so you can discover where your initiatives are accelerating, and where your video is going off the rails. Video analytics can help you understand who is watching your video, how they heard about your organization, how long they stay engaged, and exactly where they click away. Armed with this information, you can sharpen your message and target it more precisely.
