You and your marketing team want to begin sharing video content for your business. Terrific! What’s the plan?
Setting meaningful goals for your video content is important for any marketing team aiming to achieve measurable success. Whether you’re a small business looking to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, or boost sales, having a clear strategy can make all the difference.
This article provides simple advice for setting and achieving effective video content goals. From identifying your purpose and defining your audience to choosing the right platform for distribution, each step is designed to help you create impactful videos that resonate with your audience and support your business objectives.
Clear goals will help you focus your efforts, measure your success, and adjust your strategies as needed to achieve the best results
Identify Your Purpose
Determine the core reason behind creating your video content.
Are you aiming to educate your audience about a product, entertain them with engaging stories, or persuade them to take a specific action?
This foundational step helps shape the direction and tone of your video. For example, educational videos should be clear and informative, while entertainment videos should be engaging and memorable. Aspire to develop a mix of both for your brand.
Define Your Target Audience
Understand who your audience is by creating detailed buyer personas. Know their demographics, interests, pain points, and where they spend their time online.
Tailoring your goals to meet the specific needs and preferences of your audience ensures that your content resonates with them. For instance, a video targeting young professionals might focus on career tips, while one targeting retirees could focus on leisure activities. It’s important to know your audience deeply and to recognize that there might be multiple demographics represented. You’re not trying to speak to everyone on the planet, but you should acknowledge that, from one video to the next, you may be addressing different people.
Set Specific Objectives
Clearly outline what you want to achieve with your video content. Objectives should be detailed and focused.
For example, instead of a vague goal like “increase brand awareness,” specify that you want to “increase brand awareness among 18-25-year-olds by 20% within the next three months.” This specificity helps in creating targeted content and measuring success effectively.
Make sure you write down your goals and share them with your team to ensure everyone is aligned and working towards the same objectives. Regularly review these goals in team meetings to track progress and make necessary adjustments. Clear communication fosters collaboration and ensures that all team members understand their roles in achieving the overall objectives.
Ensure Goals Are Measurable
Establish criteria for measuring success. Use metrics such as view count, engagement rate, click-through rate, or conversions.
For example, if your goal is to drive traffic to your website, you might measure the number of visitors who came from your video. Using tools like Google Analytics and social media insights can provide valuable data to assess your performance.
Identify your key performance indicators (KPIs) up front. KPIs could include viewer retention, social shares, and customer feedback. For instance, if your goal is to enhance audience engagement, track the number of comments, likes, and shares your videos receive. Regularly reviewing these metrics can provide insights into what’s working and what needs improvement.
Align Goals with Business Objectives
Make sure your video content goals support your overall business goals. If your business goal is to increase sales by 15% over the next year, your video content should be geared towards driving sales, perhaps through product demos or customer testimonials.
This alignment ensures that your content marketing efforts contribute directly to your business growth.
Set Realistic and Achievable Goals
Your goals should be challenging yet attainable. Consider the resources available, such as budget, time, and talent.
If your team is small and the budget is limited, aim for incremental improvements rather than drastic changes. Like we always say: Don’t overcomplicate this work. Realistic goals help maintain motivation and ensure consistent progress.
Create a Timeline
Set a realistic timeframe for achieving your goals. Break down your timeline into smaller milestones to keep track of progress.
Consider this first step: Plan to create one video per month and assess its performance quarterly. This helps keep your team on track and allows for timely adjustments.
Prioritize Goals
Determine which goals are most important and focus your efforts on achieving them first. Prioritizing helps in allocating resources effectively and ensures that the most critical objectives are met.
If building brand awareness is more urgent than increasing website traffic, focus your initial efforts on videos that showcase your brand’s story and values. Don’t get confused along the way.
Plan for Distribution
Decide how and where you will share your video content. Different platforms may help you achieve different goals.
For example, use YouTube for long-form content, Instagram for short, engaging clips, and LinkedIn for professional, educational videos.
Understanding where your audience spends their time helps in effectively distributing your content.
Prepare for Adaptation
Be ready to adapt your goals based on performance data and feedback. Flexibility is key to continuous improvement.
If a particular type of video performs exceptionally well, consider creating more content in that style. Regularly soliciting and analyzing feedback allows you to refine your strategy and stay responsive to audience needs.
By setting clear, measurable, and achievable goals, small business marketing teams can create video content that effectively supports their overall business strategy and engages their target audience. This approach not only drives immediate results but also builds a strong foundation for long-term success.
