We have discussed in depth the importance of having videos on your website, and we’ve even delved into the mechanics of how to create online videos. So now, once you’ve made the video, you need to make sure it’s good. Because if not, well…what’s the point? This brings us to the topic of analytics and the importance of ensuring your video pushes out your message to the right audience and has an impact on those viewers.
Explanatory videos can be analyzed in many different ways, by many different people and for many different sorts of statistics. And, it’s really important to know if people get bored watching your video(like these kids!), because that means it’s not serving its purpose.
By using video heat maps, you can see how every viewer behaves while watching every video you create. Worst case scenario, you find out that most viewers watch 20 seconds of the video, decide this is far too boring to take, think “hey, where is that YouTube video my co-worker sent me yesterday with the dancing baby?” and ditch your video before you can even get to your selling point. But that’s ok, because now you know what you need to improve. It’s also important to remember that just because your video has a lot of views, it does not necessarily mean that it’s engaging. Whoa, right?
So then you decide to make another video to make up for that shameful one you tried to launch last time…who let you use those cheesy slogans?! And you find out that WAHOO people are really watching this, but it was only popular for three days. So then you make another video that maintains popularity over time, but your sales don’t go up, because you find out that you didn’t appropriately market it. And then finally you make that fantastic, nothing can top it, oh so great video. It works because you analyzed which videos your consumers watch before buying your product, and now you have discovered exactly how to appeal to them. Thanks to analytics, you’ve been able to understand your market, the effectiveness of your product placement, and therefore your sales increase.
The basic point of analytics is to tell you how you can improve your video and site views. You want to see a timeline of your popularity so you know, OK, on Friday afternoon hundreds watched my video, great — next Friday afternoon, post your latest video. Wistia has a great explanatory video for analytics, so check them out if you want to see this blog post in video form…which of course you do!
Now, if you aren’t ready to commit and spend the money on analytics, then you can use your friends! Sit them down, have them watch your video and pay attention to their faces. Are they engaged? How are their eyes moving? Did they get distracted by a shiny object outside? It’s a create-your-own analytics, but hey, you’ll get the information you need!
