A great video is one that stands out in the crowd. It tells a story that is compelling, unique, and most importantly, has a purpose. That purpose can be nothing more than to provide mindless entertainment. But even when that is the purpose, the video should be focused to that end. Creating a video with purpose is relatively easy if you create a video using SMART goals.
Specific
When defining the purpose of your video, you want to be able to elicit that purpose in a single sentence. For example, a pizza parlor might create a video with the following purpose: “Excite customers about the new pierogi pizza.” That is a straightforward purpose that can be referenced whenever decisions need to be made about exactly what content is included in the video and how the video is marketed.
As a note, your defined purpose should rarely reference increasing sales or increasing your customer base. All marketing materials inherently exist for this purpose. Except in rare circumstances, usually such benefits are a natural consequence of whatever specific purpose you define for your video.
Measurable
Whatever purpose you create for your video, it should be one that has a result that can be measured. Using the same example as above, you could measure the results of your new video by comparing the total number pierogi pizzas sold the month before the video was released and the total number sold in the following month.
While sales figures will be a common way to measure the results of a video, it isn’t the only way. Other ways of measuring results includes looking at total number of views for a video, number of thumbs ups that a video receives, or checking Google analytics to see how well your video is trending.
Achievable
All too often people try to set pie-in-the-sky goals that simply aren’t possible. Again, looking at the pizza example, if the goal had been to increase pierogi pizza sales to 1000 a month, from a previous average of 10, that wouldn’t really be possible. Such goals may be fine in the long term, but individual videos should focus on only a single step towards that much grander goal.
Relevant
Video creation is a powerful tool. It is also a very fun tool to use. Whoever is the creative mind behind your video production is almost certain to present numerous exciting ideas. While many will be worth exploring, not all will be relevant, and you need to avoid the trap of creating videos that, while interesting, don’t actually support your brand.
For example, a video showing exactly how you make a pierogi pizza probably isn’t actually that relevant to building excitement for the pizza. Crafting the pizza is work. Customers want to see someone actually eating and enjoying the pizza, not working. A video showing a taste test between the pizza and regular pierogies is much more relevant to building excitement over the product.
Time Frame
The final point to creating a good purpose for your video is to consider the time frame. In our pizza example, our purpose was simply to create excitement for a specific pizza. And while we would prefer that excitement to last forever, it is important to set a time frame for measuring success. In this example, we might to refine our goal with the phrase “…within two months.”
By defining the timeline in concrete terms, you are able to more easily measure whether goals achieved the desired results. It provides a solid reference point to determine whether this type of video works for your business or whether you need to take a different approach in the future.
Conclusion
The inclusion of SMART metrics in defining the purpose of your videos will improve the quality of your videos, particularly in terms of supporting your overall marketing strategies.
