In the marketing world, it all comes down to your return on investment. If your video marketing campaigns, initiatives, and strategies aren’t driving positive results for your assisted living community’s occupancy rate, then it’s time to rethink your overall approach.
However, as I’ve previously discussed, ROI tends to be a simple concept that’s often confusing to measure and analyze. With so many metrics to track, senior living marketing teams often don’t know where to start. That’s why I wanted to provide seven different ROI metrics that will help your senior living community capture all of the benefits that video marketing can provide.
1. Total Views
The most basic of all the key metrics, your total view count is exactly what it sounds like – the number of times people watched your video for any length of time. If the audience isn’t watching your content to begin with, then the issue isn’t necessarily with the video itself but, instead, with your choice of distribution channels or how you deliver the content.
It’s usually helpful to divide your total view metrics by channel. That way, you can see if, for instance, the same video works well on Instagram but is struggling on Facebook. If that’s the case, then the issue could be that something about the content doesn’t lend itself to Facebook’s audience or platform.
2. Engagement Rate
A more granular version of the traditional bounce rate metric, engagement KPIs tell you if people are actually watching your video content. Also called a play rate, some platforms tell you precisely how long a viewer engages with your message while others simply tell you the number of times that people watched it to completion.
Either way, if there’s a large disparity between your total views and engagement rate, then something about your video content is causing the viewer to drop off. According to research from Facebook, if a viewer makes it through the first three seconds of your video, they’re far more likely to watch it for a much longer duration of time. In other words, given today’s shorter attention spans, the first few seconds of a video play a vital role in the success of your video marketing.
3. Social Sharing
Social media has taken root in nearly every audience segment and demographic, including seniors. According to Pew, 34% of seniors now use at least one social media platform, a seven-point increase from 2013 data. Naturally, for marketing geared toward adult children, those figures are even higher.
While social media content probably already plays a central role in your marketing campaigns, it’s important to monitor the accompanying analytics as well, especially sharing metrics. There’s a direct correlation between how appealing your video content is and the number of people that share it. If your sharing metrics start to lag, then there’s likely something about the content that isn’t hitting home with the viewer and, thus, negatively impacting your video ROI.
4. Viewer Sentiment
Although more qualitative than the other video metrics, viewer sentiment is another critical gauge of your video content’s effectiveness. General opinions and reactions to a video basically serve as an open window into a viewer’s thoughts.
Certain AI-based platforms are already in the marketplace to help you quantify viewer sentiment using natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. However, simply monitoring overall sentiment through likes and comments is sufficient to provide you with high-level insights on your content’s appeal and, just as importantly, if any adjustments might be necessary.
5. Conversion Rates
One of the more obvious ROI metrics, your conversion rate reveals how well your video content delivers on your goals. In its most basic form, a conversion rate will tell you how often a video directly leads to a move-in. However, conversion rates can serve a much broader purpose than just sales metrics.
For example, if you’ve created a OneDay video meant to promote an upcoming webinar from your senior living community, then tracking the RSVPs stemming from the video is still a conversion rate metric. Remember, conversion rates reveal how successful your content is in lead generation and helping you achieve particular goals, whether that’s increased occupancy rates, RSVPs to an event, downloads of an e-book, or virtually anything else.
6. Click-Through Rates
A standard digital marketing metric, your click-through rate (CTR) tells you how effective your calls-to-action (CTAs) are in your video campaign. Used in conjunction with your engagement and conversion rates, your CTR helps you better understand how well your CTAs compel the target audience to advance further down the sales funnel.
Put another way, if your goal with a video is to drive downloads for your senior community’s latest guide, then your CTR reveals how many people are actually clicking through your video to the guide’s landing page. As a rule of thumb, if your engagement rates are high but CTR low, then there’s probably an issue with your CTAs, maybe their text, design, or placement within the product page.
7. Total Costs
Last but not least, costs obviously have a significant impact on your video marketing ROI. Even if your conversion rates are extraordinary, massive costs will erode the benefits of your video content marketing strategy.
As an example, hiring a professional videographer to film and edit your videos might result in appealing content but, thanks to extremely high price points, your ROI is still going to suffer. However, that’s one of the most significant benefits of using OneDay to drive your sales and occupancy – with a simple and intuitive app, your staff can create high-quality videos at a fraction of the cost of a professional video production team.
Of course, that’s just one example of using smart solutions to drive engagement while reducing costs. Automated social media tools, social listening platforms, and others can provide similar benefits to your marketing efforts and overall ROI. At OneDay, we’re proud to help drive ROI for senior communities and create a powerful competitive advantage for our partners.