Setting SMART Goals for your Video Content

Marketing video can be complicated. We’re going to show you how to make things easier by setting SMART goals. SMART goals are defined by a specific set of criteria for the acronym “SMART” and have specific, measurable, achievable or attainable, realistic or relevant, and timely or time-bound results attached to them. As you define goals for your video content, pay close attention to whether the goals are SMART to ensure you are actively setting objectives for your videos that are quantifiable, achievable and most importantly, realistic.

Setting Specific Goals for Video Content

The first step to setting a SMART goal is to make sure that the goal is specific. This means that you are taking the time to set a goal that is well defined. A clear and specific goal may be to, “Direct video viewers to visit our online store.” or to, “Encourage viewers to call our helpline to get information about a product or service.” These are specific goals. Too often, businesses say, “I want to create video content to get more sales.” Well, that’s great, but HOW will the video help you achieve more sales? Set your goals in a specific way so that your video content objectives begin with a defined plan of action.

Setting Measurable Video Marketing Goals

The next step to SMART goal setting is to make sure that the goal you set is measurable. If you want to “sell more,” with your video, you will need to define how much more. For example, instead of saying you want your video to help your business sell more products or services, you should set a measurable goal. Saying just “sell more” could result in 1 more sale–which technically is “more” but would that be enough for you to consider the video effective? Probably not!

Set measurable goals that focus on specific KPIs (Key performance indicators). For instance, you might say, “I want to increase calls by 10% and sales by 5%” Now you can measure whether or not the video was a success.

Setting Attainable Goals for Your Video Content

The next step in the goal setting process is to define a goal that is achievable. If you’re only making 5 sales a month now, it may not be very achievable or attainable to set a goal to “make 100 sales per month” as this is simply unrealistic. However, if you set a goal of “increasing sales by 10%” that would be an attainable goal to work towards. Attainable or achievable goals are those that you can actually work towards and achieve.

Every piece of video content that you create should have an achievable goal attached to it. Perhaps you want to spread brand awareness by reaching 100 people with your video? That’s a measurable and achievable goal. In setting achievable goals, make sure you have set clearly defined processes by which to measure the goals so that you have a way to monitor your video marketing efforts to ensure you are having success.

Setting Realistic and Relevant Goals

It may not make sense to create a video that educates your viewers on a particular topic and expect to achieve more sales for something entirely different. This is not a relevant goal. As you work on setting goals for your video content, be sure that you are focusing on those that are relevant and realistic for your business and video content.

Relevant goals are sometimes the most difficult for marketers to understand fully. Relevant goals must play on the emotions, needs and aesthetics of your audience. If the content is not relevant to the audience you are trying to reach in order to make more sales or calls, then your content will not be successful. As you create your video, consider the actions you must take to ensure relevancy with your audience – this isn’t about what you LIKE–but what THEY LIKE.

Setting Timely Goals

Finally, your SMART goals must be timely or time-bound. This means that they should have a period of time attached to them to define WHEN you want to achieve the goal. For instance, you would not want to create a video with the goal of selling more products. This is a good starting goal, but it is not measurable (how many more products?) and it is not timely (how long to sell the products?).

As you set time-bound goals, remember to be realistic and achievable. It may not make sense to have a goal of selling 200% more products the first day you release the video. However, it may be realistic to sell 200% more over the year. Think about the time-bound goal as a way to set a time expectation for your video content campaign. How long do you want to wait before you measure the success (or failure) of your video?

If you follow these tips for setting SMART goals for your video content you will quickly see that the success of your video content marketing approach is deeply defined by the goals that you set. For help creating video content, call Beverly Boy Productions today!