When done right, corporate videos can be an extremely valuable communication tool, with many benefits for your business. But how do you know if your corporate videos are succeeding and worth the investment? By measuring the results of the video against your goals to find the ROI (Return on Investment).

The simplest way to measure a corporate video’s performance is to look at the number of plays the video has had. But, if you are creating corporate videos for any goal other than just “get people to press play” (such as to bring in new customers or increase sales), the number of plays will not give you accurate insight into the return on your investment, or if there are improvements you could make in your next video.

Here are three ways to better measure the ROI of your online corporate video:

Length of time viewers are watching your videos.

How to measure: Record how long viewers watch the video divided by how long the video is.

What the data tells you: Understanding how long people are engaging with your video can provide you with some very important information. It can tell you the point in the video that is the least engaging, that loses the interest of the viewer. It can tell you if the content is valuable to the viewer. It can tell you if viewers are watching long enough to reach the call to action or not. All of this information can help you understand if the corporate video is really achieving its intended purpose, or if changes need to be made in future videos.

Video Play Rate

How to measure: Record the number of video plays divided by number of visitors to the web page it is on.

What the data tells you: The play rate of a video gives you an indication of how attractive and engaging that video is, just from the description, thumbnail, and other teaser information on the web page that encourages people to click play. It answers the questions: Are people watching your corporate video when they get to the page? When they see the video, are they pressing play? Is the video an important element on the page?

If you have a video on your site, but the percentage of people that visit the page and find it appealing enough to click play is low, that video has poor ROI because people are ignoring the video. However if the percentage is high, that means the video is an important part of that page. This information can help you improve the attractiveness of the video by changing the thumbnail, teaser information, layout of the page, or creating different video content altogether.

The benefit of corporate videos to business operations

How to measure: Define the business operations element you would like to see changed, and then record the change in action or behaviors related to that goal.

What the data tells you: If the goal of the video is to change a certain business operation, you will need to go deeper than the standard video analytics. For example, if your goal is to reduce the amount of customer service calls for a particular issue by creating a how to video for the website, your customer service team could measure how many calls came in about that issue before and after the video was published.

All of these measurements can help you create better videos in the future by telling you what length, style, and information resonates the most with your audience. By taking the time to define your goals and measure your results, and partnering with a professional video production company that you can grow and adapt with, you will develop a competitive corporate video strategy that pays for itself many times over.