Book Vid Lit
by Sheila Clover-English
Sheila Clover English, the CEO of Circle of Seven Productions, has been a pioneer
in book video production, marketing and distribution for authors and publishers
Monitoring the effectiveness of a book video campaign is essential for a variety of reasons. First, it is exciting to watch the view count rise and see which sites the video is doing well on. Second, the analytical information we monitor is actionable. The video view count provides a sound basis for monitoring a video campaign and making informed decisions about marketing and promotions. We can supply clients with up-to-date view counts in an easy to understand graph. But this is just the beginning. From the video views we can establish a benchmark, which is very important. This allows us to easily compare the progress of several videos at once and see how a video is performing relative to others of the same genre. If one of our videos falls under our established benchmark, we can take action to bring that number up to expectations. We can add more distribution, send out more bulletins about the video or create a blog that highlights the video in order to attract more views.Many have heard the old saying, “Only half of all marketing works. You just don’t know which half.” Through experience and benchmarking you can come up with a pretty accurate formula for the performance of your marketing or promotional efforts. By using emerging technologies, watching trends and applying educated intuition you determine reasonable probabilities for which efforts are most likely to be successful.Let me demonstrate this with a case study.Seven months ago we created a video for an author’s novel entitled Xen. The author was happy with the product and the distribution. Though that particular marketing campaign had ended, we kept the video available online for an extended period of time so new viewers might continue to discover it. (This is something COS routinely does with client videos.)A couple of weeks ago I was monitoring our uploads. Included in the information that I get on a daily basis is the list of our most viewed videos on a given site. I noticed that more than one of our sites listed Xen in the top 5 of “most viewed” videos for that day. Keep in mind that this is a seven month old video.
I found it unusual for an older video to make out top list, but was even more surprised when this was repeated the following day. At that point I knew there had to be something driving the renewed interest in the video. I called the author’s agent and told her about my observations. I told her that I knew they were doing something because the video views spiked beyond our standard benchmarks. The agent was thrilled to hear the news!
The book is about a future utopian society run by women. The author had spent a week visiting universities and colleges, talking about the book to students and faculty, and suggesting that it be used in the school’s curriculum. The college students, who represented the target audience for the book, were intrigued enough to look it up on the internet. They also found the video. They actively searched out more information about this book. The combined effect of the speaking tour and a well targeted book video, inspired the student to take action.
Did it result in sales? In this case it did. But, even if it is not possible to correlate sales with the event or the spike in video views, it was nevertheless successful and effective in motivating an audience into seeking more information about the book. The more engaged a potential customer, the more likely a sale.
For example, if a client has specified a date for a special event and the campaign is geared toward this event, we can monitor through daily, weekly or monthly video views how active their campaign is as we near the event. Should we see a dip in views right before the event, we can make decisions to help get views up, thus ensuring that the event date stays fresh in the minds of the online public. We might have the client do a blog or a press release, or we may do one for them. We can ask the client to send out a newsletter or make a special announcement on their online groups. We can refresh the campaign right before the event.
These are just a sample of the ways that authors and publishers can use analytics to get more from their book video marketing campaigns.
Related Posts
- Taking a Balanced Approach to Book Video Marketing
- Book Videos Inside – The Story about the Story about the Story
- Impact = Content x Consumption x Engagment
- Publishing Analytics
