5 responses to “Words vs Video”

1. Denisa Casement says:

   May 1, 2015 at 4:28 am

   I’ve seen so many deeply moving videos for charity. It’s hard to imagine any medium that touches the emotions the way a great video does.

   But I’m just not seeing the metrics that show video converting to donations. I have talked to lots of charities about their video and the metrics are dismal. 600,000+ views on YouTube and only a couple of donations. A producer of videos on the homeless told me 65,000 views typically brings in less than $500. There are some great videos getting lots of views but few donations.

   The videos are great but the stats I’m hearing about are lower than conversions on other types of digital marketing. We clearly haven’t cracked this nut.

   Videos are fabulous for donor engagement and increasing donor loyalty. The emotional connection they build for existing donors is hard to beat.

   But we really need to see some metrics behind the videos before we move resources from a revenue producing stream to video. We all need to keep working at it but I’m very tired of seeing examples touted with no metrics to tell us how effective they actually are.

   We need to demand the same rigour in measuring digital as we regularly use for our more conventional direct marketing.

   I am all for using tools for donor loyalty and retention but I have different measurements than I do for direct marketing. I think we need to be very clear about what exactly a particular marketing channel is producing and how it is best used.

   Show me the metrics

2. Gary Shearin says:

   May 1, 2015 at 6:34 am

   Greetings from London.

   Chaps, you surprise me. It’s a nice little video, but…

   …I’d become accustom to you rightly saying, ‘look, no call to action!’, ‘the donor isn’t star’, ‘metaphors don’t work’, and ‘show the donor the problem and how they can fix it’.

   Perhaps this helps answer Denisa’s question about why even the best of these videos get low conversion rates. Maybe because the entry cost is low, it becomes the playground of ‘brand exercises’ or provides the ‘it’s awareness raising’ excuse.

   If the space was more expensive we would be borrowing from direct-response TV more. For example driving people to premium SMS or telephone, rather then asking them to faf about clicking through and having to fill in on-line forms.

3. G. Steve Jordan says:

   May 1, 2015 at 8:46 am

   Denisa – It occurs to me that one add’l metric which may be difficult to measure is the benefit an organization receives when a broader audience is aware of and understands the mission and the good works accomplished.

   I live in an area where the local land trust has experienced some negative blowback to their land acquisition plans, due primarily, I believe, to the lack of understanding about the organization, it’s mission and it’s previous successes. Not sure how that can be measured, or actually proven….

   [full disclosure: I am a videographer]

4. Mike Cowart says:

   May 1, 2015 at 9:44 am

   I love Denisa’s question re video & revenue. I attended a donor engagement webinar on Wednesday based on interviews with 1,263 donors. “They love short videos”, but no one is talking about the $$.

   Are there any stats?
   Thanks

5. Denisa Casement says:

   May 3, 2015 at 2:30 pm

   I think video is definitely a good way to educate and advocate. Education and advocacy both lend overall support to a cause. But when we start talking about adding it to our fundraising quiver we have to apply the same metrics we do to our other fundraising streams.