If you are running a Forex broker or related website, you are most likely closely following your Google Analytics , watching performance of banners and adwords campaigns, and optimizing your site for maximum click-throughs and conversions. Assisting in this endeavor are all sorts of programs that offer real time and historical monitoring of items such as SEO worthiness of a site, optimal placements for links and signup forms, and analyzing which adverts and in what regions are best at bringing in leads and real clients. Beyond the website, firms are often also using tracking software to analyze how well their email campaigns are doing. They can also easily run A-B tests on a small portion of an email list to decide which subject titles and landing pages to use before sending out emails to a larger group of leads or clients. Overall, forex companies understand the importance of data analysis, and if a firm doesn’t, it can simply take a look at the just concluded US Presidential election where ‘Data Analysis’ has been crowned the real winner, to comprehend its importance.
But how about videos, where do they fall in the world of analytics? Without a doubt, in the world of training new clients and providing free education, video has become an important part of any broker’s back of tricks. Whether it’s through live webinars or embedded videos that are either self hosted or on YouTube or Vimeo, clients are active viewers and enjoy the material. However, as important as videos are, tracking who is watching them and how much of it can be tricky. Depending on how a video is hosted, a company can get a semblance of how well viewed their videos are, but understanding whether a specific client is interested in a video is harder to gauge One method that does work is through webinars where viewers need to sign up for either the live or recorded presentation. Such a system allows brokers to focus more of their attention on leads that are engaged in their content. While this method works, the disadvantage is that viewers need to enter an email and can’t just click play; thus limiting the eventual audience that ever watches a presentation.
Another tool companies can use is Wistia. Wistia offers a combination of video hosting along with analytics that measures how much of a video is being watched and who is watching. In its simplest form of analysis, the product produces a heat map that in addition to measuring how many times a video was watched, also shows what parts of the presentation were most viewed. By using this data, firms can see whether their videos are being watched till the end or turned off after a few seconds. The information also helps decipher if there is a problem with a recording, as areas that aren’t watched are often the result of bad audio or video output in that section. In addition, Wistia tracks IP addresses, which can be used to analyze where a viewer is from and whether they are watching multiple videos.
The real meat though is the products email tracking. To get an idea of this feature, we can look at two real life examples (Author’s note: I am a Wistia user and the cases below are based on successful real life uses of the product. Just to be clear though, I have no affiliation with Wistia other than as a client, and this write up is part of Forex Magnate’s aim to provide our readers information to help them succeed in the FX space)
Video Campaigns
The area that Wistia really excels is with video email campaigns. The product allows users to track viewers by either their name or email address and follow their viewing habits. After uploading a recording onto Wistia and embedding it on one’s website, brokers can then send their clients an email alerting them about the video. Wistia provides a tracking code that can be added to the video link. After an email recipient opens an email and clicks to view the video, the Wistia software will then tag that view to the email and monitor how much was watched. This method is especially effective for companies sending daily or weekly trading videos. After an email is tagged, the stats will mark down each video viewed from that email address. Once collected, the engagement data can be then passed to sales and retention people for follow-ups of interested viewers.
Wistia Video Analytics
Lead Generation
Another way to use the product is with lead generation. Rather than use a boring landing page, companies can advertise a series of free videos. After entering an email, the prospect will be then sent a series of videos. This is optimally done by creating an auto-responder system which will automatically send signees a new email video every day or so. Companies can then monitor the viewing practices to understand who is interested in the videos in order to send further product solicitations or invites to more training. The overall advantage of this method is that it applies the ‘permission marketing’ strategy of offering leads something of value for free.
More Goodies
In addition to the two cases above, Wisita also includes other features to boost a video’s marketing abilities. This includes the ability to brand the video player with a company’s logo and colors. Also, users can add a ‘call to action’ at the end of a video such as a link to open a new account. Another nice trick is the capability to combine multiple videos into one playlist. Once combined, the videos can then be configured that a viewer will be allowed to watch the beginning of the playlist but will be instructed to enter an email to continue viewing.
Make Videos Your Audience Will Enjoy
Beyond the ability to track engagement, the analytics data provides a glimpse of audience interest. By comparing stats on videos, users are able to determine which ones are well received by their viewers and those that fail. By studying why one video is more popular than another, firms can create videos that are more likely to be appreciated by their audience. (On this note, a personal example is that after creating several forex strategy videos, I realized that what I thought were the ‘better’ ones were underperforming. What I realized was that my audience wanted simpler videos rather than more complicated information. This led me to focus on providing shorter videos with simpler information that built off each other but could be viewed on their own) Explaining the importance of audience analytics and understanding viewer interests, Chris Savage, CEO of Wistia told us “By understanding engagement and how people respond overtime you can make videos that are more effective because they better fit the audience's expectations.”
Overall, the world of tracking audience behavior is nothing new, at the television industry has been analyzing ratings and demographics information for years. In the online world though, this information is still in its infancy. However, just like analytics has become an integral part of any advertising campaign, the trend is that tracking audience behavior on videos will also become common place. As such, firms that are early adopters to this technology and take advantage of optimizing their video campaigns before their competitors do, will have a head start.
