Do You Know How to Monetize Your Video?

WHEN YOUTUBE LAUNCHED, it enabled everyone to become a video producer. However, until recently, the production quality of most user generated videos have been entertaining at best but not something a big brand would want to call you about sponsorship.




Now, it seems that every day content producers with stellar broadcast production credentials are asking for an opportunity to pitch. It's almost as if all of Hollywood has become unemployed and is looking to peddle their ideas for a video series. If it's not the producers, the indie video sites jump in to fill the void. There's another Funny Or Die, YuMe or strike.tv eager to partner with Nike and company to bring great, original, and not-for-the-faint-of-marketer-heart content to the world.

So, how do we compete with the pros?

As a first step, we need to define what we consider success. The challenge resides in measurement options being limited and lacking visibility. Here are three measures that are easy to capture without incurring incremental cost:

1. Total streams

2. Average viewing duration

3. Click-through data from clickable placement in or around the content

It is safe to assume that success is achieved if your show hits a "feel good" number of streams/views. However, monetizing traffic has proven very hard even for Google / YouTube which know a thing or two about the subject. So, for now, producing a hit show in your specific niche and rounding up sponsors for it once you hit this "feel good" number of views seems to be the way to go.