According to a recent Nielsen report, the average person consumes more than 6 hours of video per day –making it clear that video is the primary means for people to get their information. As nonprofit organizations, how can we use video to our advantage?

Whether you’re sharing the latest happenings, upcoming events, or updates on projects, video can be an extremely effective way to reach to donors. Video can have a much more powerful impact, visually and intellectually, than written communications. If a picture is a thousand words, then a video clip is worth ten times that amount!

Here are a few steps to get started using video for your marketing and fundraising outreach.

Your video’s purpose

You need to think about what you want to accomplish with your video. What audience you have in mind? Do you want to attract new donors or encourage current ones? Will you be explaining your overall mission, or a specific project you’re working on right now? Do you want to create a video series with an overarching theme? Answering these questions will help you form what story to tell with your video.

It’s important to not just create video to be trendy. Content is king, but context is even more important. As you make your video, consider not just the purpose and topic, but the tone and voice. Take a look at this amazing storytelling via video for Charity: Water to see the power of video to impact the heart and mind of the viewer.

Sharing your video

You will need to decide how you’ll be sharing your video. Will it be launched on your social channels, or via email? Will you create live videos on social media to showcase an event that your organization is hosting? How will you take advantage of organic viewership?

You might want to launch a branded YouTube channel so you can curate your videos by topic, project, date or subject matter. You’ll want the videos to be accessible via keyword searches and future linking to the YouTube page.

How to determine your video’s success

There are various ways to figure out if people enjoy your video content. Key performance indicators, such as number of views, traffic source, watch time, demographics, and even the number of donations received, are helpful to track to determine what types of videos and what messages work best. Take a look at YouTube’s Creator Academy to learn more about the importance of metrics and how to analyze and manage your own metrics.

Additionally, leaving the comment section can give insight into viewers’ thoughts, although you may need to moderate comments for spam.

But just having a YouTube page is not enough – you need to continue to provide fresh, well-made video content, to keep supporters visiting.

Whether you’re sharing your mission, raising awareness, inspiring action, demonstrating your impact, or telling a story, the visual power of video offers a connection to your organization that surpasses even the best writing. Don’t be intimidated – start creating your video strategy today.