What Is the Real Cost of Answer Engine Optimization? About 90 Minutes Per Video

The real cost of answer engine optimization (AEO) depends on how fast you want to move. My recommendation is about 90 minutes per video for one person on your team: roughly 30 minutes picking goals and buyer questions, 30 minutes on a realistic plan, and 15 minutes at the most recording.

Free download: Get the AEO Video Checklist to keep your answer engine optimization plan on track.

Key Takeaways

• Budget about 90 minutes per video for one person on your team. You can go more aggressive or more moderate depending on how fast you want to move.
• Spend about 30 minutes on goals and picking your biggest buyer questions, about 30 minutes on a plan you can actually pull off, and 15 minutes at the most recording.
• Each 90 minutes produces one video answer to one buyer question. Keep answering until buyers have their main questions covered, about 80% of the way to the sale.
• The plan is designed to change. Watch whether people click, and whether they watch about 70% of the way through.
• If you do nothing, competitors who answer buyer questions on video will show up instead of you.

This fits inside a bigger picture. If you want the full view first, here's the bigger picture.

How much time does answer engine optimization take per video?

About 90 minutes for one person on your team. That is my recommendation for a moderate pace. You can take a more aggressive approach or a more moderate one. The real cost has a lot to do with how fast you want to move.

Here is where the time goes:

1. About 30 minutes: goals and buyer questions. Come up with your goals and pick the biggest buyer questions your buyers are asking right now, the most important ones.
2. About 30 minutes: the plan. Create a plan based on what is possible for you and what is realistic. Then approve it and go into production.
3. 15 minutes at the most: recording. Record the video answer.

Then post it, analyze the results, and rinse and repeat. For those 90 minutes, you get one video answer to one buyer question.

AEO stands for answer engine optimization. It means building content so AI answer engines can find it and cite it when buyers ask their questions.

What does one video answer get you?

Your buyer is on a journey toward a sale, and they have questions along the way. Each 90-minute cycle answers one of those questions. Then you answer the next one in a similar fashion.

Once buyers have their main questions answered, they are about 80% of the way to the sale. That is when they are ready to take a sales call.

"So that's the big idea is we're trying to help them self-educate by giving them the video material that they really need to self-educate." Dane Frederiksen

What happens if the AEO strategy fails?

It is sort of designed to fail as you go. Your buyers are going to have different questions as the marketplace changes. So you rinse and repeat.

Optimization is built into the process. You look at what is working and what is not, then revise and improve on what you have already put out there. The strategy works, but it is going to change every time.

How do you know a video is working?

Ask two questions:

• Are people clicking on the video to watch it?
• Are they watching most of the way through?

I look for 70%. If you get 70%, Google is going to promote that video. Something like 3X is the figure I am familiar with, because you are resonating with the right people.

There is a second payoff. Because buyers educate themselves most of the way through the journey, by the time they talk to sales at that 80% mark they are really qualified. They have done their due diligence and figured out you are already the right fit. In my experience those leads convert at something like 3X the rate, because they are better leads.

What happens if you do nothing?

Your competitors are going to figure this out. They will start making video answers to buyer questions, and they will show up instead of you.

That matters because trust goes to whoever helps the buyer. As buyers move down the journey and get educated, the person helping them evaluate what a good decision looks like for their unique situation is the one building trust. The more time they spend with you, the more they trust you.

Why do B2B sales cycles take so long?

There are so many questions buyers have to evaluate. The rule I have heard is the Google 7-11-4 rule (or maybe it is 7-4-11). The point is that buyers spend about seven hours with your content, across four different platforms, over 11 different touch points.

Long-form video is a great way to get to seven hours efficiently. Imagine seven hour-long videos where you go deep and answer most of the main questions a buyer could have. Then you have them at the 80% mark.

Where do the buyer questions come from?

Answer the questions buyers are actually asking, not the ones you think they need to know. Use the words they type into AI search and the problems they have already identified.

That intel comes directly from buyer questions in your sales transcripts. This is really about them, not about you. Help them, and they will appreciate it.

"This is really about them, it's not about you, and we're gonna help them and they're gonna appreciate it." Dane Frederiksen

Get the free AEO Video Checklist

The checklist keeps your AEO plan on track. Download the AEO Video Checklist here. If you want some help with this, just reach out. This is what I do, and I am happy to help.

Doing the thing is the easy part. The hard part is knowing where you're already winning and where you're invisible. That's exactly what our free AI Visibility Snapshot shows you, before you spend a dollar.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much time does answer engine optimization take per video?

About 90 minutes for one person on your team: roughly 30 minutes on goals and buyer questions, 30 minutes on a realistic plan, and 15 minutes at the most recording. You can go faster or slower depending on how fast you want to move.

What is AEO?

AEO stands for answer engine optimization. It means building content so AI answer engines can find it and cite it when buyers ask their questions.

What watch rate should a B2B video aim for?

About 70% of the way through. If you get 70%, Google tends to promote the video, because you are resonating with the right people.

What happens if the AEO strategy fails?

It is designed to change. Buyer questions shift as the market changes, so you watch clicks and completion, revise what is not working, and repeat.

What is the 7-11-4 rule?

The rule Dane Frederiksen has heard, attributed to Google, is that buyers spend about seven hours with your content, across four platforms, over 11 touch points before they buy. Long-form video is an efficient way to reach those seven hours.

When is a buyer ready for a sales call?

When their main questions are answered, which puts them about 80% of the way to the sale. At that point they have done their due diligence and are highly qualified.

Full Transcript

The real cost of answer engine optimization has a lot to do with how fast you want to move. You can do an aggressive approach or you can do a more moderate approach. My recommendation is to spend about 90 minutes per video for one person on your team. And I'll show you exactly how we're gonna spend that. And I'm gonna show you exactly how to work through this entire process and what the trade-offs are. And then I'm gonna have a checklist for you at the end that you can download for free to keep you on track with your answer engine optimization plans.

So let's get right into it. So this 90 minutes I mentioned, I'll show you how we're gonna spend that. We're gonna come up with some goals together and pick your biggest buyer questions that they're asking right now, the most important ones. We're gonna spend about 30 minutes on that. And then we're gonna create a plan based on what's possible for you and what's realistic. And then we're gonna approve that plan and then go into production.

So we're gonna spend 30 minutes here and then 30 minutes over here. And then we're gonna spend 15 minutes at the most recording video. So we're gonna start with those buyer questions that they're asking. We're gonna come up with the answers for how you're gonna answer those questions. Then we're gonna post those, analyze the results, and then rinse and repeat. So for 90 minutes, we can get all these steps and get one video answer for your buyer questions.

So that's gonna be, this is their buyer funnel right here. There's buyer journey. They're moving towards the sale. We're gonna spend 90 minutes on that question and we're gonna answer these other questions in a similar fashion. And once they have enough of their questions answered, we're gonna just sort of check those off. These are all video answers we've done.

And once they have all their main questions answered, it's like 80% of the way they are towards the sale. Then they're gonna be ready to take a sales call. So that's the big idea is we're trying to help them self-educate by giving them the video material that they really need to self-educate. And so what is gonna happen if the strategy fails? Well, it's sort of designed to fail as we go because what's gonna happen is your buyers are gonna have different questions as the marketplace changes, right? So we're gonna just rinse and repeat.

So built into this process is the idea of optimization, right? We're gonna be looking at what's working and what's not. And we're gonna revise and then improve upon what we've already put out there. So the strategy works, but it's gonna change every time. The way, if we see that it's like failing, the way we're gonna know that is, are people clicking on the video to watch it? Are they watching it most of the way through?

We're looking for 70% because if you do get 70%, Google's gonna promote that video like 3X is the figure I'm familiar with. Because you're resonating with the right people. And so the other thing that's gonna happen is these people because they're educating most of the way through the journey, by the time they talk to sales at that 80% mark, they're really, really qualified. They've done their due diligence. They've figured out that you're already the right fit. So those leads will convert at like 3X the amount because they're better leads.

They're highly qualified. So what happens if you do nothing? Well, what's gonna happen is your competitors are gonna figure this out. They're gonna start making video answers to buyer questions and they're gonna show up instead of you. And that's not good because on the buyer journey, as they move down and they get educated, the person who's helping them is building that trust. They're being helpful.

They're showing them, helping them evaluate what a good decision for their unique situation is. And so the more time we can spend with them, the more they're gonna trust us. This is why B2B sales takes so long. There's so many questions they have to evaluate. And so the rule that I've heard is the Google 7-4-11 rule or maybe it's 7-11-4, the point is they've got to spend seven hours with your content on four different platforms over 11 different touch points. And so long form video, what a great way to get to seven hours efficiently, right?

So imagine that there's seven hour long videos where you go deep dive and you've answered like most of the main questions they could possibly have, then you got them. You got them to the 80% mark. You've done a really good job of being the best answer to their specific questions that they're asking, not the ones that you think that they need to know, the ones they're actually searching for when they go to type in an AI search, the words they use and the solutions to the problems that they've identified, that's where the intel comes in, is we're pulling that directly from buyer questions that they have from the sales transcripts. And this is a key part of it, is this is really about them, it's not about you, and we're gonna help them and they're gonna appreciate it. And then you're gonna be able to close more at like 3X the amount. So the link to the checklist for your AEO plan is in the description.

If you want some help with this, just reach out, this is what I do and I'm happy to help. All right, good luck.

Most teams don't get this right on the first try. Here's how we approached it for a real team. Curious what it'd look like for you? Let's talk it through.