Video has turned into one of the breakout trends in marketing for the past decade. Considering an average user spends approximately 100 minutes per day watching online videos, we're talking about the most popular choice for content consumption these days.
However, watching videos isn’t just about entertainment. You can also use videos for sales to increase the revenue of your online business.
With that in mind, let's go over what you need to know about using video to increase sales.
- How Does Video Content Help Businesses?
- Product Videos
- Marketing Videos
- Options for Creating Video For Sales
- Maximize Sales With Nexcess
How Does Video Content Help Businesses?
Implementing ecommerce video content into your overall marketing strategy can help by:
Building Trust
Building trust with customers will encourage them to be more ready to commit to the services and products you offer. Trust is one of the key driving forces for almost every purchasing decision a buyer faces, no matter what item they're looking for.
It's also how people distinguish their favorite brand from other companies offering similar products and services.
Boosting Sales and Conversions
Adding a product video to a landing page can help you increase conversions. In simple terms, conversion is a point where the user responds to your call to action (CTA).
Wyzowl showed that over 70% of users who watched an explainer video about a specific service or product ended up buying it. When you think about it, these statics are not even that surprising — vision is our most dominant sense and how we transmit most information to our brain.
Improving Return on Investment (ROI)
More than 80% of businesses say that video has an excellent ROI. Video production is not the cheapest nor the easiest task, but it pays off long-term. Also, online video editing tools are becoming more affordable and are improving all the time.
The videos you make don't have to be perfect because the content is what matters. Research backs that up, showing that users didn't find a poor design or low quality important. They were mainly put off by material that doesn't explain the service or product well enough, which means you can make decent videos with your smartphone alone.
Complementing Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Efforts
Video content helps you increase the time visitors spend on your website. While longer exposure positively affects trust, it also signals to search engines your website has helpful content users can benefit from.
You can optimize YouTube videos for SEO by adding keywords to the video title and description, tags, and links that lead back to your site, services, and products.
Appealing to Smartphone Users
90% of users watch videos on their smartphones. Google supports that idea, showing three in four people prefer watching YouTube videos on their phones. Since the number of mobile users is increasing and consumers prefer to watch videos on the go, your potential audience will continue to get bigger and bigger.
Now that you know the benefits of video let's see the different ways you can start incorporating videos to increase sales.
Product Videos
Product videos explain and visually exhibit a specific product and its benefits.
To make a good product video, make sure it contains the following elements:
- A meaningful narration paired with engaging dialogue.
- An adequate length — your video needs to be short enough to keep the user's attention and long enough to explain the product and its benefits in detail.
- A professional tone and approach — you don't want your video to be "stuffy."
- Relatability and empathy.
There are different types of product videos you can create:
Teaser/Promos
Most TV commercials and other advertisements promoting products are usually teasers. They tap into the viewers' emotions to affect their perception of prestige, wealth, beauty, or other elements they want to target.
For instance, take a look at chocolate commercials. They show you the process of raw chocolate swirling, pouring, and eventually mixing with the rest of the tasty ingredients, after which you get a perfect final product someone is thrilled to eat.
Another good example is videos for perfumes that create extra dimension with magical lightning and charming people looking grandiose.
All in all, teaser videos are both the top and the bottom of the funnel. You'll leave new customers mesmerized, intrigued, and wanting more, while loyal customers will feel like they're part of the magic and continue purchasing your products.
Explainers
Explainer videos tell buyers what's behind your product. Such videos tend to showcase the product in its best light and explain what problem it solves. They're mostly something a customer can find halfway down the marketing funnel after they have already become aware of the product and are now at the consideration stage.
Compared to a teaser, an explainer video gives more information about your product. It reels the buyer in by relating to their needs and present problems. These videos are not that much about glamour but practicality.
Demo or 'How-To' Video
A demo product video tells people how a product works, shows the details, and eventually convinces them to buy it. At times, this type of video will be something customers at the top of the funnel need to be drawn in. However, demos mostly go step by step, explaining how to use the service or product to solve a specific problem.
These videos must be well-narrated as well as cover helpful details. For instance, SaaS product companies often find demo product videos useful because they can show how to use software features to achieve specific goals.
Marketing Videos
Now let's go over how to use video for sales in marketing. Here we'll talk about the different types of video content companies use to promote their services, products, and, above all, values.
Video Ads
Commercials or video ads are the type people are most familiar with. Ads are overtly promotional and designed to sell something to people — even if that something we're talking about is the image of your company.
They are often short. Although a good ad can accomplish the set goal in less than one minute, 30 seconds is the perfect length most video ads fall into on the internet. The most successful video ads are based on a narrative that makes them memorable and helps people identify with the story.
Video ads are an essential part of pay-per-click (PPC) strategies. They can make your clickable ads way more compelling to target audiences and boost your ROI. As for marketing goals, a good commercial can improve brand awareness and draw attention to your business. Video ads are also something you can do to funnel users into your lead generation landing pages.
Employees/Company Showcase
What's a business without the people in the background creating its magic? Company story videos are a great way to show who's standing behind your brand.
These videos humanize companies, which audiences crave, especially in the modern age of instant communication and constant movement. Customers want to develop a more personal relationship with brands and identify with the core values they represent — which is something company stories help with.
Educational Videos
Is education something you relate to fun, engaging content? Well, in the case of educational videos, it should be. They make excellent videos for sales by presenting helpful information to the audience in an engaging way.
They tend to use specific narrative resources such as a sharp script and compelling graphics to cover topics relevant to their target audience.
Educational content is crucial during the customer's awareness phase. In this stage, they may not even know they have an issue that requires a solution, which gives you a great chance to step in to educate them.
In other words, you aim to stir their interest enough to encourage them to move further down the funnel. Also, educational videos help you provide valuable information clearly and precisely and establish a better relationship with potential customers.
Options for Creating Video For Sales
There are two ways you can create a video for sales — keep it in-house or outsource it to a video agency. Each of these options comes with advantages and disadvantages.
Keep It In-House
Advantages:
- It can be cheaper.
- Your team will know how videos fit into your general marketing plan (including colors, specific design features, and how you generally communicate with your audience).
- Your existing team will quickly understand the message you want to convey (they have a better understanding of the basic principles of your brand).
Disadvantages:
- You'll have to invest in equipment (which isn't always physical stuff, but apps or different video editing programs).
- Your employees may not be appropriately trained for creating top-notch videos.
Outsource A Video Agency
Advantages:
- You're getting a professional team trained explicitly to create high-quality video content.
- Outsiders offer a fresh perspective and unique content that may expand your horizons.
Disadvantages:
- An agency may not be familiar with the specifics of your brand and how you communicate with your audience.
- They need to get to know you better to create content that will fit into your overall marketing strategy.
Maximize Sales With Nexcess
Both research and praxis showed videos for sales are one of the lead trends in 2022. Now, since you're about to invest in a new strategy for your marketing plan, the question remains — what's the best platform to track sales?
Nexcess’ fully-managed, high-performance digital cloud platforms offer a Sales Performance Monitor as part of its built-in testing features. It's an intelligence engine that sends you alerts on sales trends, captures issues with payment processors or site slowness, and generally helps you measure your ecommerce performance.
Access the Sales Performance monitor and many other features through Nexcess’ managed WordPress ecommerce plans. Sign up for a plan today.