8 Ways to Use Video Marketing to Increase Your eCommerce Sales
While it’s true that high-quality product images, carefully crafted descriptions and glowing reviews all play a critical role in successful eCommerce, there’s something else that can really help boost your sales…
Video marketing.
As well as helping increase conversions, videos are a fantastic way to grow your brand, find new customers and engage more with existing shoppers. According to Wyzowl, 79% of consumers favour watching a video rather than reading about a product, and 84% have actually bought something after watching a video.
If you’re looking to take advantage of this opportunity but don’t quite know where to begin, here are 8 great ideas to help you get started…
1. Utilise product videos
One of the biggest barriers to people making an order online is not being able to see exactly what they are buying. After all, it’s just not like being in a shop where you can actually physically hold or touch the product.
When it comes to overcoming this, there’s no better way to showcase your products than with engaging videos showing the features or functionality of each item. These can be included on each product listing to increase trust and boost conversions.
2. Take advantage of 360-degree videos
If you want to take this a stage further, why not consider utilising 360-degree videos to give visitors a view of your products from all angles?
As well as providing a more immersive experience, these videos can help you to stand out and gain an advantage over your competitors who don’t currently offer this feature.
3. Create product demos, tutorials or how-to videos
For more complex products that might have a steeper learning curve, a useful video showing how to use the product or answering common customer questions is a great way to build trust and engagement.
As well as helping consumers decide whether the product is right for them, these videos also help establish your business as an expert in your industry.
4. Upload video testimonials
The simple truth is that people tend to trust what other people say about you more than what you say yourself.
With this in mind, video testimonials are a fantastic way to build trust and increase sales. As well as being more engaging than written testimonials, consumers are more likely to trust a video testimonial because they can actually see someone speaking to camera, which really helps to bring it to life.
5. Interview experts
Why not interview experts about topics that will be of interest to your target audience and record these as videos?
Again, this is a fantastic way to build your brand and further establish your business as a leading authority source. Videos can be uploaded to your website, and they can also be shared by the expert themselves, thereby introducing your products to a new audience.
6. Share native videos on social media
Of course, no article about video marketing would be complete without mentioning social media. Sharing videos on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube is a fantastic way to create interest in your products and engage with your audience. If users also start sharing your videos, it’s possible to reach thousands of people in a very short space of time.
Videos should be uploaded optimised for each platform, with smart use of tags and hashtags to help people find them. For maximum exposure, it’s also important to upload videos natively to each channel in order to take advantage of the latest newsfeed algorithms. For example, don’t just share one of your YouTube videos to your Facebook page – always upload it separately to Facebook.
7. Dive into live streaming
There’s no getting away from the fact that services like Facebook Live and Instagram Live have grown massively over the last few years.
Going ‘live’ is a great way to engage with your audience on a highly personal level, helping you build trust and providing consumers with a greater insight into your business and products. What’s more, it’s super easy to get started, with no need for pre-recording videos or undertaking time-consuming editing. All you need to do is grab your smartphone.
8. Share videos on other platforms
It certainly makes sense to make sure your videos reach as wide an audience as possible. As well as being integrated into your ecommerce store and distributed by social media, videos can be repurposed and used within blog content, incorporated into your email marketing campaigns, or even shown at trade events.
Final words
Video is a fantastic way to boost conversions, increase trust, reach new audiences and so much more. As well as helping users feel more comfortable and confident about your products, they can be used to create a story around your brand and greatly broaden the reach of your products.
While creating professional videos requires investment, it’s also possible to get started with video marketing with little or no budget using something like Facebook Live. Ultimately, the key is start to start off small, track your results and then invest more money into video once you’ve found out what works. With research showing that online video is expected to make up more than 82% of consumer internet traffic by 2022, it’s time to get in on the action.