If you have an eCommerce website but feel like traffic and conversions could be better, there’s a simple solution: video.
Video marketing has proven to be very effective for eCommerce retailers. In fact, more than 50% of marketers say that videos have a better return on investment than other content formats. Video is an excellent way to connect with your site visitors, inform them about what you’re offering, and turn them into paying customers.
But in order to see some results, you need to come up with a solid video marketing strategy. We’ve put together a list that will help you get started.
Choose the Right Video Hosting Service
Today, online videos are everywhere, so customers will probably be shocked if you don’t use them. However, don’t rush to start creating tons of videos just yet, as you might face a different issue: hosting too much video content on your website will slow things down. And you certainly don’t want that.
You need to be sure that your videos are safely stored, compressed, encoded, and viewable on different screens. And the solution for all these is video hosting.
Video hosting is the process of uploading your videos to a platform that makes them available in all the places they need to be. YouTube is one great example of a video hosting platform but there are also many other types of hosting services, and you need to search carefully for the one that is right for your business.
Hosting all the videos on your own would be expensive and take too much time. Video hosting services offer virtual data warehousing, a possibility for smooth uploading and tracking, as well as the necessary technology and network to deliver the videos in multiple places at the same time.
Add Videos to Your Product Pages
Videos on your product pages are a great way to educate customers about your products, demonstrate how they look, as well as how they work. This helps build trust and encourages customers to make the purchase.
If you don’t have enough time to make a video for every product on your website, at least try creating videos for your bestselling ones.
To find out what type of videos works best, get in touch with your current customers and discover what they like about a certain product and how they use it.
Leverage the Power of SEO
If you want to increase your visibility in search engines, SEO is a must.
Bear in mind that Google takes videos as ranking factors and YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine right now. So, optimizing your videos for SEO will make them more easily discoverable. Make sure to add keywords to your tags, descriptions, titles, and filenames for every video. If you’re posting videos on YouTube, add a link to your eCommerce website in the first line of your description, along with other relevant links.
Combine Video and Email
Did you know that simply adding the word ‘video’ to an email subject line could increase your open rates by nearly 20%?
Email marketing is widely used by eCommerce businesses as it is an excellent way to develop relationships with customers while at the same time increasing awareness for the newest offers.
You can include different types of videos in your emails, including “behind the scenes” ones that humanize your brand and tell your story, “how-to” videos, seasonal “thank you” videos, etc.
Remember to segment your email list and personalize your videos to make sure that the right videos reach the targeted customers.
Measure Your Results Regularly
Finally, don’t forget to monitor your video campaign results to see if it is effective or not.
Start by measuring the view count, but bear in mind that different platforms count views differently. For instance, Facebook considers a video as viewed if users engage with it for three seconds, whereas YouTube requires the engagement to last for at least half a minute in order to consider it viewed. View count is important because it lets you know if your intro is good or not. If the view count is low, you’ll know that you have to make some changes in the introduction in order to better hook your users.
You should also take a look at the CTR, which tells you how effective your call-to-action is. If your click-through-rate is low, check your CTA and find ways to make it better.
Another metric you need to measure is the watch rate. The watch rate tells you a lot about the duration of how long users engage with your videos. If it’s low, then probably your videos aren’t good enough to hold people’s attention until the end. To improve your watch rate, consider keeping your videos short, choosing a more eye-catching and relevant thumbnail, and changing the copy around the video to ensure it accurately communicates its content.
Of course, conversions are the most important metric to measure. Consider conducting A/B tests to figure out what types of videos do the best job at encouraging shoppers to make a purchase.
Final Thoughts
If you want to attract more people to your eCommerce store and convert them into buying customers, video is a crucial part of the process. Consider adding videos to your product pages and combining them with email. Also, don’t forget to take advantage of SEO and, finally, measure your videos’ performance so that you can figure out what improvements are necessary. Even if you are a video marketing newbie, it won’t be long before you start seeing the first results.
If you’re struggling for making short videos and marketing videos for your business, you can use online tools such as Pcmag and Clipchamp, or if you want to create videos on your phone, you can use apps such as video ad maker, Inshot, and filimorago. Although mobile apps offer fewer editing options than online video editing tools, they are ideal for short videos such as YouTube shorts or Instagram stories.
