Your Complete Guide To eCommerce Video Marketing

Videos are the most engaging form of marketing content. Their audiovisual appeal instantly pulls interest from potential customers and can allow for explaining topics in ways that still-image ads can’t.

Your eCommerce business must leverage video ads to get the most out of your ad spending. According to a study conducted by eConsultancy, in 2021, users arriving on an eCommerce site via user-generated video content are 184% more likely to make a purchase.

You don’t need professional equipment to create video ads. Smartphones can record 4K video, and some systems even have built-in video editors. However, how fancy your equipment is won’t matter if you don’t know how to take and promote videos. 

Here’s a complete guide to eCommerce video marketing.

1. Focus on the product

Effective eCommerce video marketing utilizes product demonstration videos to immediately give online users an idea of their product and what it does. Videos are especially useful if you are introducing a non-traditional and unconventional product. Your potential customers will want to see it in action instead of just reading about it or looking at pictures. 

A basic rule to follow is to show what the product can do and what it’s used for. Flex Tape infomercials, for example, show off the strength of their product and how to use it through a quick 2-minute video. Seeing it, viewers can already picture the many different uses for Flex Tape.

Once you’ve successfully pitched the product, you need to give the customer a way to buy it. You can add the product link in the description of your video ad so that customers who want to buy can immediately do so. This step will help you drive traffic to your site and help grow your eCommerce store.

2. Tell your brand's story

An effective eCommerce video marketing strategy will also feature the eCommerce’s brand, apart from the product. Highlight your branding by telling your brand’s story through a video.

There are two appeals you should have in a brand video:

• Empathy: Show viewers that you recognize a pain point they have, and you’re fully aware of how troublesome it is to deal with that issue. 
• Authority: Show viewers that you’re capable of addressing your customers' pain points. Briefly show notable partners, awards, and online reviews to elevate yourself as a capable brand.

A brand story may be as simple as a sit-down interview with your founder, substantiated by b-rolls. B-roll is relevant footage that serves as a visual aid to what the person on screen is saying, creating a more engaging brand video. The footage could include employees working, the product being made, customers using the product, and so on.

As for the interview, ask your CEO the following: 1) What consumer pain points does the company look to address, and 2) Where is the company now in terms of fixing those pain points. 

For example, the founder of pharma startup Molecule sat down to discuss why Molecule was founded and how the company collaborates with patients and patient advocacy groups to help researchers develop cures for little-known diseases: 

A successful brand story video will uplift the brand as one that customers can trust. Brand story videos may even be used in B2B marketing and investor acquisition, apart from gaining consumer trust. 

3. Tap into video testimonials

Leverage word-of-mouth marketing by using video testimonials. They’re like the reviews you’d see on Amazon, except instead of 4-paragraph reviews, they utilize customer interviews and sound bites.

You need not invite your customers over for a sit-down interview, though. With Judge.me, you can easily collect reviews with videos from your customers by sending automatic emails. Customers can upload their video reviews directly or insert a YouTube link via Judge.me widgets. That helps automate the collection of testimonial footage for your team, immediately giving them material to work with for a testimonial video.

In the description of your video testimonial, place the links to all featured products.

Good eCommerce video marketing should maximize video testimonials to encourage more people to use their products. 

4. Include videos in your emails

Whether it’s responding to an FAQ, B2B email marketing, or a product feature newsletter, embed videos into your emails to get the message across more clearly and directly.

Email marketing is an effective means for nurturing your leads. Use an email software solution to automate email campaigns and emulate a human response with your prospects. 

Throw in a video or two into your newsletters, and you’ll have potent email marketing pieces that will improve your conversion rates.

5. Use Retargeting Methods

When you’ve created various videos for your eCommerce video marketing, it’s not enough that you have them go live. People need to see them in the correct order.

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Luckily, Facebook and YouTube ads allow you to set up custom audiences that allow you to target your ideal audience. These settings will enable you to show certain video ads to users who have watched or liked your video, followed your page, or performed some other type of online behavior.

If your product needs some in-depth explaining, you may string together two or three product videos together where viewers are retargeted by the next after seeing 15 seconds of the previous video.

Your brand videos will then retarget those who have seen your product videos. When prospects see the brand video, they would have already seen your brand from a previous ad and already know what you make. Your brand video would better engage an audience familiar with what you do than strangers.

Finally, your video testimonials should only target those who have seen both your product videos and brand videos. Testimonials won’t entice strangers if they are not familiar with your product and brand beforehand.

Retargeting your prospects in this manner will introduce them to your brand multiple times, thereby increasing brand retention and optimizing conversion. You wouldn’t want your prospects to see either of your videos just once and then forget about you. 

In Closing

eCommerce video marketing is one of the most effective ways to sell your physical items online. With the power of digital marketing, video ads become a powerful conversion tool, quickly turning strangers into hot leads.

Create product videos that highlight what the product is. Create brand videos to retarget those who’ve seen your product videos. Your brand videos will highlight your brand’s story and position your business as an authority on fixing your prospects’ pain points.

Finally, retarget those who have seen your product videos and brand videos with testimonials. Capitalize on word-of-mouth marketing. Since you already have videos, maximize their use by embedding them into your newsletters. That will improve the conversion rates of your email campaign.

Follow all these steps, and your videos will take care of your eCommerce business.