In case you missed it, Invodo CEO Craig Wax was recently featured in both Digiday and ReelSEO with information of interest to retailers.
In DigiDay Craig laid out Three Keys for Mobile Video Success. Implementing video on a retail site is a great step, but optimizing for mobile is increasingly important. After all, almost 300 million smartphones are sold daily, leading consumers to become “informed impulse buyers” who have product information at their fingertips. Optimizing your video program for mobile starts with asking the right questions and setting the right goals. There’s more on the topic in DigiDay here.
In ReelSEO Craig covered eCommerce Video Trends for 2011. Have you thought about how video can, if done properly, support retail prices? As well as augmenting social commerce and helping organizations meet multiple business objectives? A new year is starting and these trends are already underway, so take a look.
Invodo’s Craig Wax was featured in two publications recently with some useful information for anyone considering video for online retail.
In Chief Marketer, Craig’s article The Essential eCommerce Video Cheat Sheet covers the terms and concepts you as a retailer should be familiar with in considering a video program 
designed to enhance experience and drive conversion. It’s a complete glossary from Above the Fold to View-Through Rate – everything you need to know to come across as an expert in discussing eCommerce video.
There’s more useful information in a Practical eCommerce interview with Craig (also available as a podcast). In conversation with Practical eCommerce’s Kerry Murdock, Craig covers details that make a video drive conversion effectively – the right tone, presenter, length, scripting and other details that make a big difference in conversion effectiveness.
We’re pleased to be part of the conversation that defines eCommerce video as this rapidly-expanding space heats up. To stay on top of it, keep up with us on the blog, on our always-updated video statistics page, and in the latest news section of our site.
According to SocialTwist’s recent analysis of sharing behavior, content shared on social networks is much more likely to generate click-throughs than content shared through blogs or IM. In fact, social networks account for 60% of the click-throughs from SocialTwist’s Tell-a-Friend widget, followed by email with 31% of click-throughs. Sharing isn’t just caring. Since eCommerce video drives conversion for online retailers, sharing is good business.
The click-through rate (CTR) on socially shared content tells an even more compelling story. Content shared through Twitter has a staggering 1905% CTR. That’s not a typo – a link shared on Twitter gets an average of 19.05 clicks. Facebook does well also, with a 287% CTR. If your perspective is that relatively few users will choose to share your content, you’re missing the point. Those are high-leverage users and you should do everything you can to make it easy for them to share your content. Social sharing is a force multiplier because when links are shared by friends and family we treat them very differently than links sent to us by marketers. For every five times a link is shared on Twitter, nearly 100 people view it.
That’s why we advocate enabling sharing eCommerce video as a best practice. Sharing can drive business benefit if it’s done in a way that doesn’t risk interfering with the purchase process. That’s important for eCommerce video, where driving conversion – not distracting viewers with bells and whistles – is key. Clients such as Moosejaw Mountaineering and Paul Fredrick have found that our approach meets those criteria, and we’re excited to see them using it.
Do you share video content? If you use eCommerce video, do you have sharing enabled? If not, why not? Let me know in the comments.
Working with a variety of online retailers and brands, Invodo shoots video for multiple types of products across various product categories. When first planning a video strategy for our clients, one of the immediate questions asked is, “Which products in our catalog should we shoot video for first?”
For retailers who sell tens of thousands of products across multiple product categories, it is impossible, and ill advised to suggest they cover their entire product catalog at once or just shoot video one product category at a time. There are certain types of products that benefit more from having eCommerce video and identifying those products is one of the most important, and strategic decisions to make.
To make the most of your eCommerce video investment, start by shooting video for the products that fall into one or more of the categories below.
1. 80/20
Shoot video for the products that account for a high percentage of your sales. If 80 percent of your sales come from 20 percent of your products, create video for as many products in that 20 percent as you can. If that number seems daunting, start with the top 5 percent and work your way down.
2. High Traffic
Products with high traffic mean more opportunity for you to convert those browsers into buyers. If your high traffic products are not converting at a high rate, definitely consider shooting eCommerce video for those products. Video increases conversion by an average of 30% so take advantage of the power of video and cover your high traffic products.
3. Complex Features
Products with complex features, such as portable air conditioners, greatly benefit from eCommerce video. Consumers are often hesitant to buy complex products online because of the inability to see and test all the different components. With eCommerce video, you are able prove a product’s value by demonstrating important features and highlighting unique product benefits. eCommerce video improves consumer confidence, increasing the chances they will buy.
4. High Margin
The more high margin products you sell the more profit you will make. Internet Retailer reports that visitors who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy than visitors who do not so use video to drive traffic, increase conversion, and reduce returns for your high margin items. You are sure to see a great return in your video investment.
Congratulations! You’ve overcome Fear of Creating Video. Perhaps you’ve committed the significant resources needed for an in-house program, perhaps you’ve engaged with an eCommerce video provider. Either way you’re producing at scale and will have videos for hundreds or thousands of your key products. Now it’s time to overcome the next hurdle in the Fear of Video series: deploying those videos on your product pages.
How will I put it on my product pages? There are many ways to deploy video on a web page – most of which are poorly suited for eCommerce. Embedding a YouTube video is easy. But it siphons off a percentage of your traffic. Any user who clicks on the video again after clicking “Play” will end up on YouTube, where they can’t click “Add to Cart.” Of course there are many online video platforms (OVP’s) to choose from. Most are designed as media and advertising platforms, not eCommerce-focused players. So they’re weighed down by functionality you don’t want and lack key retail features such as as the ability to display on both category and product pages. Whether with YouTube or an OVP, you’ll need to add code directly to each product page. Wouldn’t it be great to add it to the product page template instead and automatically call the player anytime there’s a match between the product ID and the database of videos? Sometimes “scalable” is just a fancy way of saying “a lot fewer headaches.”
What if it slows page loads? That’s a big issue. Retailers live in fear of slow page loads causing users to bounce away. That’s another reason why a general purpose media player, with the heavy footprint that comes along with all that unneeded functionality, is a risk. A retail-focused player will be optimized to load fast, because the stakes are higher.
Why do online video platforms (OVP’s) seem more focused on advertising than on driving conversion? If you read trade press about online video, many monetization models center on advertising or subscriptions rather than eCommerce. That continues to surprise me. Outside of a few major ad networks, ad-supported models don’t guarantee that anyone makes money. Driving conversion for retailers, on the other hand, is measurable and proven.
Where are those big files hosted, and what’s the risk if something goes wrong? If your video platform provider is making you worry about that – or host your own files – you need a new video platform provider. Files should be hosted on a state-of-the-art CDN (content delivery network) with multiple POPs (points of presence) around the globe. Loosely translated, that means “whatever happens, the files are always close at hand, yet they don’t soak up your storage space or bandwidth.” If one POP happens to be down the next nearest one steps in seamlessly. So you don’t need to rely on any single datacenter that could go down. And there’s nothing worse than a product page being unavailable, so an eCommerce-focused video platform will be designed to fail gracefully. In a highly unlikely worst-case scenario where the video is unavailable, the player won’t interrupt or slow the page load. The page will simply load without the video, so shopping and sales continue without interruption while your eCommerce video provider promptly fixes the problem.
How can video drive SEO if Google can’t see the contents inside a video file? Sitemaps are important for any SEO, but video sitemaps are crucial for video SEO. Quite simply the video sitemap tells the search engine where the video is, what the video’s about, and other crucial information for indexing. Most online video platforms are not SEO-enabled. Those that are won’t provide much benefit unless you have unique video content. Generating a video sitemap for a few videos is a straightforward task, but for hundreds or thousands you need an automated, scalable video SEO solution. Or a small army of folks who can knock out some XML.
Bonus question: what’s the real story on HTML5? The rapid ascendance of the iPad, along with smartphones, means that Flash is no longer enough. The majority of all video views are still delivered via Flash but that’s no comfort when your highest-dollar customers may be shopping on an iPad. Look for a video deployment solution that doesn’t make you choose. There are many ways to deliver video to non-Flash-based platforms. Since mobile is rapidly growing, just having an HTML5 solution may not be enough – you may need an eCommerce video provider who can partner with one or another of the leading mobile providers. Look for a full-service eCommerce video provider, not just a technology.
That should address the major fears about deploying video. Next up…how to distribute it to key endpoints without diluting the benefit of the unique content on your product pages!
This post in the ‘Fear of Video’ series will explore where many retailers get stuck: on the basics of creating video. The questions come from my coffee conversation with a customer the other day, which reflect what we discuss with prospects and customers on a daily basis.
How resource-intensive will it be? That’s driven by your approach. There are a few retailers who can use a very simple approach – a Flip camera with minimal editing – because it fits with a very casual brand image. Other companies make commitments to large in-house programs. In either case they find that making several videos is very different from scaling video production. Scaling requires either a flexible partner or a full-scale commitment of resources. To get past Fear of Video, start with a bite-sized commitment, assess ROI, and adjust the approach as needed. That’s why our customers often run A/B tests by product category to understand where the upside is.
If I have thousands of products, where do I start? This topic’s worthy of its own blog post. Start with top-selling products, since 20% of your catalog likely produces 80% or more of your sales. Look for products or categories that benefit from demonstration and explanation. Cover top sellers in a given category so that customers learn to shop that category by video. Start with product categories that are core to your business. Most importantly, start somewhere. You’re missing high ROI if you don’t.
How do I know the video will drive conversion? Great question. Driving conversion requires a very different approach than creating awareness. Focusing on the features and benefits of the products is a great start, but it varies by category. Effective apparel or jewelry videos are typically brief, while consumer electronics require more explanation. The ability to test multiple versions is important as it lets you continually optimize.
Who should be in the video? This depends on your target audience. I’ve seen a golf pro be a low-key but highly effective spokesperson for a golf retailer, and I’ve seen an actor drive results for mobile phones. This is another area where experience producing video and measuring results across multiple categories is helpful. The key seems to be someone the target audience can relate to who doesn’t eclipse the product, since the product is typically the star.
What if I sink resources into it and end up with an amateurish result? That’s a real fear. To avoid this, monitor your shoot carefully to shoot it once and shoot it right. Since we produce at scale, part of our proprietary production process involves editing almost in real-time. That means errors and issues are caught very quickly. Our collaboration systems are designed to create the upfront planning needed to ensure a smooth outcome. If you’re producing your own videos, you can leverage that approach by spending ten minutes planning for every one minute of shooting. And shooting sample proof-of-concept videos to get stakeholder buy-in can save headaches later.
What if I encode it in the wrong format? That’s only one of many technical details. In point of fact you’ll likely encode in multiple formats for different types of distribution. A good video platform resolves many of those types of issues for you, leaving you to focus on the business objectives instead of the technical details.
The big mistake, as I mentioned before, lies in not getting started with some sort of video. If you’ve got fear of video, we can help!
In almost any area of business you can benefit from going back to basics. Nowhere is that more true than in merchandising video online for success. The impact of video for retailers on SEO, conversion and returns is well documented. It stands to reason that video delivers the most benefit when it’s merchandised where it will be viewed. But that’s often forgotten as retailers get involved in the complexities of choosing production options, optimizing for conversion, and mastering the intricacies of video SEO.
So let’s take a moment to look at what we know about merchandising video on product pages to increase view-through rate (VTR):
There’s a lot more actionable information in our merchandising whitepaper, Watch This! If you want to ensure that your videos are merchandised optimally, download it to use as a reference tool in planning your pages. There’s plenty of information in it to help with planning other video program elements, too – and to calculate the financial impact in order to get the project approved.
Once you’ve done as much as you can with the basics, there’s a lot more you can do. If you’re constrained in your video placement, consider tools like Invodo Smart Merchandising to get your videos viewed. Think about going beyond the product page, too. Place videos on category pages to help consumers shop or use video in email campaigns for a 2-3x improvement to click-through rates. Given the appetite online shoppers clearly have for video, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination and your video provider’s creativity and capabilities.
First things first, though. Are you making the most of video merchandising basics? If not, what stands in the way? Let me know in the comments.
Three articles from Internet Retailer today add up to a compelling case for eCommerce video.
Not a Stretch – adoption of video and other rich media content is now commonplace among large online retailers. 92% have some type of rich media, and 80% employ video. Eoin from Moosejaw makes a compelling case here for Invodo’s solution, pointing out benefits in both SEO and content management.
Adding fuel to the argument for a video solution that boosts SEO, did you know that 57% of online shoppers begin with a search engine? You don’t stand a chance with over half of shoppers unless you’re above the fold on that first page of results. Given video’s powerful impact on SEO and the adoption stats in the first article, can you justify the cost of not having video on your site?
Final note – the online channel lags other channels in delighting consumers. In-person is by far the most powerful channel in that regard. Video offers a way to bridge that gap, to make a person-to-person connection on the Web in a way that text and photos can’t match. Forward-thinking retailers can take advantage of that by delivering video that’s genuinely helpful to consumers in making the purchase decision.
There are plenty of other great reasons for adding video to retail sites – what are yours?
We’re proud to release Invodo’s latest research as a video whitepaper. It’s established that eCommerce video can increase conversion 30% or more – but we’ve discovered revolutionary techniques that take it further. MUCH further. Interested in doubling your conversion rate? Check out the video below and on ReelSEO.
When you think about eCommerce video, what do you think of?
Personally, I like to think of it as pie. Now, I’m an apple pie fan – but with Invodo being based in Texas, you of course have your all-important pecan pie, and of course the classic pumpkin pie. But… why pie?
Think for a moment about your eCommerce properties. You’ve spent a lot of time and money building the sites that you have today:
Thing is, even though you have a pretty good “meal” going, something is missing. The trick to getting consumers to make that buy decision hinges upon them understanding the product you’re offering to them well enough to change their mind the rest of the way, without losing them to a competitor. Besides being comfort food, pie makes a great analogy for eCommerce video because without it, the meal just isn’t complete. Without eCommerce video, consumers will be less likely to convert than without it.
Just as importantly, you have to understand how to make a good pie – the crust, the filling, the whole deal – or you have to find someone who you trust to make a pie you won’t be disappointed in serving to your family. We’re experienced in the full lifecycle of eCommerce video. Whether you have experience producing or releasing video or not, that doesn’t matter. We’ve got success stories under our belt with customers who’ve never produced video, with customers who have, and with customers who’ve even bought other platforms that just required too much work to keep running.
At Invodo, we are skilled at production, editing, and hosting video, and have created easy to integrate API-driven eCommerce video platform. Give us a call, we can help you to ensure your eCommerce experience is all you want it to be, with fully, easily integrated eCommerce video.
Happy Thanksgiving to our customers, readers, family and friends.
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