Using Video to Increase Conversion Rates on Product Pages
For a while now there’s been a whole host of statistics around about how video used on product pages can increase eCommerce conversion rates.
Studies have shown that conversion rates can increase by up to 70% by utilising video on product pages.
The truth about this is much more complicated, and putting any old video on your product page won’t automatically mean you’ll be selling 70% more than you were before.
The are several points that you should consider when deciding how to correctly utilise videos on your product pages. These points span style, timing, content, placement and user experience.
See. Already it’s five times more complicated!
Don’t despair.
Here’s five tips to ensure that your investment in video helps toward you achieving your sales goals.
1. It’s all about timing
Much like on offline sales, it’s all about timing, and striking a balance between being helpful and plain hard selling. It’s also about not being too intrusive.
Your customer should want to press the play button, so make it stand out and have a visually appealing thumbnail image.
Also, never use autoplay with sound! It’s the online equivalent of butting into a conversation. Loudly. A big no no.
Think about where in the purchasing funnel the video will have most impact. The closer the conversion point you place the video, the higher likelihood of success.
2. Make it look incredible
Photographs give you something text alone doesn’t, and videos give you something that photos and text doesn’t, so make the most of it.
Make sure that you are showing off the product in it’s absolute best light. Video can be used to show exactly how a garment flows, a car sounds or a piece of furniture feels. Make sure you shoot the video with these things in mind, which means knowing your products, and briefing your video maker accordingly.
Bellroy's product videos are eye catching, show off the product features quickly and effectively, and are positioned in prime place in the customer decision making process.
This also means not skimping, and investing in high quality video created by a professional. If you do it will pay dividends. If the video in any way looks cheap or unprofessional, you could do more damage to your brand and sales than having no video at all.
ASOS create simple catwalk videos that show how the products look and flow in a way that photographs cannot show. The video is activated by pressing a small unobtrusive button on the left of the page.
3. Keep ‘em buying
Suggest additional videos for users to watch that are related to content they have just viewed. This will keep them in that buying funnel, and hopefully they will add a few more items to their cart before hitting that checkout button.
Don’t forget, if you have add-ons that compliment your product, then feature them in the video even if it’s just a small cameo appearance. You never know, it might help that average basket value KPI that you need to improve.
4. Think social. Think mobile.
Use a third party video hosting platform such as YouTube, Wistia or Vimeo. Not only will this save you bandwidth, it will also give you added SEO benefits, additional analytics and in the case of YouTube, allow users to discover your brand via a different channel. Another benefit of these services is that they will serve up the correct file size of video for mobile without you having to even think about anything. This is key, as mobile video views have been absolutely skyrocketing globally, and continue to do so.
Make sure your videos are easily shared on social. If you’ve made a cracking video, don’t make it difficult for your customers to tell their friends.
5. Track the performance effectively
It’s really important to set your targets and KPIs from the start, before you even commission the video. A good video marketing company will want to know what your aim is, not just for the business, but for each individual product.
Some KPIs to think about are comparing conversion rates for people who have watched videos vs people who haven’t, time spent on pages with video content vs without, and ultimately revenue per visit.
Also think about how you will use your analytics package to measure the effectiveness of your video content. For example, do you have your events set up correctly to fire into Google analytics to trigger your goals?
If you have a lot of products and want to test how product videos might work, perhaps create some for a few products, and then run an a/b split test for a month with half showing the video and half showing basic photos.
Why not chat to us about how you can utilise video to help you increase sales and improve on-site conversion rates? Bright Video can help you from strategy all the way through to execution, measurement and optimisation.
