4 Ways to Identify an Effective Ecommerce Video

This post is written by Jon MacDonald for Goodvidio blog. Jon is the founder of The Good — conversion rate experts who deliver more revenues, customers, and leads.

A strong ecommerce video is focused on the target user and aligned with these four key concepts: It’s concrete, simple, organized, and authentic.

Today, it’s extremely easy to record a video with a camera, your phone, or your computer. In fact, over sixty hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Of those, more than half get fewer than 500 views. That’s a lot of noise on YouTube but not a lot of substance. So the question then is…how can you identify videos that are going to help your customers make decisions and in turn, help your company increase revenue? How can you identify an effective ecommerce video?

Your Ecommerce Video Should Be Targeted

The key to videos that aid in conversions is understanding your users. You need to understand your audience. The better you understand them, the better you can make decisions that affect their engagement. When your ecommerce video is aligned with your target customer, your video won’t merely be a fun feature, it will begin to drive real results.

An effective ecommerce video should meet these four criteria for your target customer:

1. It’s concrete and useful

“My Dad wore the same blue and white New Balance sneakers for as long as I can remember. He was never trying to be cool or in fashion. He just thought they were the most comfortable shoes he had ever worn and every time he wore a pair out, he would buy the same pair again .”

Stories like this are great examples of being concrete. Is the video speaking of something specific, physical, or real? Humans are hard-wired to connect to stories. How else would you explain the power of Hollywood? When it comes to

When it comes to ecommerce videos, look for stories, usefulness, and details. In short, the more useful and tangible a video is to a viewer, the more effective that video will be. This is why, for example, workout or cooking videos get far more engagement online than tv commercials, because we can all relate to the everyday things we all do, but not necessarily what a company is trying to “sell” us.

2. It keeps things simple

Research shows that more people will watch 30 seconds of a shorter video but will lose interest before that when watching a longer one. Why is that? It’s somewhat unclear but research suggests it’s simply because we tend to make time for shorter interruptions but are more protective of our time from larger such interruptions. We don’t want to get hooked on something that will take more time to complete or that might be a waste of time.

DaVinci popularly said: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” and he’s right. It might be easy to edit ten seconds out of a three-minute video, but how about editing ten seconds out of a thirty-second video? It’s tough, but it’s usually necessary. The best ecommerce videos can communicate messages simply and clearly. Video is also popular in part because the average attention span is getting shorter and shorter. You have precious seconds to hook your viewer and to keep them watching for the next few.

The bottom line is that it’s essential that your videos be as concise as possible. You have a smaller window than ever to communicate to your audience, so make sure you remember the popular acronym K.I.S.S: Keep it simple stupid.

3. The essential information is up front.

Journalists put the most important information in the forefront. It helps hook the reader and it keeps them interested enough to stick around for the details. Don’t bury the lead. Look for ecommerce videos that lead with the most essential information. Additionally, if your video is using a call to action, make sure it does so quickly. Taking your time can result in it being ignored altogether.

4. It’s authentic.

Honesty is the best policy. You can build incredible amounts of goodwill with your customers if you are real with them. Ecommerce videos are a great opportunity to make that honesty and realism tangible. That said, you should be careful; if you betray this goodwill and trust by being inauthentic, you can very quickly reverse any progress you’ve made with a potential customer.

Conclusion

We’ve outlined 4 key ways to help you identify an effective ecommerce video. If you can keep these simple elements in mind when you’re curating ecommerce video content, it can help your conversion rates dramatically. Like it or not, we now live in a soundbyte culture, and simplified, concise, honest communication that tells a story is a very practical and highly valued skill. Ecommerce videos that have all of these elements will see greater success.

This post was originally published on Goodvidio Blog.