Video marketing in e-commerce

Videos help to differentiate the content of an online shop and to make the experience more emotive. Video marketing is based on emotions, empathy, identification, excitement, originality, topicality, relevance, plausibility and entertainment. It helps e-commerce retailers set themselves apart from competitors, with price pressure taking something of a back seat.

Competition in e-commerce business is fierce; those that make mistakes won’t last long. The highly expensive and miserable failure of the e-commerce foray “siroop” is etched in our memories. Virtually all online retailers see themselves as price leaders and attempt to compete on this basis. This leads to razor-thin margins and cost pressure.

Video marketing can be used in a variety of ways:

• Advertisement and promotion of new products
• Guides (“How to” videos) on using a product
• Testimonials from customers who use a product
• Trend and sector videos showing what customers can expect
• Background stories about the staff who run the online shop (people make the difference)

Digitec – a successful example of video marketing

Digitec staff appear in self-produced videos as opinion leaders, trade fair visitors, product managers and influencers. Digitec employees help us as consumers by handling the task of looking for genuine innovations and highlights. They travel on our behalf to Barcelona (Mobile World Congress) and Berlin (IFA) seeking relevant innovations. Such information is key for those interested in a particular product. This is why Digitec VJ videos are so popular and generate a relatively large number of views on the Digitec YouTube channel.

Approach: think and act like a media company

Video marketing only works if the content can be produced quickly and affordably. This means it’s advisable to take a studio approach, with permanently installed background, lighting, cameras and sound. Producing video content should be scheduled into the daily routine. Each person, whether they are in front of the camera, behind the camera or sitting at the editing computer, should be an expert at their job. Promotional video messages can then be produced in a simple, quick, inexpensive and authentic manner.

Example of how such a studio could look:

You also need to practise how you appear in front of the camera.

It's the person that makes the difference! For the protagonists, i.e. the people in web videos, to communicate something to other people in a credible manner, they need to believe in it themselves and to be aware of their effect in front of the camera. Practice makes perfect! Start with test video broadcasts, assess the quality as a team and optimize the content and quality of the videos in small steps.

The following five challenges need to be overcome:

• Videos with no story or content (viewers will immediately “zap” them)
• Self-conscious people in front of the camera
• Poor grasp of technology: bad sound, incorrect white balance, blurred images
• Process too time-consuming (video production needs to be practised in the same way as a foreign language)
• Videos are poorly integrated into the online shop (low viewing rates)

The cost of buying technical equipment has never been so low. Distribution through the internet has never been so easy. This means there’s no reason not to start video marketing in e-commerce. Courage costs nothing: Get your sales stories in front of the camera.