It’s not hard to see why product videos are so popular nowadays; they easily showcase what a product does and how it solves specific problems or pressing issues for their audience. Doubly so for people online, as they provide a great way to experience your product and learn more about your brand before committing to a buy decision.
The problem, however, is that even though there are many types of videos and companies generating traction online today, there are equally as many product videos that fall short of expectations or end up negatively impacting their campaigns!
So today, we’ll take a closer look at how to make product videos that’ll help you finalize more deals and actually drive sales up.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
What Exactly Are Product Videos For?
Product videos should offer a direct path of communication between a brand and its customers. They tend to outperform other types of marketing videos at the latter stages of a funnel because they help people make informed purchasing decisions while smoothing over the sales process, making it easier to turn a prospect into a paying customer.
They provide much-needed solutions to pressing ecommerce problems, like showcasing a product’s benefits, highlight key value propositions, and nurturing customer confidence. Still, they rarely try to do it all at once!
So, figuring out your piece’s intended goal and tailoring it to meet it is vital. And the best way to do that is often with a story.
The Importance of Telling a Story
Storytelling can help you create an emotional bond and personal connection between your customers and your brand, which customers seek out these days at all times. As mentioned before, this is an increasingly attractive feature when it comes to online sales, as potential customers tend to have no opportunities to interact with your offerings directly.
A well-made, story-rich product video can be all they have to go on to decide whether to convert or move on to something else. But in terms of this style of marketing video, a story will only be compelling if the viewer can relate to it.
Do keep in mind that storytelling provides the context for your product to make sense when being introduced. Fixing an issue, solving a problem, or facing a new challenge should still be at the core of every product video. But the better you are at covering those aspects while still telling an engaging story that viewers can identify with, the more effective your product videos will be.
And the only way to do that consistently is to truly understand who that video is intended for.
Showcasing Your Solution to Your Customers’ Problems
Your product video should communicate the benefits of using your product and how it resolves a particular situation as a key selling point. After all, customers focus on a product either because of the problem it solves or the features and benefits it provides related to their needs.
Think about it, when your customer visits your website or eShop, they’re looking for a solution to a pain point. They choose your brand when your product seems like the best possible alternative to solve a specific problem for them, and the positives of implementing your solution outweigh the negatives (such as spending money!).
Great ways to achieve such a goal on your video include:
- Using customer feedback to help you connect common issues with the features and benefits of your product and the narrative/story of the piece.
- Include a call to action combined with a promotion, a discount, or an added benefit to increase appeal.
- Show how you solve a problem, resolve a pain point, or put together a series of advancements in a clear and relatable way.
- Try to share one or two pieces of information that link your main benefit to your customer’s wants and needs.
As long as you succeed at showing how your product solves your intended audience’s problems and do so in an entertaining or interesting way that your clients can relate to, you’ll be on the right track.
Keep Things Short and Clear
Being brief doesn’t mean you have to strip all the personality from your product video. On the contrary, a brand’s personality helps the customers connect with your product, and that’s a priority!
That said, what you need to do is keep your attention (and the viewer’s focus) where it matters, which is often the same as not trying to accomplish every single thing you can think of in a single video.
Length is one of the main factors that influence your video’s success, so you need a video that delivers your message sooner rather than later. As for the piece’s length, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but here are some average lengths for some of the most popular styles of product videos, as a reference:
- Short Ads: 15 seconds to a minute.
- Explainers: 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
- Commercials: 15, 30, 60 seconds.
- Simple tutorial: 2 minutes.
- In-depth how-to: 5 minutes to 15 minutes.
Choose a Style That Fits Your Goals
The thing about product videos is that no two are really the same! After all, the piece comes to life through your unique marketing needs, your message, and the distinctive attributes your product provides.
However, a few popular styles share some common characteristics and that people seem to respond really well to. Let’s learn a bit more about them to help you make the best choice for your needs.
Explainer Videos
The explainer video style revolves around how your product works and how it addresses your audience’s pain points. They can either portray your product’s inner workings, tell a story they can relate to, or focus on describing features that the customers might find relevant.
The style is popular for the way it combines narrative and data to persuade your potential customers to choose your product over the competition, which is what makes them such a powerful style of product video.
How-To Videos
How-to videos show your audience how to solve a specific problem or an issue, and they do it in an accessible, easy-to-understand, and compelling way.
These videos are popular with audiences everywhere because they provide practical solutions to problems. Most importantly, they provide a perfect, unobtrusive way to showcase both your product and your ability to provide answers to your potential client’s problems through your content.
Social Videos
Social media videos’ popularity stems from their capacity to entertain and inform in an easy-to-digest and accessible way.
Social videos often combine knowledge of an audience, trends, and product insights to create the right kind of brand engagement and product interest, which often leads to customers following through and trying to find out more about your products.
Parting Thoughts
By and large, product videos can be a great boon or a colossal bane on your overall marketing strategy. It all depends on how you approach them and how successful they are at engaging and convincing your audience that your product is the best alternative around.
Hopefully, after reading thus far, you are now way better equipped to approach the production of one of these videos in a way that gets better results!
So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to start thinking about that awesome product of yours and that great video that will make it shine!
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Author’s Bio:
Victor Blasco is an audiovisual designer, video marketing expert, and founder/CEO of the explainer video production company Yum Yum Videos. Besides running the business, he’s a lifelong student of Chinese philosophy and a passionate geek for all things sci-fi.