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Shoppable Video: The Future of Content Marketing?
Video keeps taking up an ever-larger piece of overall marketing. If your company doesn’t already use video for a variety of roles, you’re likely feeling the pressure to do so. The latest data from Wyzowl shows that 91% of companies market via video, and 96% of marketers say video is an “important part” of their marketing strategy priorities.
But despite the rise of video, there’s been a slight gap between customers watching a video and actually making a purchase. You’ve traditionally had to guide potential shoppers from video content to your e-commerce store. Shoppable videos exist to close that gap.
These interactive videos give buyers a direct link to the products they’re viewing on the screen. This streamlining of the customer journey can pay off immediately, giving you a friction-free new way to make sales.
Shoppable video’s role today
While shoppable videos are a type of interactive video content, they don’t call for demanding technology or high-intensity post-production. As long as your video platform of choice supports clickable, contextual links, you’re ready to go.
TechTarget contributor Griffin LaFleur pointed out the difference between today’s interactive shoppable video content and product-centric sales videos in the past. The change is simple but telling: The traditional practice of placing e-commerce product page links in a video’s text description has been replaced by seeding purchase buttons directly in the video itself.
The contrast between clicking a link in a video description and clicking interactive elements within the shoppable video ad content itself comes from where the viewer’s attention goes. The older approach requires the shopper to take their eyes off of the content and scroll down, making a connection between what they’re watching and the featured product. Simply clicking on the interactive video is far more direct.
The e-commerce process is all about removing barriers between each potential customer and the items they want to buy. Having the purchase option right in the video and not forcing a viewer to scroll away and visit another website to see the product page is an evolution of this formula.
LaFleur suggested a few best practices for creating effective shoppable videos with interactive elements that will get maximum customer engagement. These include:
- Showing products slowly, so customers have enough time to see them clearly and click “buy”.
- Including shoppable links early in the video rather than waiting too long.
- Using high-quality videos that will look good across platforms and devices.
A shoppable video strategy can let your creative video professionals get directly involved in the selling process, empowering your overall ability to convert prospects.
Shoppable video content as a part of your strategy
There are plenty of ways to integrate shoppable content into your video strategy, across platforms and target audiences. Rather than limiting e-commerce to one corner of your offerings, it can become a pervasive part of them.
On Vimeo’s blog, the video platform promoted its own ability to create shoppable links in videos, but also noted other platforms that support purchasing, such as Instagram reels and stories, as well as TikTok videos. These short-form social media platform videos can reach a wide swath of users, giving them a smooth path to purchase from their mobile devices.
YouTube is powered by Google, both a search giant and a go-to ad provider. This raises the option of creating pre-roll video ads that include a shoppable component. The Think with Google blog showed off what these ads look like — while a mobile user watches your brand’s shoppable video ad, a featured product carousel appears to help them buy items shown in the video directly.
Whether your preferred video style is a longer, slower clip that shows products in detail, a campaign designed for maximum vitality on a social media platform, a quick-hit video ad or anything in between, you can weave in video commerce features. When the goal is to make the purchase process as easy as possible, there is more than one way to chase that objective.
Work with experts on valuable interactive video content
When it’s time to produce interactive shoppable video content for your company, you should focus on the same priorities that drive all video marketing strategy design today. Namely, you need to make sure the content is relevant to viewers and polished enough to stand out and drive customer engagement in a video-saturated media landscape.
Most companies don’t have fully featured, professional video departments within their walls. This is perfectly normal, but it does mean you’ll have to be creative to find the skills and technology to produce high-quality interactive video content. Working with an expert team of video professionals from Crews Control is a way to build your capabilities without adding salaries to the books or spending on your own technology.
To learn more about all the tech-infused production trends driving video today, read our free ebook.
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