RSS Ray's Online Marketing Blog

Discover why your eCommerce company needs to get started using product videos on your website.

Guest post by Dr. Melody King, Vice President, Sales & Marketing for Treepodia.

Everyone knows video on the web is all the rage. It has tremendous viral power and is one of the preferred ways for people to consume content. So why does your site STILL not have it?

If you’re like many online retailers, you already know that video can enhance the user experience on your site, but you may be feeling overwhelmed by the number of products on your site that you need to create video for – and therefore, you just haven’t done it.

Let me tell you that you need to put video on your site NOW. If you don’t have it, you’re letting money fly out the window.

For one thing, people who watch a product video are 85% more likely to convert than those who don’t, according to our own research. Furthermore, the addition of product videos on your online storefront will help your site get better ranking in the major search engines. Additionally, the videos can be posted to YouTube and other video sharing sites, which further helps drive traffic to your site – and we already talked about the conversion benefits you’ll get when people who come to your site watch videos.

One of our customers – Electric Shopping in the UK – has seen an average conversion rate increase of 75% among shoppers who watch the videos compared with those who don’t, with increases as high as 200% for some products. Another customer – BedBathStore in the U.S. – has seen e-commerce sales of products that include video rise 69%. Additionally, customer conversion is up as much as 300% among those who view the product videos.

What would these conversion increases mean for your business? By not having video on your site, think about the additional revenue you’re missing out on.

If you’re looking for ways to get started, we posted a list of tips for adding video to your site (in time for the holidays – but the list applies any time of the year) on our blog: http://blog.treepodia.com/2009/12/how-to-use-video-to-increase-your-holiday-sales/.

There are a few automated video platform providers that can help you add video quickly – however, the key to remember is that whatever you do, be sure to test performance of different versions of videos, so you’re sure the videos you post online have the most impact. The addition of text, voice-overs and background music can drive your conversion rate even higher, so take a little time to test – your bottom line will thank you for it.

Dr. Melody King is Vice President, Sales & Marketing for Treepodia, an automated online product video provider. Melody can be reached at melodyk@treepodia.com.