How to use video to effectively drive online sales

Default avatar.
December 24, 2014
How to use video to effectively drive online sales.

Video continues to grow in popularity as an effective way to share information online. When it comes to promoting and selling products or services a video, or a series, can help spell out details, in addition to imbuing them with a cinematic dimension. Ecommerce websites are especially suited to use the benefits that videos afford. Video is most effective when it’s used in one of these key ways: 

  1. Explanation: Defining and describing a product or service is a staple rationale to utilizing video. Literally, the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of an object can be elegantly represented in a video, such as Nest’s filmic summary about how to install their thermostat.
  2. Ambiance: Beyond demonstrating functionality, video can help visitors visualize the character of a brand and imbue an appropriate mood. On certain pages of Apple’s product portfolio, the videos portray creativity and the rich expression it feeds. This is the kind of dynamic aesthetic that the videos readily support and riff on.
  3. Orientation: Video can also facilitate a sensibility, as in Nude Audio’s case, where their videos elevate the polished still images of their product portfolio. Each video coheres with a specific product and stages it in order to influence the viewer’s imagination on how the product can be used.

Harvest

1_Harvest_Video-in-eCommerce Harvest

is a web-based tool for online time tracking and invoicing. Their homepage invites prospective customers to view a short film. It shows a scenario, starring their product as an integral part of a common workflow involving common roles, clearly labeled: designer, project manager, client. Selected features are shown as the scenario progresses, smoothly wrapping up in under two minutes.

Pencil

2_Fifty-Three_Video-in-eCommerce

The intuitive and physical nature of Fifty Three’s iPad stylus, Pencil, are fully shown in a video posted on their website. A particularly delightful aspect is the demonstration of lively gestural motions from using the stylus that the video effectively captures.

Nest

3_Nest_Video-in-eCommerce

Video can be used to virtually provide a product demonstration. The Nest thermostat is a sensor-driven system for the home. Its online video tour shows off the product’s features, particularly focusing on the thermostat’s capabilities to self-learn and automate interior temperature. 4_Nest-store_Video-in-eCommerce Nest also provides customers with a helpful how-to video about installation. The outline consists of four main topics that are concisely narrated as a multimedia slideshow.

NudeAudio

5_Nude-Audio_Video-in-eCommerce

Nude Audio makes portable Bluetooth speakers. When you view a product from its Move Collection,” you see a video playing behind its description. The video, acting as a backdrop, allows the viewer to glean a sense of the speaker’s scale.

iPad

6_Apple_Video-in-eCommerce

Video is a staple of Apple’s website. Complementing their keynote presentations and TV ads, certain product areas of their website have sections dedicated to showcasing videos. Examples: the default page of iPhone displays a cue to watch a film, and the coverpage for the iPad Air has Videos” as part of this product section’s navigation.

How to use video

Every video will help to evoke a tone, crafted to align to the company and their identity or image. When used as part of an expression-making toolkit, video provides another opportunity of discovery, adjacent to other complementary ways of displaying information and visualizing a narrative voice. Videography is a companion method of communication to copywriting, photography, and illustration. What differentiates videography is the potential for moving image and sound to galvanize positive impressions. Every bit of this counts in compelling an eCommerce site’s visitor to consider any and all actions of transaction: signing up, advertising, sponsoring, subscribing, completing checkout — to be ultimately persuaded.

Nate Burgos

Read Next

15 Best New Fonts, May 2023

The choices you make when selecting a typeface have more impact on your design than almost any other decision, so it’s …

10+ Best Tools & Resources for Web Designers and Agencies (2023 updated)

Having the ability to envision a tastefully designed website (i.e., the role creativity plays) is important. But being …

20 Best New Websites, May 2023

This month, there are tons of great new agency websites to get excited about. 3D animated prisms are a popular theme, a…

How to Find the Right White Label Website Builder for Your Agency

Web design agencies face a lot of obstacles in closing the deal with new clients. One of the most common ones is the ar…

Exciting New Tools For Designers, May 2023

There are hundreds of new tools for designers and developers released each month. We sift through them all to bring you…

3 Essential Design Trends, May 2023

All three of the website design trends here mimic something bigger going on in the tech space, from a desire to have mo…

10 Best AI Tools for Web Designers (2023)

It’s time to stop worrying if AI is going to take your job and instead start using AI to expand the services you can of…

10 Best Marketing Agency Websites (Examples, Inspo, and Templates!)

Marketers are skilled in developing strategies, producing visual assets, writing text with high impact, and optimizing …

15 Best New Fonts, April 2023

Fonts are a designer’s best friend. They add personality to our designs and enable fine typography to elevate the quali…

20 Best New Websites, April 2023

In April’s edition, there’s a whole heap of large-scale, and even full-screen, video. Drone footage is back with a veng…

Exciting New Tools For Designers, April 2023

The AI revolution is having a huge impact on the types of products that are hitting the market, with almost every app b…

3 Essential Design Trends, March 2023

One thing that we often think about design trends is that they are probably good to make a list. That’s not always true…