Digital marketing is a fast-changing area and sometimes it’s not that easy to keep up with its trends. Interactive videos are one of the latest examples. Such videos appeared on the horizon not so long ago but they are rapidly gaining popularity. Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba, Facebook, and other market behemoths have already started a race to provide customers with a more engaging video shopping experience. In other words, we can expect interactive product videos to become the new industry standard in the next year or two.
But how exactly do interactive, transactional videos work? What benefits may they bring to an e-commerce business? And what is the best way for online merchants to introduce interactive video solutions into their marketing and sales activities? In this blog post, we will explain all the ins and outs of this revolutionary type of content so you can easily outrun your rivals by adopting it today.
Interactive videos: general overview
As the name suggests, an interactive video is a video that provides an interactive experience for the viewer. This means that a person who watches such a video can engage with the content shown on a player. And the range of actions viewers are allowed to take is not limited just to pausing and going forward and backward like in linear videos. In fact, this type of video has interactive elements that are technology-enabled that encourage engagement and action.
In general, the list of things an audience can do with a particular interactive video depends on the purpose of such a video. For instance, a viewer’s capability to influence a storyline is the most common type of interactions when it comes the entertaining content like cartoons and movies. The most famous example of such a personalized video is Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. While watching this episode of a popular Netflix series, a viewer can make choices. And the way how the story further unfolds depends on such choices. Ultimately making for a much more engaging video experience.
This level of engagement is something that captivates marketing executives looking to capitalize on video marketing. Luckily, with the right interactive video platform, you can tap into this level of engagement even when the primary goal is to sell a product or service. In such a case, giving customers an opportunity to buy from the video comes in first place. Interactive product videos that allows viewers to make a purchase without leaving a video player are called “transactional product videos” or simply “shoppable videos”. Let’s talk about them next.
How transactional product videos work
As a rule, transactional product videos contain embedded links that let customers get more information about a product or initiate a purchase from within the video. The only thing a customer needs to do is click an icon that usually appears on the featured product. Most often, icons within the interactive product videos look like a plus or shopping cart.
Image credit: Popular Chips
After that, customers are directed to a product page where they have an opportunity to read the product details and complete a purchase. Hence, a person can interact with a product video while he or she is still watching a commercial. This practically eliminates a time gap between a customer’s desire to buy a featured product and the actual action aimed at satisfying this desire.
In practice, you may also see interactive product videos which are not directly aimed at selling products but benefit an e-commerce business in some other way. For example, there are videos with embedded downloadable files, questionnaires, explainer videos on customer service portals, etc. However, all these types aren’t nearly as efficient as shoppable videos.
What benefits interactive product videos can bring to a business
Shoppable videos outperform ordinary videos in many aspects as well as open a door to many more business and marketing opportunities. To be more precise, market research confirms that 78 percent of marketers who use interactive videos within their marketing campaigns said that it is indeed an effective tool. So let’s take a closer look at the main data-driven advantages shoppable videos bring.
Improve click-through rate
Video is the most clickable type of online advertising as compared to mobile, display, and rich media ads. It’s average CTR constitutes about 2 percent. At the same time, the performance of interactive product videos is nearly ten times higher. So, basically, there is no other format of digital ads that is as effective as transactional product videos.
Increase conversion rate
Interactive product videos convert much better than linear videos. Study shows that the conversion rate of product videos customers can interact with is about 11 percent. This means that one in ten people who watch a shoppable video buys a product featured in it. One of the reasons is that interactive product videos make the process almost effortless. A customer doesn’t need to go back to the online store and search for the item he or she liked. So even the laziest digital buyers make a purchase.
Enhance engagement rate
The ultimate goal of shoppable videos is to convince a customer to buy a product and make the buying process as easy as possible. However, statistics show that interactive product videos have a positive impact on the engagement rate as well. In particular, they increase the viewing time by 47 percent. For this reason, a transactional product video not only helps you boost sales but it’s also a great tool to convey brand messages and build brand loyalty.
Stick in customers’ minds
Another long-term benefit of interactive product videos is that consumers remember them better than ordinary videos. Interestingly, this doesn’t depend on the fact of whether such consumers actually interacted with the content or not. According to the study by Magna, interactive videos are 32 percent more memorable than linear videos and this increases purchase intent by nine times.
Gives insights about buyers’ behavior
Interactive product videos let online retailers learn their audiences better. In particular, they allow you to track every click. In addition, they give you valuable insights about how customers behave, what they like or dislike, what encourages them to take action, etc. As a result, you can determine purchase intent more accurately and tweak your marketing content accordingly.
The easiest way to create an interactive product video
The adoption of interactive videos by online retailers used to be slow and associated with many risks. This is because it required custom development that inevitably led to high costs and uncertain outcomes, not to mention that the whole process was quite lengthy. For these reasons, e-commerce store owners felt unsure about the potential ROI. So they hesitated to introduce interactive product videos into their business activity.
However, the situation has changed as new technologies became more advanced. With DUZY tv’s platform for interactive video creation, online retailers can make shoppable videos in just a few clicks. Another great thing about DUZY tv’s patented solution is that it doesn’t require any upfront fees so it is a completely risk-free option. But let’s see how everything works in greater detail.
Connecting an e-commerce store to DUZY tv’s platform
The first thing an online retailer needs to do is to register and create an account. This stage requires nothing more than pretty standard information like email address and password. After that, a user will be able to follow the guide and get connected in a few minutes.
Creating a shoppable video
To create an interactive product video with DUZY tv’s solution, online retailers just need to upload their existing video content to the platform. Since the store and the platform are connected, the items are pulled into DUZY tv automatically so users just need to choose the relevant products from the list. For the same reason, items which are unavailable will be marked “out of stock”.
Using shoppable videos created with DUZY tv
All interactive product videos are stored on DUZY tv’s platform. However, online retailers can upload them to the product or landing pages on their websites. It’s worth mentioning that about 58 percent of digital buyers consider e-commerce stores which have product videos as trusted vendors. On top of that, shoppable videos may be shared on social media and used as a part of email marketing campaigns.
Financial aspects
As mentioned, DUZY tv doesn’t charge any payments in advance. An online retailer pays a minor share of a transaction only after a purchase is completed. The same happens when it comes to donations which are also supported by the platform. If the main purpose of an interactive video created with DUZY tv is to generate leads, a user pays a flat fee.
Make use of transactional, interactive product videos today
Interactive videos are a revolutionary type of content that is rapidly gaining popularity in many areas, including digital marketing. The so-called transactional or shoppable videos allow buyers to make a purchase right in a video player and, thus, they make a buying process as simple and fast as possible. As a result, an online retailer gets many benefits such as high CTR, engagement and conversion rates, strong brand loyalty and enhanced brand awareness. And the greatest news is that DUZY tv’s patented solution lets Internet merchants create shoppable videos in just a few steps without paying any fees in advance.
Ready to embrace the future of e-commerce by creating your first shoppable video? Absolutely, yes!
Published with StoryChief
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