How to Use Short Captivating Videos to Boost Sales

Are you using videos to attract customers and boost sales? If you are not doing this, you’re leaving a lot on the table.

Not all videos are created equal. Short captivating videos are informative and entertaining — the exact experience that the majority of people love. The truth is, most people prefer to see a movie than read a book that’s based on the video.

The same principle applies to your content. In a recent research by Animoto, it was revealed that 4X as many consumers would prefer to watch a video about a product than to read about it.

No wonder more than 60% of marketers and small business owners said they plan to increase investment in video marketing in 2017.

In this article, I’ll show you how you can use short captivating videos to boost your sales online.

Create short video sales letters

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million. Integrating a video into your sales letter is one of the best ways to persuade your audience to buy a product.

Video content is powerful and usually more engaging than written content. Compelling video content grabs a customer’s attention and sustains it through the end of the video. This can be more persuasive than a conventional sales letter.

Video content tells more engaging and compelling stories which are capable of persuading your prospects to become customers.

For example, Dr. Ruth Roberts, a Pet e-commerce business owner used a highly engaging short video sales letter to convert 50% more customers. This was a big deal compared to her textual content.

That was a significant result for a story-driven, fact-based, compassionate video sales letter. So against her initial $10,000 revenue, Dr. Ruth Roberts made an extra $5,000 when she used a video sale letter.

Testimonials

Everyone knows that testimonials are a key to boosting sales. They add credibility to your brand and are used as a social proof of your product’s value.

Video testimonials are more captivating than written quotes in that you get to see the person giving the testimony. That’s more believable than written content.

You get to see the excitement on your customer’s face which reflects their satisfaction with your product. Not only that, but you also hear the words they use to describe the satisfaction that your product delivered to them.

It’s also crucial that you note and differentiate expert video testimonials and customers testimonials. More often than not, customers relate better to fellow customers who have passed through the same challenge than an expert.

When Salesforce realized that they were not utilizing the power of their customer’s voice effectively to boost their bottom line, they started a “Video Testimonial Gathering campaign.”

Their customers responded, and now the results are amazing. They have numerous customer testimonials on YouTube that attract customers consistently to their business.

It’s okay to place a testimonial on your homepage if you want more potential customers to see it. It will grab their attention when they first land on your website.

You can as well create an entirely new page for your testimonials. This will give you room to list as many videos as possible. You can easily host the videos on YouTube and embed them on your website.

Use short videos for product demo

Videos are the best option for a product demonstration. With a single short video demo, you can show your audience the features and benefits of your product. You can also show them how to use and how to maintain the product.

If your product is complex and requires a learning curve, a short product demo will simplify this complexity. With a clear and entertaining product video — you will convert more website visitors into customers.

Here is an excellent example from TechSmith, you can find this video on the homepage of one of their products, Snagit. In just about 3 minutes, the video walks you through how to get started using the tool.

While your prospects are still thinking about how difficult it will be to use your product, you already made a clear and easy to understand video that will show how easy it’s to use your product.

However, you don’t need to show your customers everything. You just need to show them what they need to get started to avoid creating an unnecessarily long video.

Zappos is a great example of a B2C brand using product demo to increase conversion. They have been doing this for quite a while. Zappos found that sales increased by 6% to 30% for items with video demos on the product sales page.

Use educational “How To” videos to compel customers to take an action

Whenever I want to learn a new skill, I usually opt for a video. Because I learn pretty fast with videos. What about you?

While you don’t want to use push marketing, you want to educate your audience by teaching them how to do things easily. So you can get them to love and become loyal to your brand.

For example, if you are selling building materials, you can educate your audience on how to detect high-quality or low-quality building materials. This video will be helpful for prospects who are considering buying building materials. After watching your video content, they are likely to convert to customers.

“How to” videos are highly engaging and of course, high engagement will result in a high conversion rate.

A major Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) company that wanted to promote their most recent product launch to a highly qualified audience with the goal of driving traffic to retailers and increase national sales — they created high-quality short videos which engaged their target prospects and yield sales.

One thing you can do to optimize your video for sales conversion is to add call-to-actions in your video to help you measure video engagements and to score leads.

Conclusion

If you want to connect with customers with interactive content, you should consider creating short videos regularly; videos that will captivate your audience and nudge them to take the desired action.

Essentially, to maximize the impact of your short videos, publish them on YouTube, Vimeo, and other video sharing websites. Don’t forget to also embed the videos in your posts.

You will generate more traffic, increase your sales, and create brand awareness through your short captivating videos.