As the ecommerce growth story continues globally, it is expected to touch the market size of $4.89 trillion in 2021. This figure is likely to expand over the next few years and it shows that borderless ecommerce is the present and the future digital marketing trends.
You need to focus heavily on ecommerce customer experience to gain maximum positive results.
If you are planning of tapping into this immense potential — videos can help.
Video advertising has an enormous contribution in fueling ecommerce growth. YouTube with 2.2 billion users and Facebook with 2.7 billion users are the top platforms for video consumption. People invest an average of 100 minutes a day watching video content online.
With this rise in viewership, companies are also increasing their online video advertising budgets.
With that in mind, let’s understand how online video advertising has changed the global ecommerce landscape over the years and how your business can benefit from it.
7 Ways Online Video Advertising has changed Ecommerce Landscape
Let's begin…
Higher Sales and Conversion Rates
Video content on your ecommerce store engages your customers and makes them stay on your site for a longer time. As per the research from the Aberdeen Group, organizations that use marketing videos grow their year-on-year sales 49% faster. So, videos can lead to higher sales.
It is also worth noting that ecommerce sites are experiencing 80% higher conversion rates by adding video on their landing pages. Thus, video advertising has added to the bottom line of the websites that use videos in their marketing strategy.
If you are looking forward to increasing sales and conversions of your online business, you can try adding product videos or demo videos to educate your customers.
Here is an example of a demo video by Headspace – an online meditation application, teaching viewers the benefits of meditating and how to use their app.
If you don’t have an in-house team to produce video content, you can hire an external video production company as they can help you with your video marketing goals.
Consumers are more Informed
Customers have become smarter as they are digitally equipped and have access to an abundance of information. Video advertising leverages this benefit of digital transformation to provide exactly what your customers want to watch online.
Millennials and Gen Z consume information differently. Their top news sources are mostly video-first social media platforms.
For example, 7 out of 10 millennials watch a company video when shopping online. So, as an ecommerce business owner, you can create comparison videos to help your customers make an informed decision.
This digital revolution has inspired brands to advertise their products and services on video platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
Influence on Buying Decisions
Video advertising has a tremendous influence when it comes to purchasing decisions. 90% of people say that product videos are helpful in the decision process and 64% choose to watch product review videos before hitting the Buy Now button.
If you own an ecommerce store, you can use explainer videos to educate your customers about products. Here are the two reasons you should do this:
Also, note that having no express delivery option and unexpected shipping costs are among the top 10 reasons for shopping cart abandonment and can influence your customers negatively. Hence, you need to be careful in choosing your logistics partner.
You can reduce your abandoned cart ratio by addressing the above issues. For example, you can create a brand video where you can highlight your courier mail service partner and assure your customers of timely deliveries and shipping costs transparency.
Surge in B2B Ecommerce
Since businesses have realized the importance of their online presence, B2B ecommerce is growing consistently.
For instance, have a look at the image below. From 2021 onwards B2B revenue is witnessing a steep rise and is expected to reach $3 trillion in revenue by 2024.
Similarly, the impact of video marketing and advertising is not limited to online retailers. It has also taken B2B ecommerce by storm. 50.9% of B2B decision-makers said they watch YouTube content as part of their purchase research.
Furthermore, according to a survey by Wpromote, B2B marketers consider videos as their top and most effective lead acquisition strategy.
So, if you are operating in B2B space, you can produce gated video content that delivers solid value. Then give this valuable free resource to your audience in exchange for their contact details. This can help you increase quality lead volume.
SEO Benefits
Organic search results attract over 53% of the website traffic. Keeping these statistics in mind, search engines are an absolute necessity for ecommerce websites.
This is where videos have proven to add tremendous value to your SEO efforts since videos increase organic traffic to your site by 157%.
Moreover, adding video content can also increase the chances of your page ranking on the front page of Google search results by 53 times.
This is because the search engines consider the amount of time a visitor spends on your site as a ranking factor and engaging video content makes the user dwell longer on your website.
This has resulted in ecommerce businesses adopting video as a key tool in their content marketing strategy.
Social Media Integration
Social media is no longer used just for social activities like finding and connecting with friends. Over the years social platforms have emerged as mainstream digital marketing channels.
With that said, 86% of the businesses are already using videos as a marketing tool and 54% of the marketers said that video is the most valuable content format to achieve their social media marketing goals. Besides, video content drives higher engagement and social shares.
So, why does the above statistics matter? You may ask!
Well, a whopping 4.48 billion people use social media — that is 57% of the world’s population. Considering this, you don’t want to exclude such a massive audience from advertising your ecommerce store.
Builds Trust and Credibility
Your customers’ trust in your brand precedes conversions and sales. In fact, building trust and credibility shouldn’t be a goal to drive revenue. It has to be an independent goal that helps you build a brand that consumers will be loyal to for the generations to co
You can use video content to engage and spark the emotions of your audience that can lead them to build a relationship with your brand. Numbers suggest that when a user has a positive experience with a video, it increases their association with the brand by 139% and purchase desire by 97%.
Thus, video advertising has also helped ecommerce websites to increase brand awareness and loyalty. You can also replicate the same success with video marketing.
The Way Forward
Video advertising is becoming the new normal and shows no signs of slowing down in the future. So, it is no longer a choice for ecommerce businesses, it’s a necessity. Besides, customers also like consuming content in video form.
Video content has not only helped ecommerce businesses increase their sales, conversions, and SEO rankings but also contributed to their overall brand-building efforts and credibility.
With the advances in technology, video adoption is growing popular and affordable by the day. Hence, if you are not leveraging this tool, you are depriving your business of many benefits and opportunities.
For mastering advanced ecommerce skills, contact us and speak to our marketing experts.
