The Expert Guide To Ecommerce Product Videos

Product videos are extremely effective at helping brands increase ecommerce sales and engage audiences. Product videographers and product video production companies can provide engaging content to help you promote your brand.

Product video agencies can assist you with a range of projects. There are multiple styles of video that could be used, and you should choose which best fits your product and which would be most effective for the channels you are using for promotion. Your budget will impact the production value you can expect - but often there is something available that fits every budget.

Projects can include content designed for social media such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, or large scale broadcast advertising. Product video production can range from simple 360 degree rotations, to animated 3D product demonstration videos, and everything in between - we hope this guide helps you understand the range of options available to you.

Ecommerce Video Production Explained

Ecommerce video production involves creating videos specifically designed to showcase your products online. Well produced videos help to engage customers and boost sales by providing a more dynamic and informative view of your products and their key selling points.

Product Demo Videos

This style of product video can be used to highlight features and benefits of your product. Show your product in use to explain how it works. This helps your customers understand the product better and make informed purchasing decisions. These videos are good for showing the differences between your product and the competition, or the variances between a range of products.

Models can be a great addition to a product demonstration video. Alternatively, techniques such as stop motion and animation can also be effective.

Explainer Videos

You can go beyond showing the benefits and features of your product by using captions and motion graphics in your product videos. This style is particularly useful for complex products or services that require more explanation.

Animated product videos can be made engaging with dynamic movements, and graphics that fit with your brand’s image and tone of voice. These videos can work well on social media if the aim is to entertain as well as inform.

Corporate Branding Videos

Promote your brand with longer videos that show the services, personalities, and facilities of your business. You can get your staff and key stakeholders involved in promotional videos that show more of a ‘behind-the-scenes’ view of your products. This style of video is good for introducing new customers to your brand, as well as building customer loyalty. They work well on ‘about us’ pages of websites and social media platforms that promote longer form content such as LinkedIn and YouTube.

Unboxing Videos

These videos show the process of opening a product. This can give viewers a preview of what it would be like to receive your product and are perfect for ecommerce brands. This works well for multiple items in a pack, or products that need to be constructed after delivery.

This style of video can provide a sense of excitement and anticipation in the customer journey.

Lifestyle Videos

These videos show the product being used in real-life scenarios, helping customers see how the product fits into their lifestyle. This style of video helps your brand appeal to specific customer demographics. Use signifiers that appeal to your target customers by introducing relatable models, props, décor, activities and locations.

Lifestyle videos can be created a number of different ways. Location video shoots are the most obvious, but a video studio may be able to build a set that resembles your perfect location, whether that’s an interior room, or an outdoor set built indoors.

How Can Video Marketing Help Ecommerce Businesses?

Video marketing doesn’t just directly boost ecommerce sales, it can provide multiple long term benefits that support your brand.

Increased Engagement

Videos are more engaging than any other form of content. They capture attention quickly and keep viewers interested, which can lead to higher interaction rates on social media and other platforms. Many social media sites promote videos more readily, meaning you can achieve better reach from algorithms.

Better Conversion Rates

The most immediate benefit to using product videos in ecommerce is an increase in conversion rates. Customers are more likely to make a purchase after watching a video that demonstrates the product's features and benefits. They tend to feel more informed to make the buying decision. This can also lead to less returns, as the customer can see more of what they’re buying and are less likely to make a mistake.

Improved SEO

Videos can improve your website's search engine rankings. Search engines prefer content that keeps users engaged, and videos can increase the time visitors spend on your site. This tells search engines such as Google that your content is valuable and worth promoting to more people searching for relevant terms.

Enhanced Customer Trust

Videos, especially corporate videos, behind-the-scenes, and product demos, can build trust with potential buyers. Seeing a product in action can reassure viewers in regard to the quality and reliability that your brand provides. High quality videos show customers that you have a level of professionalism and can make you stand out against competitors that aren’t using videos. This can make a significant different on ecommerce product listings.

Better Storytelling

Videos allow you to tell your brand's story more effectively. Through storytelling, you can create an emotional connection with your audience, which can influence their purchasing decisions. Lifestyle product videos work effectively for storytelling. They can help you build up a picture of your product beyond its practical uses. Think about the psychological considerations a customer experiences when buying a product, and appeal to these with lifestyle elements that show wellbeing, social settings, comfort etc.

Higher Retention Rates

Viewers are more likely to remember information presented in a video format compared to text. This helps your marketing messages stick with potential customers. For products with lots of features, this makes video an effective choice.

You can also consider the emotions you want your customers to experience when watching your videos and buying your product. Emotional memory is powerful, and can be triggered with a well produced video. Excitement and anticipation are good emotions to create in teaser videos for example. This all helps customer recall when making purchasing decisions.

How To Use Video Marketing To Increase Ecommerce Sales

As well as considering the video you want to produce, you need to think about where the video will appear and how it will be viewed. Here’s a few examples of how to get the most out of your product videos to increase your sales and promote your brand.

Social Media Ads

Videos work incredibly well for social media advertising platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. These ads can reach a wide audience and drive traffic to your ecommerce site. The key is to entertain with your videos. You will be competing with lots of other content in a social media feed, so yours needs to make an impact.

Email Marketing

Using videos in your email campaigns can increase engagement and click through rates. Including the word "video" in the subject line can increase open rates. Videos can make your emails more engaging and persuasive.

Landing Page Videos

Adding a video to your product landing page can immediately boost engagement. Videos can increase the time visitors spend on your site and improve conversion rates by providing a more dynamic and informative experience. You'll be able to tell your customers more about your product and brand, as well as increase SEO scores.

Tutorials and How-Tos

Instructional videos that show customers how to use your products effectively are great for after-purchase care. Demonstrating great aftercare and supporting the customer can add value and encourage repeat purchases. These videos are effective for any products that need assembling after purchase, or that have complex features that need setting up or require instructions on how to use them.

What Is 3D Product Animation?

3D animation involves the creation of digital three-dimensional moving images. Such images can be used to showcase a product in a dynamic and engaging way. These videos are widely used in marketing, advertising, and product demonstrations.

Today, CGI artists can create hyper-realistic 3D animations that create a detailed view of a product that is true to life. This allows customers to view a product from all angles and understand its features better.

Movements that rotate the product or zoom in close on specific features can provide customers with a more immersive experience.

If the product is modelled digitally prior to physical production, this means that animation is a great option to start producing marketing materials. Traditionally, this would have been delayed as the product would need to have been manufactured before videography could take place.

AI product videos are possible, however, the term often gets confused with CGI and 3D animation. Studios may use a combination of these digital techniques to create the desired effect.

How To Use Product Videos On TikTok?

TikTok is becoming a highly lucrative platform for ecommerce brands that have learnt to use it effectively. The social media platform can be used to engage your audience and sell directly to them on the app. Here’s how to use product videos on TikTok.

Showcase Product Features

Short engaging videos work well on TikTok. Be entertaining, punchy, and use sound. TikTok has lots of inbuilt editing tools to add effects, text, and music to make your videos more appealing. But to get the best quality, it can be better to create these effects before uploading to TikTok. This can save you time when publishing your videos and give you greater control over how your product comes across.

Leverage Trends and Challenges

TikTok is full of trends and challenges which have been a key part of the platform's success story. Think about how your product could relate to what’s trending on TikTok. Incorporating your products into the content can provide you with extra reach. However, be careful not to rely on trends, because as quick as they come, they’ll be gone in a blink of an eye.

Use Influencers And Collaborations

Don’t neglect the power of influencers on social media. They have the potential to have a huge impact and reach new audiences. Influencers can create authentic content featuring your products, which can help you engage their followers and build trust.

Create How-To and Tutorial Videos

Videos that continue to engage your audience after they have purchased your products will help foster brand loyalty. Tutorials on how to get the most from your products are a good way to keep your content engaging, but think outside the box - TikTok should be a place for creativity.

Remember to respond to comments and questions on your videos to build a community around your brand. All this will encourage repeat purchases.

Use Hashtags Effectively

Hashtags in your video descriptions can be used to increase the reach of your product video content. Research trending hashtags that relate to your product and include them to reach more people.

Run TikTok Ads

TikTok has several advertising options. In-Feed Ads, Branded Hashtag Challenges, and TopView Ads are all options that can be used to promote your product videos. These ads can help you reach a larger audience and drive traffic to your ecommerce site.

Show Behind-the-Scenes Content

Behind-the-scenes videos can build trust with your audience and show the people behind your brand. This can help to create a deeper connection with your audience. Try out a few different formats and see what’s most effective for your brand. Capturing additional behind-the-scenes footage on any video shoot is a cost effective way to generate more content.

Product Video Examples

Beauty Product Videography

Cosmetics product videos can be creative, showing the properties, ingredients, smells and textures. Focus on luxury and interest with your videos.

3D Product Animation Video

Animating your products can add an extra level of creativity and engagement. This can work well for dynamic advertising videos, as well as complex products that have multiple components that can be animated.

360 Degree Video Product Photography

A technique that can display a product effectively is to rotate it to show every angle. This can be done in one plane, known as a 360 rotation, but other variations exist.

Amazon Product Videos

Product videos for Amazon marketplace work well with annotations. These tend to focus on explaining the product, but can also be effective with lifestyle elements.

Homewares Videography

Homewares videography is often shot at a slower pace, and really shows off the products’ quality, textures, and colours. Room sets and models add realism to the production.

Fashion Videography

Fashion video production can come in various forms. The most obvious is using models, but clothing can be shown using stop motion, animation, and 360 spins.

When To Employ A Video Production Agency

Creating high-quality ecommerce videos can be challenging for in-house teams, although not impossible. As well as the right equipment, you will need skills to cover scriptwriting, storyboarding, filming, editing, grading, and adding special effects or animations.

Professional video production companies like us here at Prodoto offer these services to ensure the videos are polished and finished to a professional standard. Whether you're making videos in-house or using an external production agency, there's some key elements to consider to create the professional look.

Professional-grade videos that have a high production value, such as commercials, product demos, or corporate videos, are not easy to achieve. You will need high quality equipment and the skills to use it well. Hiring equipment can be an option, however, it takes time to learn how to use new kit.

For projects that involve complex storytelling, special effects, or intricate animations, experience is required to pull the whole video together. If you have tight deadlines and need to produce videos quickly, an agency can streamline the production process and ensure timely delivery.

External video companies can also lend their creative thinking to the project. This can include the overall concept, right down to the choice of shots and the edit.

How To Make A Product Video – Our Product Video Template

Creating a product video involves several steps to ensure it effectively showcases your product's features and benefits. It’s worth considering all of these upfront to allow a smooth process for your team and the video production agency you choose to use.

1. Plan Your Video

- What Are Your Goals?
Articulate what you want to achieve with the video (e.g. increase sales, educate customers).
- Identify Your Audience
Understand who your target audience is and what they need to know about your product.
- Outline A Style
What type of video are you creating? This will be informed by your goals and audience.

2. Budgeting

- Estimate Costs
Calculate the costs for equipment, locations, talent, and post-production.
- Allocate Budget
Allocate your budget to different aspects of the production to ensure you stay within your limits.

3. Storyboarding

- Storyboard
Sketch out a storyboard to create a narrative or a logical sequence.
- Write a Script or Annotations
Only if your video needs it, but this can be useful to plan out your thinking even if annotation, voiceovers or dialogue aren’t included.

4. Location Scouting

- Find Locations
Identify and secure locations that fit your concept and are logistically feasible. Remember, it is generally far easier to shoot in a studio, and often cheaper when all costs are considered.
- Obtain Permits
Ensure you have the necessary permits, licences and permissions for filming.

5. Briefing

- Shot List
Ensure you capture your product from different angles to provide a comprehensive view.
- Demonstrate Usage
Show the product in action, demonstrating how it works and its benefits.
- Editing Style
Be clear on how you want the edit to feel, but do allow room for creative licence.
- Add Text and Graphics
Include text overlays, graphics, and animations to highlight key points and features. Brief these up front to ensure the correct shots are filmed and to reduce costly reshoots.
- Include Music and Voiceover
Suggest music styles in your brief – doing this early can ensure the editing can match effectively.

6. Review and Revise

- Provide Feedback
Share the video with colleagues or a focus group to get feedback. This helps to eliminate multiple rounds of feedback. Most video agencies will allow for one, maybe two rounds of feedback – it’s important to stick to the agreed terms.

7. Publish and Promote

- Upload to Platforms
Publish your video on your ecommerce website, social media channels, and video-sharing platforms.
- Consider SEO
Use relevant keywords in the video title, description, and alt tags to improve search visibility.
- Promote
Share the video through email marketing, social media posts, and paid ads to reach a wider audience.
- Repurpose
Often videos can be re-edited and used again to make the most from budgets. Think about how this could apply to your video.

How Much Does Video Production Cost?

As you would imagine, this is a very difficult question to answer as every brief is different. Often video production companies will work on a ‘day-rate’. This is a guide which will increase or decrease depending on additional elements such as location costs, model costs, prop hire etc.

It’s important to be open with all parties about your budget and expectations – it will soon become clear if these don’t align. Work with your chosen video agency on what your budget can get you – you may be able to make changes to the shoot that won’t compromise your end goal.