• by Kirk Davis , June 16, 2011

Web retailers know that using video to showcase a product results in fewer abandoned carts, reduced returns and higher sales. However, many don't realize they can use video to showcase their entire product inventory inexpensively.

 

Moreover, they can then "turn-key" product video investments into other media to increase reach. If you sell hundreds or thousands of products, you can execute quality videos for every item you sell at pennies per video. And the videos can work for you beyond web sites.

Here are tips to affordably scale a video marketing program for all of your products.

You don't need to shoot video to make video. If you have more than one photo for each of your products, you can make video! How? Well, everyone's familiar with "slide shows"; however, many are not familiar with how far these have evolved.

Today's automated video products not only assemble video segments and photos and provide camera transitions and music, they provide customized messaging and graphics based on product data as well as "TTS" or "concatenated human voiceovers" for custom narration on an SKU basis. Importantly, these videos can be produced automatically through data-feeds or APIs, stitching together assets into videos in a second.
Tip: Ask your video supplier if it produces large volumes of custom video and how it does so.

 

You don't need to edit video to update video. Through APIs, many video suppliers provide real-time video updates. The second a price or image changes within your database, that information changes within your video. That's because this video is rendered "on the fly" rather than pre-produced. This solves issues with changing product data. Now videos are always current without reproduction.

A slightly slower method of creating and updating video is through data feeds. Video can be updated whenever a new feed is sent to the video supplier. Flash videos can be updated quickly, but flat-files (.flv's, .wmv's) still need to be re-produced, which is necessary if you're distributing video to YouTube.
Tip: Ask your supplier if it produces "real time" video, and if not, how quickly it can turn around updates at volume.

Web sites aren't the only video destination. While it's known that video can be pushed through Rich Media banners, it's not well known that you can push an entire inventory (hundreds) of videos through banners.

Such banners allow consumers to browse products within the banner and click to propagate video without leaving the site they're on.
Tip: Ask your video supplier if it has Rich Media applications for its video.

Syndicating video increases SEO. The top flat-file destination is YouTube because once posted, Google will display the video in searches within 10 hours. Other services (such as TubeMogul) can automate flat-file syndication to other video destinations. Many methods exist, depending on what you want to do.
Tip: Ask your video supplier if it provides syndication, and if not, which services it recommends.

The next syndication step is to make videos mobile. This requires hosting flat files (like 3GP) or having an HTML5 player for "Flash emulation" (for iPhones and iPads). The new Android 2.3 platform will play your videos as they exist now in Flash without flat files.

Display QR codes in advertising to let consumers directly access your mobile videos. Video is perfect for mobile because entire product presentations can be delivered without requiring consumers to "thumb around" information.

Cable's video on demand is another destination for video because your entire product inventory can be available to consumers through their TVs 24/7. It's cheap compared to what advertisers expect to spend on TV. With the advent of iTV apps (where consumers can transact through their TVs), this is an area you want to get started in.
Tip: Ask your video supplier how it can help you push your video to other media.