As the holiday period draws nearer, retailers around the world are upping their efforts to sell their products and services. We’re in the midst of 'Halloween specials' and now that we’re heading towards November, the cyber sales season is about to kick in!
Chinese Singles Day marks the start of the holiday sales season on November 11th. Swiftly followed by Black Friday which falls on November 26th this year, Thanksgiving on November 28th and Cyber Monday the day after. To help you prepare for the busiest sales period of the year, in this blog we're sharing our tips and advice for using video marketing to capitalize on the peak in online traffic to deliver results for your business!
Why is Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing so important?
For many consumers, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are fantastic opportunities to buy investment products and services at discounted prices. Over 20% of US shoppers will start buying for the festive period in late November. Which means that it's little surprise that Thanksgiving shoppers have grown significantly from 174.6 million in 2017 to 189.6 million in 2019 and for the first time, the number of online Black Friday shoppers reached the 100 million mark.
With consumers primed to spend, this isn't an opportunity businesses should miss out on! So let's look at how you can prepare for a successful sales season with video.
1. Create an attention-grabbing explainer video
Creating an explainer video is a quick and effective way to get across your product features, advantages, and services. A challenge that retailers face, especially heading into the cyber sales season, is keeping potential customers on their website long enough to go through with the sale. Adding an explainer video to your website means you're more than twice as likely to land a sale. You can take advantage of our 7-day free trial to create your explainer video before the cyber sales go live.
Here’s one of our own explainer videos that explains why scribes are so popular in marketing 👇
Our top tips for creating your cyber sales explainer video:
- The most successful videos always evoke an emotion, whether that's joy, nostalgia or even sadness. Christmas holiday ads are a prime example of this. They often tell the story of a character on a quest or journey that stimulates certain emotions and means that by the time the ad has finished, you're completely bought in.
- If you're marketing to an international audience, don't underestimate the importance of translating your video into each language. This is especially important on YouTube as it can help your video to attract greater appeal. Professional video translation agencies like Voquent can help with this if you're not able to do it in-house.
- Make sure you have a strong call-to-action (CTA)! You don't want to leave any room for misinterpretation of your video. After watching your explainer video, your audience need to know exactly what to do to take the next step, i.e. which webpage to visit to claim their discounts.
- Lastly, you don't need to make your explainer video from scratch. If you're short on time or feel daunted by creating your first explainer video, we've created a number of handy templates to get you started like the one below. All you have to do is switch out the details and you've got a ready made video!
2. Spread the word with social media advertising
Now you have an explainer video ready to go, you can take advantage of online advertising. Use your video to promote your offers leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday on video platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo and consider social media advertising on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Alternatively, take a more sophisticated approach by retargeting people who have previously visited your website to entice them back to buy.
Our other top tips for effective video adverts:
- Attention spans on social media are limited so keep your video short and sweet! You can find more guidance on how long videos should be for each channel in our recent blog and in the video below.
- If you're advertising on Facebook, keep text in your promotional videos (particularly thumbnails) and images to a minimum as Facebook's rules dictate that text can only cover 20% of the screen. You can find more guidance on this here.
- By default most social media platforms play videos on mute as they know users are not always watching in environments where sound can be played. With that in mind, make sure your videos have subtitles so that your target customers can still enjoy your video regardless of whether they're at work, on public transport or in the comfort of their own home!
3. Persuade with landing and product page videos
Once you’ve captured their attention with your online video advertising, make sure the landing or product page that you direct people to showcases the same video to make the journey feel tailored to your consumer. This is another opportunity to remind visitors of the features, advantages, and benefits of your products with your videos.
This is also your chance to answer frequently asked questions and resolve any concerns your target customers might have before they buy. That could include questions about shipping timescales, refund policies and specific product questions. These kinds of queries can be answered quickly in a short video to bring the focus back to your product or service and why it's right for the customer.
4. Improve email conversion rates with video
HubSpot research found that by adding video to marketing emails, click rates increased by 300%. If this isn’t enough to persuade you to use video, we don’t know what is. Emails are a perfect opportunity to drive your subscribers to re-engage with your content and purchase your service or product. HubSpot also suggests the optimal length for video in this format is between 30 - 60 seconds.
Alongside length of video, the following tips can improve your chances of success:
- Your video has to grab your audience as soon as they open it or else they'll move onto the next. So make sure the first frame of your video is the most eye-catching to hook them in.
- To keep your customers reading, create continuous movement in the email by turning your videos into short GIFs. Learn how here.
- Use the word 'video' in your subject lines! Research has proven that emails that mention video from the outset can increase open rates by as much as 19%.
5. Use review videos to build consumer trust
Building relationships, trust, and loyalty with your customers is key to maintaining a successful business. But how can you build trust with video, we hear you ask? By creating a visual, modern representation of the amazing things your customers have said about using your product or service. Compared to written text which has a retention rate of 12%, video has a 95% retention rate. Using video to display your testimonials means you have a 155% greater chance for current and prospect customers to retain your message.
You can see an example of this below. We turned one of our favorite reviews into a quick VideoScribe video 👇
Not a fan of Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
If the cyber sales don't suit your brand, why not buck the trend and support Giving Tuesday! After the rush of indulgent sales, Giving Tuesday is the perfect antidote and a day to give back by supporting a cause or doing something good for someone in need.
This year it'll take place on November 30th. In 2020 supporters gave an estimated $2.47B during the 24 hours of GivingTuesday in the U.S. alone and it's only set to grow this year. So if Giving Tuesday sounds more up your street, share how you're giving back in a video that you can share with your customers and community.
So, are you ready to use video to meet your objectives this season? Start your no-obligation 7 day free trial with VideoScribe today (no credit card needed).
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