How to Create a Shoppable Product Video That Converts

It should come as no surprise that 91% of businesses use video in their marketing strategy. Videos are a powerful tool, with 89% of consumers stating that watching a video has convinced them to buy a product or service.

Product videos help potential customers understand the use cases for your product, enticing them to make a purchase. Shoppable product videos implore potential customers to make the purchase then and there—with a direct link from the video.

Throughout this article, we’ll talk more about what product videos are, why they’re so beneficial to eCommerce brands, and how to create your own shoppable product video.

What is a product video?

A product video is a video that showcases how your product works, what its best features are, and how it can be used in everyday life. A good product video makes viewers feel like they can’t live without your product.

This product video example from Redsbaby showcases exactly what you want to accomplish with your own product video:

The video shows the product in action, highlighting all of its best features and helping viewers visualize how the product can seamlessly fit right into their lifestyle—or make it even better.

Other elements you could include in your product video are:

• Company backstory or mission

• Product description

• Product features

• Product demonstration

• Product use cases

• Product reviews

• Call-to-action

What is a shoppable product video?

A shoppable product video has a lot of the same markings as a regular product video—but it includes embedded links that lead directly to the product(s) featured in the video, making it extremely easy for interested viewers to make their purchase immediately.

Here’s an example of a Videowise shoppable video that you can find on Busy Baby Mat’s website (head to their website and scroll down to “See It In Action!” to check it out):

The product video showcases exactly how a family uses their silicone Busy Baby Mat, and includes the product information alongside the video so viewers can immediately add it to their cart and check out.

The above video focuses on just one product—but Busy Baby Mat also has a video that links to multiple products all in one place:

In this video, the founder walks viewers through a number of her products and the sidebar allows interested customers to add as many products to their cart as they’d like, all while still watching the video to see how the products work.

3 benefits of shoppable product videos

Why create product videos—or shoppable product videos—in the first place? There are three major benefits to incorporating this type of video into your video marketing strategy:

1. Improve the buying experience

What does your customer journey look like? Where are your customers learning about your product and how many steps does it take for them to add products to their cart?

A typical customer journey might look like this:

• A customer sees one of your ads

• They click on your website to learn more

• They browse your products

• They read reviews, check your social media, etc.

• They decide which product to buy

• They add it to their cart and check out

That sounds like a whole lot of clicking around, right? With product videos, there’s a better way.

Start by creating your product video (we’ve got six tips for this process shortly) and use that as your ad. The potential customer sees your ad and clicks on it—this leads them to a shoppable product video.

Here, the customer is able to view the product in action, see ratings and reviews (if you include any in the video), and immediately add the product to their cart.

It’s a much more seamless experience that can lead to a lot more sales.

2. Increase customer engagement

51% of people are more likely to share a video online than any other type of content. This is because video content is engaging, shareable, and informative. Plus, it’s easily digestible. 

Creating product videos increases the likelihood that your customers will engage with it and share it with their friends and family, boosting awareness of your brand and its products.

3. Generate more sales

We already mentioned it, but nearly 9 in 10 people have bought a product after watching a product video. By creating product videos—especially if they’re interactive and make the buying process easy—and putting them in front of the right audience members, you can easily generate more sales and increase revenue.

How to create a shoppable product video

As an eCommerce marketer, who doesn’t want to improve the buying experience, increase engagement, and generate more sales? With those benefits, product video creation is a no-brainer.

But if you’re new to the process, we’ve got a quick five-step guide to help you get started and discover how to create a product video that converts:

1. Pinpoint your goals

Why do you want to create this product video? Every marketing tactic should start with an objective so that you can measure its performance.

For example, you might choose a goal like:

• Build brand awareness

• Get people talking about your brand

• Go viral

• Educating customers

• Generating sales

Each of these goals is going to produce a different type of product video.

For example, if you want to go viral, you’ll want to touch on a relevant theme or a more controversial topic. If you want to generate sales, a shoppable video that highlights your product’s best features and use cases with a link to buy now is going to be your best bet.

This classic Dollar Shave Club product video wanted to go viral—and boy, did it. By using a title that was sure to stand out (“Our Blades Are F***ing Great”), strategic timing, and some humour, they got a video that took one day and $4,500 to make to reach three million people in just a few days.

In fact, so many people became interested in the product that the Dollar Shave Club website crashed for 24 hours. But the next day, 12,000 people subscribed. That’s $1+/month revenue from each person, totalling at least $12,000 in monthly revenue—for a $4,500 video.

Talk about a return on investment, am I right?

But they set a goal and hit it (well, exceeded it in this case). Make sure you pinpoint exactly what you want your product video to achieve before you even consider what your storyline, script, or featured product(s) will be.

2. Gather your products

Next, gather the product(s) you want to highlight in your video. Is your video going to focus on just a single, flagship product? Or perhaps an entire collection? Or a bunch of products with similar use cases?

Regardless of what you choose, just make sure your video follows a storyline that makes sense. If you sell a wide range of products, you don’t want your product demo video to cover too many options that don’t really go together. 

Let’s take a fictional swimming store as an example. At the start of summer, they might consider creating a product video geared toward parents of young children so they can showcase all of the equipment they sell that helps kids learn how to swim.

But halfway through the video, they started showcasing all of their professional swim gear, like wetsuits, swim caps, adult goggles, and more.

That video wouldn’t flow well. It would be clumsy, it would confuse the viewer, and it wouldn’t be as targeted or effective.

Instead, focus on just one product or set of products. It’ll help your video flow much better, drawing in your target audience.

Here’s a great example from Hydro Flask, a water bottle company. They’ve created a quick, 30-second product video showcasing the simplest of products—a water bottle cap.

Even though it’s just a single component of their main product, they’ve allowed this short video to focus only on the straw cap. This is a smart move because they sell caps separately, so even though it’s just a $15 product, people will still buy it as a replacement for other types of lids or caps.

Or, you could take a page out of this holiday-themed product video from BAGGU, a reusable bag company. They’ve cleverly showcased half a dozen of their products and how they can be used to wrap gifts in a quick one-minute product video.

As long as you have a common theme throughout your video, you can make it make sense. Decide which product or group of products to highlight and gather a few to feature in your video.

3. Shoot your video footage

The next step when making product videos is to record your video—or however, you plan to create footage to compile into a product video. Even though we’re talking about video, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to pull out (or rent) a high-definition video camera and a studio full of production equipment.

Did you watch our Hydro Flask example? That was a stop-motion video, with images taken in quick succession that have been stitched together to create a moving video. Some brands also take advantage of stock videos to help supplement a product video on a budget.

But even if you do use video, it doesn’t have to be an expensive production. The Dollar Shave Club video followed the CEO through a warehouse with little to no high-tech equipment needed. As we said, the video cost $4,500 and took a single day to film.

This example from Tommy John uses simple animation to showcase their product and how it differs from the competition.

Or you might decide to produce a silent video, like this example from Tiffany. They use a close-up video clip with a dark background to put all emphasis on the actual product.

Here’s a short video from Man Crates that likely didn’t take much time at all to produce. It’s only 22 seconds long. All we see is a recording of a man opening a crate while a voice-over narrates. Simple as that.

Get creative with your product video. It’s a good idea to start by creating a storyboard—a document that helps you outline each scene in your video to help organize the filming process.

Source

Once you have an idea of how you want your product video to flow, it’s time to start filming or gathering other creative assets. And if you are on a budget, you can even make a successful product video with your smartphone.

Here’s an example of a shoppable video created with Videowise for RIFRUF, a designer dog shoe brand. It’s vertical, which makes it easy to view on mobile sites, but it also tells us that it was likely filmed with an iPhone or Android.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, here are a few tips to help you get started:

• Make your product center-stage. Get a blank background so your product is the star of the show, rather than getting lost in the background.

• Focus on one feature. For your first video, don’t get caught up trying to explain every use case and product feature. Niche down to a single feature or use and target the video to that specific audience.

• Use consistent lighting. Find a type of lighting or ambiance you like and stick with it throughout every product video you create. This can help build brand recognition throughout all of your product videos.

• Take advantage of the tools you have. If you don’t have studio lighting, get a ring light and some phone flashlights. If you don’t have a DSLR camera, start with a smartphone. If you don’t have somewhere to film, create a corner in your warehouse or office with a plain background. Don’t overcomplicate things—you can film anywhere you want.

• Incorporate customer testimonials. Use a graphic overlay or narration to share testimonials, ratings, and reviews of your product. Social proof is a powerful sales tool.

• Get a tripod. Even if you’re filming with a smartphone, you can easily snag an affordable tripod to fit your phone or camera. This is a must to ensure your video footage is smooth and not shaky, giving you a more professional feel.

• Collect user-generated content or influencer content. If your customers or influencer partners have shared video footage of your product(s), ask if you can share it on your own platforms or use it in your own marketing videos. This is an easy way to get engaging video footage with little to no effort for your team.

Product video production doesn’t have to be a huge project. Use what you have—then make it shoppable. You’ll get great results.

4. Edit your video

Whether you choose to go with animation, photo, or video, the next step is editing all of the puzzle pieces together to create the final picture. Start by choosing your software. 

A few top options include:

• iMovie

• Adobe Premiere Pro

• CyberLink

• VEED

Things to consider when editing your video are:

• Filters/presets: You paid attention to the lighting during filming, but you can also add filters or presets to your footage during the editing process. If you choose to do this, make sure to stick to the same filters across the board.

• Transitions: How will you transition from scene to scene? Stick to a single cohesive transition throughout your video.

• Background music: Choose a background audio that fits the overall “vibe” of your video. Somber videos require somber audio, educational videos need mild audio, and upbeat videos deserve upbeat audio.

• Voice-over: If your video didn’t have sound, you might want to add a voice-over to narrate how to use the product and what your USP is.

• Graphics: Are you adding special effects, like overlays that point out features or provide more context to the video? Make sure they match your branded colors and other visual elements.

Finalize your video edits and export it as an .MP4 so you can upload it to your video platform of choice.

5. Choose a video platform

Once you’ve created your product video, it’s time to choose a video platform to share it on. Some platforms are meant simply for hosting your video so you can share it online while others boast additional features that can help you generate more sales.

1. YouTube

YouTube is the most popular video-hosting platform with over 2.5 billion users. It’s a great platform to use if you’re looking to create consistent video content and build up a large audience. YouTube also makes it easy to share and embed your video content.

The platform is completely free, and creators/brands can also monetize their channels and receive a percentage of ad revenue based on how many views their videos get.

It’s a good idea for every business to have a presence on YouTube simply due to its sheer popularity. Every video you create should be shared on YouTube, even if you have other plans for it cross-platform as well.

2. Vimeo

Vimeo has about 260 million users—so a tiny fraction of YouTube’s user base. However, Vimeo isn’t meant for discovering videos like YouTube, so its user base doesn’t matter.

What Vimeo is good for is uploading videos to share with your audience. Vimeo has a much more visually appealing video player than YouTube does, making it a more seamless experience when embedding videos on your website or in a blog post.

Plus, one of their best features is the ability to replace videos you’ve previously uploaded.

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you’ve created a product video that showcases your product’s features and use cases. A year or so later, you discontinue that product for a better model. You may have already embedded that video on a number of web pages. 

Instead of having to switch out that video everywhere it’s been embedded, you can simply replace it within your Vimeo account to showcase the new model and all of its features.

Vimeo offers a free plan if you don’t upload video content often. For brands that create and share a lot of videos, paid plans start at $9/user/month, billed annually.

3. Instagram

Instagram is a social media platform that was originally created for photo-sharing but has evolved into video hosting as well. If your brand has a presence on Instagram, you want to create a healthy combination of both photos and videos on your feed.

Instagram also focuses more heavily on vertical video as the app is mobile-first. Consider creating two versions of your product video to share one on regular video hosting sites like YouTube and another on social media sites like Instagram.

Instagram also offers in-app shopping, so if you’ve built a product catalog on the app, you can easily link all mentioned products in your video so that viewers can make a purchase with just a couple of taps.

4. TikTok

TikTok, like Instagram, is a mobile-first app focused on vertical video content. While it does support shoppable ads, its organic video content isn’t shoppable yet. However, with trends like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, sharing products on this app can have major benefits.

You can add a link to your eCommerce website in your TikTok bio so that people interested in your product can still easily access your product pages and make a purchase.

5. Videowise

Videowise enables Shopify businesses to turn regular video content into a fully shoppable experience. These videos can then be shared via a shareable link or embedded on a website, product page, blog post, and more.

Tag products from your collection of products within your video to create a shoppable sidebar. This enables your video viewers to watch a product video and learn about the ins and outs of each featured product, while simultaneously exploring pricing, color options, sizing, and more, before adding it to their cart and completing their purchase.

Plans start at $99/month and help eCommerce businesses to increase their overall sales and revenue.

6. Share your product video

The last step when creating your product video is to launch. You’ve selected the product(s) to feature, gathered your video footage, edited it to perfection, and uploaded it to your preferred platform(s).

Now it’s time to share your product video with the world.

While some of the above platforms double as outlets to share your product (YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok), there are a few additional places to consider:

• Social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

• Your website’s home page—especially if it’s shoppable

• Product pages

• Blog posts

• Marketing emails

The more places you share your product videos, the more likely you are to reach your target audience, get them interested in your product, and convert a new customer.

6 tips and best practices for your product videos 

Now that you know how to make a product video, let’s talk about how to really grab your audience with that product video and use it to generate conversions. Keep these six tips in mind the next time you get ready to create your own product videos: 

1. Write your script ahead of time

Your first step in creating videos is to write your script. Writing a script gives you guidance on how to build your storyboard and make sure you get all the shots you need. Be sure to incorporate your brand voice so existing customers can easily recognize the video is coming from you.

Your video script has a few rules to stick to:

• Speak directly to your target audience/potential customer

• Write as you speak—because a script will literally be spoken out loud

• Focus on one specific goal throughout

• Be sure to touch on your customer's pain points

• Inject your brand’s personality into your script

Create a few iterations of your script until you find the best version. Whether it’s an on-screen script or narration, your script should always be the first step when you create videos.

2. Hook your viewer in the first 5 seconds

If you want to capture attention immediately and increase the length that potential customers view your video, you need to create an introduction that’s going to draw viewers in. Whether with your script or your footage, try to find a way to hook your viewer within the first five seconds or less.

Grab them by surprise, use voice or music to get their attention, ask a question, tell a story, or hint at a problem before offering the solution (with your product, obviously).

This can greatly increase the number of people who watch your video all the way through. However, if you create a shoppable video with a sidebar including product information, this can also be a great way to entice your viewers to keep watching as it gives them something to do—and it involves learning even more about your product.

3. Share product use cases

How does your product work? What does it do? How does it solve your customer’s problems? What is the ideal life they can visualize because of it?

Talk about all of these things and more within your product video. Showcase product demos and tutorials including the different ways it can help improve your target audience’s lives and share information about any other use case it might have.

Use your video footage to walk your viewer through the different ways your product can be used. Showcase the problem and then visualize how your problem is the solution.

This is one of the most compelling ways that you can sell your product to your target customer—the second is by positioning the offer right alongside your product explainer videos, which you can easily do through shoppable video content.

Take advantage of a tool like Videowise to supply product information in front of your video viewers at the same time that they’re learning how your product can improve their lives. Make shopping on your website even easier, increasing product sales and conversions.

4. Gather high-quality footage

Create a quality video by ensuring you have high-quality footage or photos. We mentioned a tripod to keep your footage smooth. You also want to ensure you don’t have blurry footage or unclear photography throughout.

Even if you’re utilizing your smartphone, take advantage of good lighting and a setup that will ensure your video resonates with your customers.

5. Be concise and to-the-point

Your product video doesn’t need to be long to get your point across. Instead, stick to just 30 seconds or one-minute maximum. Keep this in mind when writing your script and when gathering your footage.

Creating a video that drones on for too long will make it easy for your audience to lose interest. Instead, create a quick and concise video that showcases the item’s features and how customers can really take advantage of them.

6. Focus on just a few products per video

We’ve touched on this before, but let’s just reiterate: don’t try to sell every single product in your store within your product video. Instead, focus on just one or a couple of similar products that go well together.

For example, a car seat company might create a video focusing on products like their car seat, compatible stroller, car seat base, and other car seat safety products. But if they also sold high chairs, that type of product wouldn’t fit in the video.

Create a product video that touches on a single line of products and their key features. This is the best way to create the most compelling video content that will entice your target audience to purchase.

Create a shoppable product video that sells 

Product videos are a multi-faceted strategy: they engage your audience, tell a story, showcase your product’s use cases, and generate sales. If you’re looking for the next big strategy for your eCommerce store, it’s time to invest in video.

And not just any video, but shoppable videos. With Videowise, you can make product videos that actively generate sales and make the entire buying process easier. Find out more about creating embeddable shopping videos for your eCommerce site.