6 Tips to Leverage Short-Form Videos to Boost Your Online Sales

We’re all familiar with the phrase, a picture is worth a thousand words, and in marketing terms, it is. If you want to tell a story about your brand or deliver a message quickly, nothing can do it more efficiently than a good visual.

Now that short videos are gaining popularity as a marketing tool of choice across social media, businesses and brands are engaging their audiences more creatively and effectively than ever before.

According to many studies, the average attention span of an internet user is a little more than 8 seconds. And in less than that time, you need to be able to communicate your brand’s message — what makes your business unique, and why should people care? This means you can’t afford to waste any time getting to the point.

What are Short-Form Videos?

Any video that is short in duration is classified as a short-form video. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, Tiktok, and Instagram have popularized these types of videos. They allow users to quickly create, upload and share their content with followers/friends.

And in addition to high-quality photos, modern eCommerce stores also incorporate short-form videos to display product features, benefits, usage, and customer reviews.

Many eCommerce businesses combine images and reviews in one extended carousel that customers can scroll through. Others use videos to show off products in action.

However, selling solely via social platforms (such as Instagram Shops) isn't a good idea as you don't own those channels. For more security and autonomy, you need to create an online storefront that you own. So, if you haven't already, you can set up your free eCommerce website to start implementing short-form videos across all your marketing channels.

All that being said, here are some tips on how you can use short videos to boost your online sales.

1. Create Explainers or Educational Videos

Explainer videos are a great way to educate your prospects about your products and services. They allow you to reach more prospects, convert more leads into buying customers and sell online more smoothly by fostering a better relationship with existing customers.

Considering the benefits, brands should be focusing on educational content in their short-form videos in 2022.  

These kinds of videos also add great value to the content and help viewers in their daily lives with engaging graphics and illustrations that explain complex concepts in an easy-to-understand way.

2. Make viral content

The most effective short-form videos are usually between 30 seconds and five minutes long, with the sweet spot being around a minute. These types of videos have the best chance of going viral.

In fact, it is through viral content that short-form videos initially gained popularity. 

It’s a great strategy to:

• Gain traffic
• Build brand awareness
• Increasing audience engagement

Have a look at this example from Colgate:

Source 

The company launched a TikTok #MakeMomSmile challenge to celebrate Mother’s Day. It encouraged users worldwide to share videos about them doing something special for their mothers.

It allowed the audience the opportunity to be creative non-invasively and collaboratively while increasing Colgate’s brand awareness.

This strategy can also help you boost your online sales. Make sure that you have an up and running website as the viewers will probably visit your site after they watch the video.

3. Use influencer advertising

The reason influencer ads work well for retailers is that they're authentic — they don't feel like traditional advertisements because they're produced by people the audience already follows and respects. 

For this, you need to know the audience of the video platform. For instance, TikTok users are between 10 and 29 years old – allowing you to target the Millennial and Gen Z population. 

You might also consider hiring influencers to promote your brand’s latest products. 

And even big brands are using influencer ads to promote their products. 

If you look at this Sony Music case study, the music company ran a TikTok influencer marketing campaign across Spain, Argentina, and Italy to promote Atrévete, the Nicky Jam x Sch song. 

They got in touch with twelve influencers and asked them to create a TikTok video each. 

These influencers reached 8 million engaged users, garnered 1.2 million likes, and 10,300 user-generated videos. The average engagement rate was assessed to be 6%.

4. Make product teasers

Product teasers are short videos that introduce a product and create excitement around it in only a few seconds. These videos are designed to be shared on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.

If you have watched G-Shock’s product teaser video, you will know how effective product videos can be. 

They blended 3D animation with their product, displaying the toughness, water resistance, and durability of their watch. The background music creates excitement, and the visuals are captivating. The teaser video has got 496,504 views.

Another good example is Oriflamme’s product teaser video. As per Oriflame’s product launch case study, the company organized a #BeTheOne campaign for their #TheOne range. The campaign was divided into three phases- teaser, launch, and sustenance. 

Following this campaign, the company was able to create conversations around its new range and saw a 98% increase in average engagement on Instagram. 

5. Encourage user-generated content

Creating video content can be an intimidating and expensive endeavour. But if you're really eager to get started with video, you don't have to create everything yourself.

User-generated content (UGC) is a great way to kick off your video marketing initiative with videos that are both engaging and cost-effective.

For the uninitiated, User-generated content, or UGC videos, is any form of content created by people — that's you and me.

User-generated images, videos, and text are found in abundance on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. They are usually created by everyday people rather than brands.

Here’s how GoPro did it.

They conducted a world challenge to create user-generated content and increase brand awareness. Next, they asked participants to capture videos of their craziest bike rides. Fabio Wibmer’s GoPro video was selected as the winner with more than 33 million views on YouTube, and he was awarded $1000.

It is a huge boost to brand recognition value.

6. Make behind-the-brand videos

People are interested in who you are, the human side of your business, and how you got started. They want to know what’s behind the brand.

If you look at IKEA’s behind-the-brand video, it is about the company’s philanthropic efforts. The video shows a human side to the audience. And people may have never known about this part of the story if they hadn’t made this video.

As many as 86% of customers say authenticity is vital when choosing brands they support. And 86% of millennials will most likely buy from you if their beliefs and values align with your brand. 

Wrapping Up

In this article, we have gone over a few elements that you need to keep in mind when it comes to short-form video selling. These short-form video strategies will give you a good idea as to what works and what doesn't. 

In addition, the many examples only go on to show how short-form video has been able to boost sales for businesses of all sizes and niches. Just remember, these tips are just some of those many ideas worth exploring. 

If you have an excellent product or service, stick with your plan and come up with your own unique elements to boost your online sales.

Lucy is a creative content writer and strategist at Marketing Digest. She specializes in writing about digital marketing, technology, entrepreneurship, and education. When she is not writing or editing, she spends time reading books, cooking and travelling.