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6 Stats that Prove the Importance of Product Videos for Ecommerce

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Producing quality videos for your ecommerce site is hard, we know. Equipment is expensive, and specialists who know how to use that equipment cost even more. For that very reason, many ecommerce businesses will settle for photos and graphics just to get the job done.

These video marketing statistics show that video might just be an investment worth making. Sure, you’ll have to dig a little deeper into those pockets at first, but the results will return more than you dreamed.

Product Video Stats Marketers Need to Know

1. Video is the #1 content type used by marketers to sell products and services.

In our Not Another State of Marketing Report, marketers surveyed said that video is the top content type being produced in their content marketing programs, passing blog posts for the first time ever. 

2. More than half of marketers invest in some sort of product-related video.

Also in the HubSpot report noted above, we found that nearly one quarter of marketers invested in product promotion videos, while nearly one fifth invested in product demos.  

3. 73% more visitors who watch product videos will make a purchase. 

Did you know that your products are more likely to sell if you create videos for them? There are quite a few reasons for this, which we’ll cover in the next points. The most important thing to note, however, is simply that videos for your products do prompt more purchases. That’s really the biggest and most important statistic you need.

4. 92% of marketers who use video say it’s an important part of their marketing strategy — up from 78% in 2015.

According to the late-2019 Wyzowl Survey that polled marketers about their video tactics, the number above was up from 78% in 2015. With a stat like this, there’s almost no question that marketers are finding video valuable and worth their investment.

5. 71% of consumers prefer video over other marketing content.

When consumers feel like they understand the products you sell, they’re more likely to take a chance on spending their money. Video clears up a lot of that confusion. Isn’t that what your marketing is all about, anyway? Answering questions with quality content? 

6. 87% of Gen Z prefers branded videos or ads that show someone talking about a product.

Gen Z is one of the most digitally connected, and most budget-conscious, generations out there. And, as they reach full purchasing potential, you’ll want to keep their buyer’s journey behavior in mind.

As people in the age group research products, they’ll look for video-based ads, demos, tutorials, unboxings, or video reviews from influencers in order to see how well the product works and what it looks like in real life.

7. 55% of consumers use videos for purchase decisions.

While Gen Z most heavily relies on videos to research products, other age groups aren’t that different. More than half of people in all age groups use video to make a purchasing decision, according to 2019 data from Google.

Image Source

Ultimately, authentic videos can lead to a greater sense of trust. By providing product videos, you give buyers quality information that doesn’t hide behind good angles and lighting. They understand the products they’re ordering and are happier with their purchases. With every great transaction, you build more and more trust.

Video Stat Knowledge Check

Think you know your video stats? Test yourself with the interactive quiz below to see how well you soaked in the details above. Try not to peak as you answer each question:

 

Creating an Engaging Product Video

A consumer who trusts your business is worth the investment you’ll make in product video production, isn’t it?

If the stats above have intrigued you, and your ready to invest in your first product video, consider what you’d like to try out first. Here are a few examples of product video formats:

  • Demos/Tutorials: These videos walk through how the product or service works so a consumer can see how it functions in a real-world setting.
  • Influencer Marketing Videos: If you don’t have the time to produce product videos, but do have some budget to work with, you could consider hiring a macro or micro influencer to post a video on their networks where they talk about or promote your product.
  • Ads or Video Promotions: These videos are often shorter than tutorials. They merely highlight the product or service and all of it’s great features, but don’t necessarily need to go into full detail about how it works.
  • User-Generated Content: If you have happy customers that are using your product or service, encourage them to film a video review or unboxing that you can then share publicly over social media or on your website. When others see a real person talking about success they had with your brand, they might be more willing to trust your offerings.

To learn more about video marketing, check out this handy ultimate guide

Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally written in February 2016, but was updated in July 2020 for freshness and comprehensiveness.





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Desktop, Mobile, or Voice? (D) All of the Above — Best of Whiteboard Friday

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Posted by Dr-Pete

Needless to say, we’re facing more and more complexity in our everyday work, and the answers to our questions are about as clear as mud. In the wake of the 2018 mobile-first index, and since more searchers are home and not on-the-go, we’re left wondering where to focus our optimization efforts. Is desktop the most important? Is mobile? What about the voice phenomenon that’s now become part of our day-to-day lives?

As with most things, the most important factor is to consider your audience. People aren’t siloed to a single device — your optimization strategy shouldn’t be, either. In this informative Whiteboard Friday, Dr. Pete soothes our fears about a multi-platform world and highlights the necessity of optimizing for a journey rather than a touchpoint.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody. It’s Dr. Pete here from Moz. I am the Marketing Scientist here, and I flew in from Chicago just for you fine people to talk about something that I think is worrying us a little bit, especially with the rollout of the mobile index recently, and that is the question of: Should we be optimizing for desktop, for mobile, or for voice? I think the answer is (d) All of the above. I know that might sound a little scary, and you’re wondering how you do any of these. So I want to talk to you about some of what’s going on, some of our misconceptions around mobile and voice, and some of the ways that maybe this is a little easier than you think, at least to get started.

The mistakes we make

So, first of all, I think we make a couple of mistakes. When we’re talking about mobile for the last few years, we tend to go in and we look at our analytics and we do this. These are made up. The green numbers are made up or the blue ones. We say, “Okay, about 90% of my traffic is coming from desktop, about 10% is coming from mobile, and nothing is coming from voice. So I’m just going to keep focusing on desktop and not worry about these other two experiences, and I’ll be fine.” There are two problems with this:

Self-fulfilling prophecy

One is that these numbers are kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. They might not be coming to your mobile site. You might not be getting those mobile visitors because your mobile experience is terrible. People come to it and it’s lousy, and they don’t come back. In the case of voice, we might just not be getting that data yet. We have very little data. So this isn’t telling us anything. All this may be telling us is that we’re doing a really bad job on mobile and people have given up. We’ve seen that with Moz in the past. We didn’t adopt to mobile as fast as maybe we should have. We saw that in the numbers, and we argued about it because we said, “You know what? This doesn’t really tell us what the opportunity is or what our customers or users want. It’s just telling us what we’re doing well or badly right now, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Audiences

The other mistake I think we make is the idea that these are three separate audiences. There are people who come to our site on desktop, people who come to our site on mobile, people who come to our site on voice, and these are three distinct groups of people. I think that’s incredibly wrong, and that leads to some very bad ideas and some bad tactical decisions and some bad choices.

So I want to share a couple of stats. There was a study Google did called The Multiscreen World, and this was almost six years ago, 2012. They found six years ago that 65% of searchers started a search on their smartphones. Two-thirds of searchers started on smartphones six years ago. Sixty percent of those searches were continued on a desktop or laptop. Again, this has been six years, so we know the adoption rate of mobile has increased. So these are not people who only use desktop or who only use mobile. These are people on a journey of search that move between devices, and I think in the real world it looks more something like this right now.

Another stat from the series was that 88% of people said that they used their smartphone and their TV at the same time. This isn’t shocking to you. You sit in front of the TV with your phone and you sit in front of the TV with your laptop. You might sit in front of the TV with a smartwatch. These devices are being used at the same time, and we’re doing more searches and we’re using more devices. So one of these things isn’t replacing the other.

The cross-device journey

So a journey could look something like this. You’re watching TV. You see an ad and you hear about something. You see a video you like. You go to your phone while you’re watching it, and you do a search on that to get more information. Then later on, you go to your laptop and you do a bit of research, and you want that bigger screen to see what’s going on. Then at the office the next day, you’re like, “Oh, I’ll pull up that bookmark. I wanted to check something on my desktop where I have more bandwidth or something.” You’re like, “Oh, maybe I better not buy that at work. I don’t want to get in trouble. So I’m going to home and go back to my laptop and make that purchase.” So this purchase and this transaction, this is one visitor on this chain, and I think we do this a lot right now, and that’s only going to increase, where we operate between devices and this journey happens across devices.

So the challenge I would make to you is if you’re looking at this and you’re saying, “Only so many percent of our users are on mobile. Our mobile experience doesn’t matter that much. It’s not that important. We can just live with the desktop people. That’s enough. We’ll make enough money.” If they’re really on this journey and they’re not segmented like this, and this chain, you break it, what happens? You lose that person completely, and that was a person who also used desktop. So that person might be someone who you bucketed in your 90%, but they never really got to the device of choice and they never got to the transaction, because by having a lousy mobile experience, you’ve broken the chain. So I want you to be aware of that, that this is the cross-device journey and not these segmented ideas.

Future touchpoints

This is going to get worse. This is going to get scarier for us. So look at the future. We’re going to be sitting in our car and we’re going to be listening — I still listen to CDs in the car, I know it’s kind of sad — but you’re going to be listening to satellite radio or your Wi-Fi or whatever you have coming in, and let’s say you hear a podcast or you hear an author and you go, “Oh, that person sounds interesting. I want to learn more about them.” You tell your smartwatch, “Save this search. Tell me something about this author. Give me their books.” Then you go home and you go on Google Home and you pull up that search, and it says, “Oh, you know what? I’ve got a video. I can’t play that because obviously I’m a voice search device, but I can send that to Chromecast on your TV.” So you send that to your TV, and you watch that. While you’re watching the TV, you’ve got your phone out and you’re saying, “Oh, I’d kind of like to buy that.” You go to Amazon and you make that transaction.

So it took this entire chain of devices. Again now, what about the voice part of this chain? That might not seem important to you right now, but if you break the chain there, this whole transaction is gone. So I think the danger is by neglecting pieces of this and not seeing that this is a journey that happens across devices, we’re potentially putting ourselves at much higher risk than we think.

On the plus side

I also want to look at sort of the positive side of this. All of these devices are touchpoints in the journey, and they give us credibility. We found something interesting at Moz a few years ago, which was that our sale as a SaaS product on average took about three touchpoints. People didn’t just hit the Moz homepage, do a free trial, and then buy it. They might see a Whiteboard Friday. They might read our Beginner’s Guide. They might go to the blog. They might participate in the community. If they hit us with three touchpoints, they were much more likely to convert.

So I think the great thing about this journey is that if you’re on all these touchpoints, even though to you that might seem like one search, it lends you credibility. You were there when they ran the search on that device. You were there when they tried to repeat that search on voice. The information was in that video. You’re there on that mobile search. You’re there on that desktop search. The more times they see you in that chain, the more that you seem like a credible source. So I think this can actually be good for us.

The SEO challenge

So I think the challenge is, “Well, I can’t go out and hire a voice team and a mobile team and do a design for all of these things. I don’t want to build a voice app. I don’t have the budget. I don’t have the buy-in.” That’s fine.
One thing I think is really great right now and that we’re encouraging people to experiment with, we’ve talked a lot about featured snippets. We’ve talked about these answer boxes that give you an organic result. One of the things Google is trying to do with this is they realize that they need to use their same core engine, their same core competency across all devices. So the engine that powers search, they want that to run on a TV. They want that to run on a laptop, on a desktop, on a phone, on a watch, on Goggle Home. They don’t want to write algorithms for all of these things.

So Google thinks of their entire world in terms of cards. You may not see that on desktop, but everything on desktop is a card. This answer box is a card. That’s more obvious. It’s got that outline. Every organic result, every ad, every knowledge panel, every news story is a card. What that allows Google to do, and will allow them to do going forward, is to mix and match and put as many pieces of information as it makes sense for any given device. So for desktop, that might be a whole bunch. For mobile, that’s going to be a vertical column. It might be less. But for a watch or a Google Glass, or whatever comes after that, or voice, you’re probably only going to get one card.

But one great thing right now, from an SEO perspective, is these featured snippets, these questions and answers, they fit on that big screen. We call it result number zero on desktop because you’ve got that box, and you’ve got a bunch of stuff underneath it. But that box is very prominent. On mobile, that same question and answer take up a lot more screen space. So they’re still a SERP, but that’s very dominant, and then there’s some stuff underneath. On voice, that same question and answer pairing is all you get, and we’re seeing that a lot of the answers on voice, unless they’re specialty like recipes or weather or things like that, have this question and answer format, and those are also being driven by featured snippets.

So the good news I think, and will hopefully stay good news going forward, is that because Google wants all these devices to run off that same core engine, the things you do to rank well for desktop and to be useful for desktop users are also going to help you rank on mobile. They’re going to help you rank on voice, and they’re going to help you rank across all these devices. So I want you to be aware of this. I want you to try and not to break that chain. But I think the things we’re already good at will actually help us going forward in the future, and I’d highly encourage you to experiment with featured snippets to see how questions and answers appear on mobile and to see how they appear on Google Home, and to know that there’s going to be an evolution where all of these devices benefit somewhat from the kind of optimization techniques that we’re already good at hopefully.

Encourage the journey chain

So I also want to say that when you optimize for answers, the best answers leave searchers wanting more. So what you want to do is actually encourage this chain, encourage people to do more research, give them rich content, give them the kinds of things that draw them back to your site, that build credibility, because this chain is actually good news for us in a way. This can help us make a purchase. If we’re credible on these devices, if we have a decent mobile experience, if we come up on voice, that’s going to help us really kind of build our brand and be a positive thing for us if we work on it.

So I’d like you to tell me, what are your fears right now? I think we’re a little scared of the mobile index. What are you worried about with voice? What are you worried about with IoT? Are you concerned that we’re going to have to rank on our refrigerators, and what does that mean? So it’s getting into science fiction territory, but I’d love to talk about it more. I will see you in the comment section.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com


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How to Use Instagram Insights (in 9 Easy Steps)

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It’s no secret that we love data.

Data helps you understand your audience. It tells you how they do things, what they prefer, and who they are.

And when it comes to social media, our love for data doesn’t fade.

That’s why we love analytics and insights. They help you measure the impact of your marketing efforts across different channels to see if there’s something you need to do differently — like target a different audience, post at a certain time of day, or experiment with a new content format.

Instagram Insights are no exception. Here are the analytics on this channel that marketers need to know and understand — and how to use them.

To use Instagram Insights, you must first have a business profile.

If you’re already using a personal account, you can switch to a business profile. In order to have a Business Account, you must also have a Facebook Page for your brand. Instagram will give you the option to create a new one during this process if you don’t already have one. Here’s how to convert your account in a few simple steps.

Once your set up as a Business Account, you can begin to use Instagram Insights. Here’s how to get started.

1. Click the insights icon.

To view insights into your overall Instagram account, start by visiting your profile. Then, at the top, click the icon of a bar chart, which will take you to your overall insights.

From there, you’ll see some general information about people are engaging with your profile, like how many followers you gained or lost in the past week.

Next, we’ll get into the more specific profile insights you can explore.

2. View your impressions and reach.

This insight represents how many times your ads appeared on users’ screens. Reach reflects the number of unique users that have seen any of your Instagram posts.

3. Determine website clicks.

This insight reflects the number of times any links you’ve included in your business profile have been clicked.

4. Track profile visits and followers.

Profile visits reflects the number of times your profile has been viewed. Followers reflect how many followers you’ve gained or lost over the past week, as well as the average times of day when your followers are using Instagram — data that can be highly beneficial when planning posts. To view insights for a specific Instagram post, start by visiting your profile. Tap on the post you’d like to look into, then click “View Insights” below the image.

5. Click view insights below a post for specifics. 

You may have also promoted a certain post — if that’s the case, an arrow icon that looks like this will appear:

View Post insights button on Instagram

For these posts, you can either view insights on the original version of the post, or specific ones from its promotion. For the latter, tap “Promotion.”

Next, we’ll get into the more specific post insights you can explore.

6. View your posts likes, comments, and saves. 

Likes speaks for itself, and reflects the number of users who liked your post. As with likes, comments reflects the number of comments left on your post. Saves highlights the number of unique users or accounts who saved your post, or clicked the bookmark-like icon that appeared below it in their feeds.

7. Learn which actions were taken on your post.

These insights indicate the number of actions that users took on your profile as a result of seeing your post — things like visiting your profile, then taking an action like clicking on your website link or following you.

Source: Instagram

8. Use Discover to see where your post showed up in feeds. 

As the name might suggest, these insights indicate where your post was seen — or discovered — the most, including how many accounts weren’t already following you when they first saw the post.

This section includes metrics on Impressions, which reflect the number of times your post was discovered from a particular place within Instagram, like the user’s home feed, a search, your profile, a location tag, or a hashtag.

Source: Instagram

Discovery insights also include data on a post’s reach — which reflects the number of unique accounts that saw your post.

9. View Instagram Story Insights

Finally, Instagram users with a business profile are able to view insights into their ephemeral Stories. Instagram does not, however, offer such analytics for live videos.

To view your Story insights, start by visiting your profile. Then, at the top, tap the icon of the bar chart, which will take you to your overall profile insights.

Instagram profile insights feature

Scroll down to the Stories section, and you’ll be able to see insights for older stories, as well as any that have not yet expired.

Next, we’ll get into the more specific Story insights you can explore.

Impressions

This insight represents how many times your Story was seen.

When viewing these insights, keep in mind that you’re able to add multiple images or videos to your Story. When you do this, every piece of visual content in your Story is counted as a single photo or video in your post.

Let’s say you add six photos to your Story. Whether someone only views one or views all six, Instagram only counts your entire Story having received one impression.

The same goes for Story content that has been viewed by a single user more than once. Instagram still only counts that interaction as the entire Story having received one impression.

Reach

This insight reflects the number of unique users that have seen your Story.

Taps Forward

This insight reflects the number of times a user taps your Story photo or video to skip to the next piece of media.

Taps Back

This insight reflects the number of time a user taps your Story photo or video to go back to the previous piece of media.

Replies

This insight reflects the number of times users send messages through the “Send Message” text box on your Story.

Replies on Instagram Stories

Swipe Aways

This insight reflects the number of times users swipe to skip to the next account’s Story — not to be mistaken for “tap forward,” which reflects users skipping ahead to your next piece of Story media.

Exits

This insight reflects the number of times a user leaves the Stories section entirely to return to the home feed.

Now that you know how to measure the effectiveness of your Instagram strategy using Insights, you can analyze that data and determine what’s working for your audience. From there, creating content that gets a ton of engagement will be a lot easier as you consider those benchmarks.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2018 but has been updated for comprehensiveness.





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As Businesses Bounce Back Post-COVID, B2B Orgs Prioritize Accounts On The Rebound

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As businesses slowly start to reopen, B2B marketers will be tasked to reignite their business operations and identify when their target accounts are ready to do business again.

Seismic, a sales and marketing enablement software, rolled out resources to help its customers adapt to a work-from-home model, helping customers with remote collaboration, meeting the demand for content and fostering digital engagement. Ed Calnan, Co-founder and CRO of Seismic, shared details around how Seismic has adapted to COVID-19 and helped businesses retain similar levels of customer success.

“Businesses were forced to have most, if not all, employees work remotely,” Calnan explained. “They quickly needed to get their tech stack sorted to support this shift, and many turned to remote collaboration tools, like Zoom, which has experienced unprecedented growth during this time. These companies were most in need of a platform that helps facilitate continued growth if they had the budget available to make technology investments. Every sales and marketing leader, no matter what kind of business they work for, should be looking within their networks for similar opportunities.”

Calnan offered three tactics for marketers who are struggling with the effectiveness of their efforts:

  • Aligning sales and marketing with customer success teams;
  • Finding the best time to target rebounding accounts; and
  • Identifying accounts that are on the verge or have already rebounded.

Keeping All Teams Up To Speed

The need for efficient communication is integral to any business’ success, and this rings true for businesses operating during and after COVID-19. According to Calnan, sales and marketing leaders need to look at the landscape as a whole and adapt accordingly, and having marketing, sales and customer success teams aligned leads to efficient communication and the ability to adapt to new information or marketing shifts.

The alignment of business operations can help increase response time to new trends, market shifts and active accounts. Maintaining alignment across the organization can also help teams identify companies that are rebounding, track new information that helps marketers accurately pursue individual accounts, create unified messaging and drive campaign success.

“When these teams are already working together, it’s much easier to get a pulse on how customers are being impacted, which can then be funneled to sales and marketing to inform new strategies and plans,” Calnan explained. “It’s incredibly important that the customer success team is closely in touch with sales and marketing to ensure everyone is singing the same song as messaging and campaigns are overhauled.”

Marketing plays that worked pre-COVID may not be viable in a digital-only environment, and maintaining alignment across marketing, sales and customer success positions all teams to brainstorm ideas and test new strategies.

“Sellers can be creatures of habit,” Calnan stated. “Sales leaders have to become accustomed to pivoting and re-prioritizing, or worse, pipeline slowing. When that happens, marketing must take the time to focus on the behind-the-scenes work that will help their sales team succeed in the future. This requires perfecting demos, role-playing, training and account planning.”

Optimizing Rebounding Account Outreach

As businesses bounce back from the pandemic, it’s important for marketers to remember that their buyers are also in the process of re-entering the market. Some accounts may not be financially ready to engage in purchasing decisions, while others have been interacting with B2B businesses throughout the pandemic.

Calnan suggests that marketers make sure to validate the leads they are about to engage by identifying active accounts and looking at boosts in revenue, existing historical data and merger/acquisition activity. These factors show the overall health of the account, and help marketing, sales and customer success teams determine whether pursuing the account will result in engagement or ROI.

“Historical sales data has helped us determine who may still have the highest propensity to buy during an uncertain period like COVID-19,” he said. “Marketers and sellers also need to pay attention to things like a resumption of M&A activity. Basically, look for anything that suggests a company is making forward-looking business decisions.”

Calnan also highlighted that reaching out to pre-existing accounts and identifying active older accounts that have already rebounded will be easier by establishing trust. Many pre-existing buyers are looking for businesses that will maintain their operations despite the uncertainty, and marketers need to prove to accounts that buying from or partnering with their business will result in healthy growth for both buyer and seller.

Organizations with aligned marketing, customer success and sales teams can use this transparency to identify which older accounts are beginning to rebound, have already been active throughout the pandemic or are still inactive.

“Pandemic aside, expanding existing accounts should always be a top priority, and the customer success team should be part of that process in their role as trusted advisor and support system to customers,” Calnan stated. “They should always be clued into how current customers are using the platform and the business goals they’re trying to achieve so they can make strategic recommendations on new tools and features that can drive even more value.”

Knowing When To Engage

Calnan stressed the importance of knowing the best time to reach out to target accounts, as many accounts are still reopening or struggling to reenter the market.

Prematurely performing outreach for accounts that are not in the market or are still struggling to reopen can not only result in rejection but potentially kill any attempts to engage with them in the future. Marketers and salespeople need to carefully analyze their account data to avoid isolating potential buyers, learning which accounts are struggling, which are actively buying and which are getting their bearings.

“Sales and marketing teams need to exercise the highest level of due diligence before attempting to start a conversation with a business they perceive to be on the rebound,” Calnan stated. “This means keeping tabs on the activities of these companies for indicators that things are stabilizing for them.”

To avoid isolating their current out-of-market accounts or struggling future accounts, Calnan suggests that sales, customer success and marketing teams should instead pivot their strategies based on the accounts’ current status and decide whether to reach out accordingly.

While we’re still in times of uncertainty, B2B organizations must be nimble and agile with their outreach to maintain engagement with buyers as they rebound. Having a solid plan that aligns across organizations will position marketing, sales and customer success teams to build and maintain authentic relationships that close deals.



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