Here is some demographic, sociographic, and techno-graphic data describing the generation of consumers known as Millennials, as reported from the folks at comScore and Bazaarvoice:

• comScore: Born 1981 – 1999 (13-29 years old) / Bazaarvoice: mid-teens to mid-30’s
• Embraces ethnic, cultural, and family diversity
• Known for multitasking, short attention spans, and the need for stimulation
• Has the highest comfort level with technology, and was the first generation to grow up with (Internet) technology
• Surpasses GenX in terms of size
• More engaged in digital media than all previous generations

The Millennial generation is becoming increasingly viewed by marketers as one of the most valuable segments of the population, mainly due to the powerful combination of the group’s massive size and strong purchasing power.  The group’s purchasing power is estimated to be $170 billion per year by comScore.

A separate study put out by Bazaarvoice, “Talking to Strangers: Millennials Trust People over Brands,” stated that Millennials will have more spending power than any generation, and that their reliance on social media disrupts all areas of business.

Bill Hildebolt

Bill Hildebolt, President and Founder of ExpoTV.com, says that Millennials were the first group whose experience with online video was not tainted by excessive buffering; so the group now expects its availability, including when shopping.

The Bazaarvoice research also reported:

“’Strangers have the most influence with Millennials when it comes to making a purchase, over every previous generation. About 51% of Millennials are more likely influenced by UGC (User Generated Content) produced and posted by strangers, compared with recommendations from friends, family and colleagues.”

See full Bazaarvoice infographic here.

Bill also mentioned that his company’s own preliminary research into Millennial behavior confirms that they are more interested in product videos than any other age group; and are more trusting of video reviews coming from “strangers” (people they perceive to be like them) than videos coming the brands themselves.

“The intersection of UGC with video is especially powerful because it removes the anonymity of text reviews and gives a much more robust view into other users’ product experiences. We’re seeing this impact in our own research, such as in a study we did with comScore that showed Millennial purchase intent shot up 26% with the presence of UGC video, 3x the impact compared to other groups.”

“These results were well within our expectations as UGC plays into [Millennials’] trust of each other, and video is the preferred medium for anyone whose access to it is relatively frictionless,” says Bill.

Here are my tips for retail brands and e-commerce sites who want to engage and persuade Millennial shoppers with user-generated video:

• Tap social influencers. Social influencers are still considered by Millennials as “strangers”, but are more highly regarded because of their influence and high engagement. Check out social monitoring tools (or even a simple YouTube search with targeted keywords around your products, product areas, and audience profile) for finding key influencers who are already doing product video reviews.
• Incentivize Millennials to submit video reviews of your products. Put on a contest, or just a straightforward incentive program. (Just be sure to disclose any compensation with the FTC guidelines.) You can even include the option to give a video review as a part of your normal review process on your product pages.  Kiddicare utilizes the webcam video commenting capability from their video commerce solutions provider, Liveclicker, to do this on their product pages.

• Hire a Millennial. You can hire a Millenial to work for your video channel, or to be your online community manager who is regularly engaging with your consumers and fellow Millennials via video and social media.
• Consider investing in a UGC platform. A couple of vendors who can supply this are ExpoTV and VideoGenie.
• Promote Millennials’ video reviews on your own video sharing sites, social media sites, your website, and even in your own professionally produced product videos.
• Consider sponsoring a live video chat show featuring and/or hosted by Millennials with other Millennials reviewing your products, or just talking about their experiences with your products in their everyday lives.
• Encourage Millennials to submit videos to customer review sites such as Amazon.com that accept video reviews (with an active account on the site.)

Opening up about your company culture and the processes behind your products is a good way to gain, or retain, consumer trust in this age of Radical Transparency. Rather than simply trading on an idea of what you stand for and living in fear of being found out, you can use online video to show that you’re actually ‘walking the talk’. You can bolster credibility and your bottom line by showing what your brand is doing in alignment with its purpose and values.

Online video is an ideal medium to tell the stories behind your products and build your brand authenticity because:

• Viewers find video engaging, memorable, and easy to digest. The combination of moving images, graphics and narration packs a bigger punch than written words alone.
• It puts a human face on your business, helping you come across as genuine, personable, and trustworthy.  With a human face and voice behind a brand, it makes it easier for shoppers see the brand as a company that they’d like to do business with, whether immediately or sometime down the road.
• Video lends itself well to social sharing, and lifts search engine rankings. (YouTube is now the second largest search engine after Google).

‘Making of’ video – examples from retailers

Red Wing Shoes

This all-American brand tells their story through short videos featuring Red Wing employees that show the shoe and work in the boot maker’s repair and manufacturing areas. Video analytics cited from Master Communication Group noted that the retailer’s website traffic increased 45% on days when videos were posted, with time on site growing by 2 and a half minutes.

Whole Foods

Natural and organic retailer, Whole Foods, uses online video to profile local producers, and highlight behind-the-scenes stories about how they source local products for their stores.

LUSH Cosmetics

LUSH uses video extensively to give viewers an inside view of the company. Hundreds of clips show how they make their soaps, bubble bars and other products.  Their videos also give insight on where they source their natural ingredients, and how they are greening their operations. So far they’ve chalked up over 5 million views and 18,000 subscribers to their YouTube channel.

Vat19.com

Vat19, home of the 5lb gummy bear, started posting up behind-the-scenes and blooper footage from their product videos late in 2011. Founder, Jamie Salvatori, spoke about their video clips in a recent interview with Practical Ecommerce:

“Fans get more of a connection with us and it allows more people to find us on YouTube.  Also if somebody is searching for something on YouTube that we happen to sell, we have two videos that could show up in those results, as opposed to just one.”

Threadless

T-shirt retailer, Threadless, showcases staff antics in the warehouse, and manufacturing processes in a series of Tee-V clips on their website. These particular clips cover direct-to-garment printing:

“Social video” is already being considered the next big business trend. So why am I starting to get worried?

Unfortunately, I am seeing “social video” already falling into the trap of previous trends with the word “social” in them – “social media,” “social business,” etc.  It’s getting hijacked by the big creative and advertising agencies.  These agencies are corrupting the promise of what it was supposed to mean for all of us as a democratizing form of doing business. Instead, it’s fixated on the old ways of doing “business as usual” – generating mass awareness over personalized attention. I am now seeing this misguided definition start to seep into parts of the social media ecosystem.

Why “social video” isn’t valuable when it’s just a popularity contest

Although big creative agencies have always been very good at getting our attention with online video, I would argue it’s been mostly done on a superficial and fleeting level. They miss the point of what it means to genuinely be “social.” Like my social business colleague Mari Smith would probably say, they go “a mile-wide and an inch deep,” rather than the other way around.

In the creative/ad agency mindset, a social video that manages to go viral (i.e., get a lot of views from shares) is construed as an automatic business success for the brand. I would argue instead that much of its “success” is in just serving as a temporary distraction. This benefit is often dependent on the minimal reward for the consumer of instant gratification, and the minimal effort by the consumer in sharing an instant response or any response at all. With such a low ante, is this type of social video really all that valuable?

Here are the some of the key problems I see with much of today’s so-called “social video”:

• a misconceived value to the business via views, shares and likes
• an implied promise by the brand to the consumer for personal correspondence that is often left unfulfilled
• a diversion from showcasing the right things
• a distraction from measuring the right things

I would argue that much, if not most, of what passes for “social video” today is fraught with these problems. When any video is treated primarily as part of some kind of popularity contest, without measuring how well the actual product is being featured, or how it engages and brings value to the customer, then what you have is something that is actually more anti-social than social.

Zappos’ take on the benefits of social video

Laurie Me'chelle Gates

When I interviewed Laurie, I asked her what tangible benefits she thought social video was bringing to Zappos.  She mentioned to me that while they have certainly experienced an increase in sales and a decrease in returns, what she says may be more significant (albeit less measurable) at this point are the “soft benefits” of increasing customer satisfaction with the overall shopping experience.

 

“It’s not so much about product information as it is about product explorations,” says Laurie. “It’s helping our customers out with questions like: Is this the right gear for my camping trip? How do I tie a tie? Or, what’s in season right now? Our ultimate goal is to reduce the barrier between our online shopper and the merchant delivering the Zappos level of service.”

“We also like think that being valuable to our customers is the number one need when it comes to social enterprise. “LIKE” buttons and Share widgets don’t have implicit value. We strive to create products that save our customers time during product discovery, make our customers feel special, and enable them to share their experiences with others. All of our social products, social video included, have to pass our core value litmus test, and we never trade user experience for conversion.”

 

The gap in social video’s promise: customer care!

In a recently released eBook on ReelSEO, The Social Video Blueprint, the definition offered for what makes a social video was along the lines of: just produce entertaining videos that people want to share, and that will naturally lead to business success.

When it comes to retail and e-commerce social video, I don’t think that’s nearly enough. In today’s increasing social world, which is being driven more and more by the consumer, the customer expects more from a brand than just entertainment.  Customers expect real customer care, which is what I think Laurie’s response above illustrates about Zappos’ success.

Here’s an excerpt from a recent Forbes.com article, “Social Business Can Kill You” by social business and customer care expert, Christine Crandell, which better illustrates by point:

“The gap in social’s promise versus the reality is most obvious in customer service… Marketing is more concerned with brand sentiment… Embracing social business seems deceptively simple.  It is not just a marketing-thing; it is a critical customer care enabler.“

Tips for what retail and e-commerce businesses can do to create customer-driven social video:

I also had the opportunity to personally interview Christine, and she recommended to me several ways social video in e-commerce could be blended with valuable customer care:

• How-to’s and Q&A’s – Add video to support sections of your website including product training, self-help and problem investigation areas. “These are great uses of customer-care video because text can often be misinterpreted, and seeing a video example can often times be more helpful,” says Christine.
• Enabling video collaboration on social media sites – Setting up Google+ Hangouts for users groups and using video to collaborate and engage in co-creation of customer help materials is another good way to use social video. “Personally, I would often like to submit a video of a product issue to a company in order to get the right kind of resolution,” says Christine.

With so much video about, you’d think every mid-to-large-sized e-commerce site would be running a well-oiled, high impact video program by now, but you’d be wrong.

Many e-commerce merchants are still learning the hard way that producing and incorporating video that boosts traffic, conversion and brand value isn’t as easy as it seems.

Before launching or expanding your online video program, here’s a roundup of common pitfalls to avoid:

9 pitfalls for e-commerce video

1.  Don’t have an end goal in mind

Why are you adding video to your site? Do you want to raise conversions by demonstrating unique aspects of your products or services? How will your videos build your brand? Before jumping in head first, commit your strategy and financials goals (e.g. revenue, conversions) to paper, and think through how video will enhance the shopping experience for your customers and support your brand values.

2.  Don’t be authentic or interesting

People buy from people, not websites. To set the right tone and presentation, imagine you’re talking to viewers face-to-face, and keep your message helpful yet concise. Think about how to pique interest at the start and limit each video to 1-3 concepts you want to convey.

This Taiwanese ad for the Action Pad Android tablet, featuring a fake Steve Jobs sporting a halo and wings, is getting attention for all the wrong reasons.

3.  Don’t bother with a call to action

What do you want viewers to do during – or after watching – each video? Guide them towards your desired outcome, or risk racking up video views instead of sales. Interactive video can be used on product detail pages to trigger the shopper to add the product in the video to their shopping cart.

Here is a good example of using interactive calls to action by shoe retailer, Shoes.com.  They are using the interactive video capabilities of video commerce solutions provider, Liveclicker.

4.  Don’t listen to yours customers

Are you creating e-commerce videos without soliciting feedback? Ask for comments and suggestions on your site to see what your customers are interested in seeing more of, or less of. Then listen to what your viewers tell you. You’ll get some great content suggestions for your video program.

5. Don’t optimize your videos for SEO

Adding video to product pages provides opportunities to leverage video SEO to drive traffic directly to your site. To maximize the value of video in the search engine results pages, consider these video SEO tips.

6. Don’t embed video in product pages

Linking to videos hosted on YouTube takes users away from your product pages and is poor practice from an SEO perspective. Embedding your video in a pop-up window isn’t much better for either SEO or user experience. For optimal video page placement, embed the video directly as an object in the web page. That way, if customers like what they see, the Add to Bag button is right in front of them.

LUSH Cosmetics website embeds YouTube video in a pop-up window – both no-no’s from a user experience and SEO point of view.

7.  Don’t assume your in-house team can produce usable footage

Viewers don’t necessarily expect or want broadcast-quality e-commerce video, especially if the content is highly useful to them. Still, your videos represent your brand and should have an element of consistency. Think carefully about the effect production quality will have on customer perceptions and, if necessary, outsource to a team that can get quality usable footage quickly.

How not to sell a house:

8.  Don’t measure results

Identify your best performing content by periodically reviewing your video metrics. You may find that some products don’t sell better with video, although given the right content, most will. A video commerce platform that includes video conversion reports or works with your analytics package can be helpful in measuring conversion improvements, and lead you to produce better performing content over time.

9.  Don’t blindly follow “best practices”

The term “best practices” implies that we actually know the best way of doing something when a lot of times we really don’t. Often we’ve just copied what our competitors have done, which might work for them, but not for us. Test, test, test to come up with the right format, tone, content and placement for your target audience and their stage in the buying process.

Product videos are also big with the younger generation, the GenY’s or Millenials. The folks over at EXPOTV.com shared with me their research confirming that the 16-34 age group are even more interested in product video than other age groups.

However the big challenge facing a lot of e-commerce businesses is, how do I produce quality web video? Since the foundation for a compelling product video is engaging the audience, your videos firstly need to be of an acceptable technical quality. How many times have you been exposed to a video of a product where the audio was lousy, or the lighting was terrible, or it looked grainy? Without giving strong consideration to your technical quality and pre-production planning, you could end up wasting an entire shoot and making your business look bad at the same time.

Here are some quick tips from my own personal experience on how to prepare for web video production.

1. Look at videos of other popular e-commerce sites. Zappos.com and Crutchfield.com are excellent examples of how to shoot product videos.  You could even contact the company and ask what equipment they’re using, or if they ever use 3^rd party vendors.
2. Work with people who know how to shoot for the web. I’ve dealt with video producers who just presume their television background will translate to the web. It’s not the same! They should also know how to do post-production and export to the web, and that includes knowing how to export in both HTML5 and Flash. Find out what equipment they use for both hardware and software.
3. Have an online workspace to review videos. This saves me a great deal of time. Having a shared workspace allows the video production team, clients, and fellow stakeholders to review the work quickly and share comments, for quicker edits.

If you’d like to learn more about how to create quality product videos, check out Liveclicker’s upcoming webinar on Thursday, Feb 9:

Retail Video Production A to Z

Here are some of the retail video production challenges they will address:

• Choosing a video format that will scale well
• Importance of a solid pre-production process
• Considerations for in-house production vs. outsourcing
• Who should be on camera? Staff person or outsourced talent?
• What skills and equipment are needed to produce video in-house
• Computer requirements for video editing

E-commerce video continues to scale. Last year, a whopping 73% of US retail websites incorporated video clips, according to eMarketer. Still, video remains woefully underused and hard to find on many e-commerce sites.

E-businesses from eBags to Costco are realizing the importance of maximizing the scale and visibility of their video programs. For those who need more convincing, here are a few stats underscoring video’s importance to traffic and conversion:

1. Online video dominates search. According to Marketing Week, video results appear in about 70% of the top 100 listings, displaying most often in universal or blended search results. Forrester Research agrees, finding that with proper optimization, video is 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of Google search results than a text page.
2. Consumers’ love for video shows no signs of abating. comScore’s 2010 US Digital Year in Review revealed 60 % of the U.S. population watched online video content each month in 2010, with the average American spending 14 hours plus watching videos in December. YouTube is now second largest search engine, with 4 billion videos streamed on the website daily.
3. Video reduces shopping cart abandonment. CBS Interactive Business Network reported that company websites displaying video convert 30% more visitors into buying customers on average. As an example, shoppers who view video at Onlineshoes.com convert at a 45% higher rate, with the site seeing a 359% year-over-year increase in video views. Product pages with video also have higher conversion rates than those without video.

Take steps to optimize your product videos

Given the persuasive power of video, it’s a shame that many retailers are failing to take steps to maximize its effectiveness. Here are some tips for getting the most out of your website videos:

1. Keep product video length short and focused. Anything longer than a few minutes and you run the risk of losing shoppers’ attention. For more expensive purchases, consider a series of short videos, each centred on a different product feature.
2. When you haven’t seen an item in person, it can be difficult to commit to a purchase. To help shoppers determine if a product is right for them – or overcome any lingering doubts – highlight its key differentiators or show someone demonstrating it.
3. Getting your videos indexed by Google is an important part of the video SEO process. To appear in search results pages, submit a video sitemap in the correct format, including an optimized video title and unique description.
4. While making a video for every product may not be an option, particularly if you have an extensive catalog, you can still deploy video across your entire range. In each category, start with top sellers and products generating the highest margins.
5. Make your videos easy to share to reach the widest possible audience. Include social video sharing buttons like Facebook share/like, Google +1, Twitter, email links and embed codes.
6. Measure the impact of your videos on sales. Don’t just look at conversion rates on their own, also review video metrics like page traffic, view rate, time on page and bounce rate to determine success.
7. Smartphone adoption is on the rise. If you’re a multichannel retailer, think about putting video QR codes on hangtags linked to informative product videos as Columbia Sportswear has done. In-store shoppers can scan the codes with their handsets to find out more detail on items of interest.

Above is an entertaining video extolling the benefits of Columbia Sportswear’s Omni-Heat Electric product technology that the company links to QR codes on their hangtags.

Scot Wingo

I recently had the opportunity to interview Scot Wingo, who is on the Board of Directors for Shop.org as well as the Founder and CEO for global e-commerce platform provider, ChannelAdvisor. In the interview, Scot shares his insights on how the retail industry can utilize video commerce to strategically improve product conversion.

Interview with Scot Wingo:

Justin Foster: Today we’re speaking with Scot Wingo from ChannelAdvisor.  Scot, thanks for joining us.

Scot Wingo: Hey, thanks for having me.

Justin Foster: Can you tell our readers a little about yourself, and specifically share with us what your background is in the e-commerce industry?

Scot Wingo: Sure, I’m the CEO and one of the founders of ChannelAdvisor. We are a software company that started in 2001.  Our software is on-demand, or used in a browser. Our customers are retailers.  We have over 3,000 retailers as customers, and what we do is help them manage what we call the e-commerce channel, and there are three different buckets in there. There’s paid search like Google, Bing and Yahoo!  There are comparison shopping engines. We actually support over 130 comparison shopping engines.  And finally, there are marketplaces like eBay and Amazon.com, and also new marketplaces out there, like Buy.com that we support.

Justin Foster: Our listeners here tend to be from large multichannel retailers and midsize retailers as well.  A lot of them are fairly new to video or have been producing video content for maybe just a couple of years.  Many of them, when they started retail video production, they would produce a product video and then they put that video on the product detail page. Do you see opportunity outside of the product detail page to syndicate video content other places?

Scot Wingo: Yes, if you’re going to invest in these digital assets, and video is obviously a very important one, you might as well syndicate that out there as well.  Marketplaces like Amazon allow for submitted videos.  eBay, which a lot of our customers use, especially on the luxury side, allows you to include a video with an eBay listing.  Comparison shopping engines are a little bit tougher. Only a couple of them will allow you to send a video, but right now it’s kind of limited.

Justin Foster: So it sounds like there is some opportunity in some of these marketplaces, and it sounds like there is also some limited opportunity in comparison shopping as well. Now in regard to the media assets in general, are you seeing clients experience greater sales and higher conversion rates when they push these assets out to these marketplaces?  What have your clients’ experiences been in that area?

Scot Wingo: The way I look at it is from a very high level view.  In the world of e-commerce, only 7% of sales are online, and I view video as a really exciting technology that helps bridge that gap between offline and online, and will hopefully take us from that 7% penetration level up in the 20s. That is the 30,000 foot view of it

The way we encourage retailers to look at it is that we view video as a strategic conversion enhancement. Usually, the best measurement is an a/b test of the conversion rate before and after video.  We definitely see a significant increase anywhere from the 10-20% range when you go from a flat presentation to a video presentation.

Justin Foster: How would that fit within the context of these rich interactive catalogues? Can you help me understand if video is a part of these catalogues or do you think of video as something completely separate from these?

Scot Wingo: In many times, video will live on the item page of the e-commerce site.  Sometimes retailers will have a separate interactive catalogue that could absolutely contain some video.  Retailers also sometimes have a separate video section on their site that shoppers can use if they want to see less product specific videos, and more category videos about a family of products, or a new line coming out.

Justin Foster: Today, does ChannelAdvisor have any clients that are syndicating video content out to any of these marketplaces or that are actively using video?

Scot Wingo: Yes we do.  They tend to be in the luxury segment, so folks like Saks Fifth Ave, Ann Taylor, and a lot of our jewelry customers tend to have video. We do have some TV networks as customers and they do everything they can to syndicate their video.

Justin Foster: Why do you think you’ve seen greater penetration of video syndication in those particular segments? Any thoughts there?

Scot Wingo: I think when you have a commodity product like, Nintendo Wii, or something that’s pretty well understood by the consumer, the video can be useful for some of the advanced things going on, but it’s not as compelling as if you have something like a diamond ring.  With a luxury item, the user wants to not only learn about that product and see it in its two-dimensional format, but they also want to see it on a person, and learn more about it in a way than you can only do through two-dimensional display.

Justin Foster: That makes sense. When you look across your entire client base, is video a topic that really comes up a lot? Or is it something that is just kind of hit or miss right now? Are you seeing any increased momentum among your clients with regards to trying to get into video or has it just been kind of stagnant?

Scot Wingo: I would say it is increasingly coming up into more conversations, especially in those categories that we talked about. In consumer electronics or media, it doesn’t come up much at all.   In contrast, in apparel, home and garden, sporting goods and jewelry; it is definitely on top of mind. I think part of it is that the competitive landscape is such that you have Amazon doing a lot of video, a lot of the flash sites are augmenting what they do with some nice video, and retailers feel like the bar is being raised with video and they need to catch up. You also have vendors out there that are offering a lot more services around video, so that retailers can outsource it if they don’t want to do it in house. There are even some that have templated programmatic ways to add video.  It used to be that if you have a lot of SKUs, you would think video is out of your range, but now maybe you can take your top 5% of SKUs and do a heavily customized video, and then the rest you do in an automated video. There are a lot of retailers experimenting with these different options that didn’t exist 2 or 3 years ago.

Justin Foster: I want to probe a little bit deeper there as well, and this is just with regard to importance of quality.  I think that a lot of retailers for a while now have believed that having high quality media assets, particularly image assets or even flash demos, are important, but there are still scalability issues with video.   You have this idea in which you do a higher quality, more customized kind of video for the top 5%, and then do the more automated video for the rest of the products. Do you believe that the automated method of producing video content runs a risk of harming the user experience of the shopper? Do you feel like those more automated methods of producing video add as much value?  What are your thoughts there in general?

Scot Wingo: There’s definitely a trade-off, where if it is automated, it’s not going to add near as much value as custom produced video. The automated ones I have seen fall under two kinds of experiences.  There are ones that add absolutely no value at all, and after you watch the video, you almost feel like you want those 30 seconds of your life back. On the other hand, others I have seen are somewhat informative and have told me things that I probably wouldn’t have known, so I think right now I’m kind of cut both ways with regards to automated video. I do tend to see more that are maybe a waste of time than that are helpful on the automated side, but I think as those technologies get better that they can perhaps further add value.

Justin Foster: That makes sense.  We call this the implied contract that retailers have with shoppers. We live in a very ADD culture in my opinion, where shoppers are clicking around a lot and are spending very short periods of time on different places around the web.  When you ask someone to watch a video, the contract that you’re making is that in exchange for giving me your time to watch this video, you have to add more value than the time you’re taking away from the shopper. It is interesting to hear you say that you think there’s a trade-off there.

Scot Wingo: Yeah, definitely.

Justin Foster: Before we wrap up, what are some of the largest obstacles that you see retailers facing with video?  What advice might you offer for those retailers?

Scot Wingo: When we talk to retailers, I think their main concerns are the cost. Obviously, if you’re going to do it in house, it’s extremely expensive.   Even with some of the outsource options that retailers try to look at, I think it’s their natural inclination to multiply the per item cost by the number of items they sell, and then that makes it really seem very large and insurmountable.

A lot of them also question the efficacy of video.  Many think that if it only moves the conversion rates 2%, it’s never going to pay for itself.  We often see this scenario where retailers think these problems are insurmountable, and we encourage retailers to just kind of nibble away the problem and do some smart testing.  The nice thing about e-commerce is that we have so much data.  If we know what the top sellers are, and we know what our conversion rates are on those items, you can pick 10 – 20 items and do a $5K-50k pilot test. Most retailers can afford to experiment at that level.  After you measure the conversion rate on those items, you have actually eliminated a lot of the variables, and you can actually make a smart decision.   Let’s say it increases conversion rates 10%, and then you can now do some math and figure out what items video will pay for itself.   In your test, if you pick some strategic products that span across multiple categories, not only do you eliminate one variable, but two. That is why we really encourage retailers to experiment with these things and use some smart a/b testing.  Then when you evaluate the opportunity, you can have a solid sense of what your video ROI would be, versus just kind of being scared of it.

Justin Foster: Absolutely. Good advice. Well Scot, do you have any other thoughts that you’d like to share with our listeners here before we wrap the interview?

Scot Wingo: The only other thing I would mention is that a lot of our retail clients tend to have low single digit conversion rates.  If you can do anything to move the needle on that, then the top line will grow, and the margin will just kind of come out of the equation.  Many of these video technologies can help move that needle, and they are definitely worth the time to evaluate.

What could be happening?

First, it’s important to note that when trying to send video IN the email, there are only two ways to do it: use an animated .GIF video (which plays silently in the email body), or use HTML5 video, which allows the entire video, with audio, to play within the email body.  Neither of these formats are supported everywhere, but there are techniques and technology like my company’s video email express software that can optimize the use of both, for example by displaying an animated .GIF video in the case where HTML5 video isn’t supported by the mail client.  The final method is to use a plain static image thumbnail in the email, linked to a landing page which features a video player.

How do the different methods impact A/B tests?

As more webmail and mobile mail clients support HTML5 video, more video viewers will see HTML5 video in email as opposed to an animated .GIF when you’re using a fallback method.  Probably the best illustration (since it is fresh) is Hotmail’s surprise rollout for HTML5 video support in summer of 2011.  Since Hotmail previously only supported animated .GIF videos, and with Hotmail comprising, on average, 12% of the overall mail client audience (this will vary, and could vary greatly, based on your list), then if you ran a 50/50 split, you would not be measuring up to 12% of the animated .GIF clicks for the “video plays” because those clicks are going to the HTML5 video version.

HTML5 video’s dirty little secret

No big deal, you say?  You can just have the 50/50 split measure clicks on the animated .GIF, add that to the clicks for the HTML5 video version, and your test is valid – you’re measuring what you want: video in email v. no video in email – all good!

Well, not so fast.  While one would think this is possible, it’s not.  And that’s because the dirty little secret of HTML5 video in email is that it is not possible to measure the clicks on an HTML5 video element.  These videos can not be encapsulated in an <a href> tag!  Keep in mind, I’m only talking about HTML5 video IN email, not HTML5 video on landing pages or in a web browser.  In those cases, it’s possible to measure all kinds of things about the video: plays, duration consumed, which player controls were clicked, etc.  But in email, this isn’t possible – since Javascript is needed to do these things, and Javascript isn’t supported in email.

Keep it apples to apples

The lesson here: if you’re trying to measure video in email v. static image in email, and you want to measure the lift of video based on a clickthrough rate metric, then make sure you are not using HTML5 video in the split of your list that includes the video version in the email.  Only clicks on animated .GIF videos are measurable.

Of course, measurement is still important, and most email marketers probably prefer to deliver HTML5 video as opposed to animated .GIF video.  If this sounds like you, then you will need to use another metric outside of clickthrough rate to get the data you crave.  Other metrics that could be used would include:

• At what rate did people visit the site after receiving the email for each segment?
• Did time on site increase for one segment or another?
• Did one segment demonstrate a higher conversion rate or higher average order value?

Regardless of the metric you choose, if you want to get full HTML5 video in front of as many people as possible in the email body itself,  then you will need to live with HTML5 video’s dirty little secret.

Susan Weinshenk

I interviewed usability and user experience veteran, Susan Weinshenk, on some of the ways that the professional UX community can do a much better job with incorporating video to create more positive customer relationships on e-commerce websites – both for improved sales and overall shopping experience.

I’ve had the fortune of personally working with Susan on a client usability report back in 2003. Here’s just a short list of her accomplishments:

• She’s the Founder and President of the User Experience Institute. (Previously she was the Chief of User Experience Strategy for Americas at Human Factors International.)
• She has 30 years of experience in the field of human factors/usability/user experience (UX) – including author, trainer, researcher, consultant, presenter, and developing user-centered methodologies – with both web design and e-commerce.
• Her most recent authored books are 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People and Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? (She also has a companion blog at whatmakesthemclick.net and a podcast series on user experience.)

You can also follow Susan on her Twitter handle: @thebrainlady.

Susan, as a veteran UX professional, to what do you attribute the lack of published UX/Usability research for online video to date?

Most UX/usability people don’t have a background in video. They are used to working with computer screens, Internet, software or even products (like medical devices.) Video is relatively new as a form for study in the usability/UX community, beyond basic items like user controls for video: playback, recording, etc. In general, the UX community hasn’t been focusing on content. Fortunately, I do see that changing.

Is it time for the professional UX community to spend more of its efforts researching and testing online video so they can provide their findings to the public?

Definitely. Video is such a powerful medium (online). I believe that video is the big opportunity on the Internet right now, so I do expect that the UX community will start paying attention to video, but it will be slow to permeate.

What do you think needs to change for more UX professionals to be involved with usability research and user testing for online video?

I think UX people need to realize that video is not just “content” that someone else is responsible for; it is part of the UX responsibility. That speaks to my larger point: Content in general, whether video or not, is within the responsibility of the UX person. Right now, in many organizations, the UX people are responsible for the presentation of the content, but not the content itself. I think it’s time for that to change. Otherwise, who’s minding the content?

User Experience Tips for E-Commerce Video

• Keep it social. Shoppers now expect web videos to have sharing features. You definitely want to include standard social video features like Facebook Like/Share buttons, Twitter “Tweet” buttons, along with “Send to a Friend” email and embed code options. You also want to give your audience the opportunity to share their own feedback from the video experience, so leave a space for comments as well.
• Give users a virtual shopping experience. Liveclicker’s Video Commerce platform is an excellent example of a “social technology” that lets customers select and compare related products right from within the video display, including interactive video capabilities allowing customers to both shop and share the video with others.  See the example screen shot below of their client, Advance Auto Parts’ interactive video player:

For more information on this topic, check out the 2 part series I did in October featuring tips on how to optimize user experience in e-Commerce videos.

Linda Bustos

I recently had the opportunity to interview Linda Bustos, Director of Research for enterprise e-commerce solutions provider, Elastic Path.  Linda is the author of the number #1 subscribed e-commerce blog, Get Elastic, and provides conversion optimization consulting to some of the web’s largest technology companies.   In the interview, Linda shares best practices and tips for using videos on retail websites, in email, and on mobile devices.

Enjoy!

Interview with Linda Bustos:

Justin Foster: Please tell our readers a bit about yourself, Linda.

Linda Bustos: I’m the Director of the E-commerce Research at Elastic Path Software. So a part of my job is writing for the Get Elastic E-commerce Blog three times a week on conversion, optimization, marketing, and anything to do with selling more products on an e-commerce site. Aside from that, I also do some consulting for our clients on the same topics. Prior to Elastic Path I was an SEO with a web design firm, where I had my first experience with online marketing for ecommerce sites.

Justin Foster: Briefly, can you share with us, what Elastic Path Software does?

Linda Bustos: Well, we are an e-commerce platform, and we’re focused more on digital commerce, technology and virtual goods.  Really, the big difference between retail and that industry is there’s different ownership, and different payment models, so our customers have different needs for our e-commerce platform, so we’re kind of niche.

Justin Foster: Got it, thanks for sharing that with us. Now I know Linda that you’ve blogged before on some of the benefits of using video in the context of e-commerce. Can you share with our readers what you think the most important applications of videos are in an e-commerce context, and where you think video makes sense in e-commerce?

Linda Bustos: Well, I think that video is the closest thing that we have to experiencing a product in your hands.  This is the big challenge about buying online things you have not seen in person, and relying on teeny tiny images on the screen. Plain and simple that is the big value of video, but also we know through customer research and that customers primarily want content. Although they like to read on the web, they want to see images from every angle.  Video allows you to see the product in use, and you can get a person actually demonstrating or reviewing the product, and giving you additional information that you can absorb better. Some people absorb by listening rather than reading.  It’s also interactive.  We have become a YouTube culture, so it just makes so much sense to bring the type of content that people want to consume to your e-store.

Justin Foster: Now, when you think about video, are e-commerce merchants mainly using video to sell products, or do they use it more for branding or for entertainment?  What is the right mix? Or does it really just depend on the brand?

Linda Bustos: Yeah, I think it depends on the brand. There are different functions of video, like you can use video to sell, you can use video to inform, you can use video to engage, and you can use video to build your brand and create a passionate community.  That’s more of the entertainment side of the videos that might appear like a blog instead of on a product page, or on your YouTube channel, on your Facebook page, or that kind of thing. So, I don’t think there’s any right or wrong way if you’re selling.  I think that making something more informative about the product and very persuasive is going to actually get you to the conversion, but it depends on what your goals are.

Justin Foster: You mentioned your focus on conversion optimization.  As we look at the different types of video content on the product page, what type of content makes the most sense would you say?

Linda Bustos: Well, product related content of course, but you can have multiple videos on a product page.  You can have one that demonstrates, you can also have a little section like Amazon has, where people can upload their own videos.  Just like you can have multiple sections of content on your product page, you can have multiple videos.  Now, keep in mind that that can add to the page load, and it can add to the visual overload of your product page. You don’t want to just throw it up there for the sake of, “hey, let’s have some more content, let’s have lots of videos up there.” It should be tested.  Know your audience and know your products, and also keep the videos very hyper focused. Even in length, you don’t want to have a super long video on there just because you want to explain absolutely everything that could be right on the product page.  Understand what parts of the video are going to be most effective to sell your products.  This might come out through your testing, or user testing or doing other types of research. It’s not necessarily whatever your gut feels is right, or what your team feels the first time,  there’s a lot of room for experimenting.

Justin Foster: What has been your experience in particular on the issue of video length best practices? Is there one length of video that tends to work the best? Or does it again, really depend on the brand?

Linda Bustos: Well, you’ll be able to see using your video analytics where people drop off during the video, so you’ll be able to know.  There are some products which are such highly considered purchases that people will watch an entire hour long webinar on the product.  There are some things that people only have an attention span for one to two minutes for video. There is a lot of research about that. If you can’t keep your video content down to a minute or two, then just break it up into chunks.  If there’s a software demo that goes on for ten minutes, we’ll break it down feature by feature, and give the user control to learn about the features that they find most interesting to them.

Justin Foster: That’s very helpful, thank you. What are some of the retailers that you think today are doing an especially good job with video? And what about their implementations do you like?

Linda Bustos: Well there’s a lot of different ways that retailers are using video, so for example Tiger Direct is selling electronics and they really understand the fears and uncertainties and doubts that their customers have.  I was looking for a camcorder. I don’t know what all of the technical jargon means about the features, I just wanted something that’s going to allow me to take good video, and something that’s easy for me to use.  I found that on their product page they had a channel with a personality who’s definitely trained in broadcasting.  It makes you feel excited about the product and builds trust. So you trust this reviewer, he comes across as an expert, and he demonstrates everything on that product in a way that that all the features and benefits are explained. That works really, really great with electronics.

If it’s a fashion site, look at As Seen On Screen over in the UK, they have multiple pictures, and also a runway and a catwalk.  You just see a model come down and turn around, there’s no narrative, there’s no close-ups or anything, and you just see the product in use. Other good examples are videos that are tell a story about the brand. For example, eBags, they have a lot of different types of video content and it sometimes comes from the manufacturer, and sometimes it’s produced in-house, but that doesn’t really matter.  Some are brand experiences where you want to know a little bit more about the designer and that appears on the category page.  The actual product specific videos will appear on the product page. So there are a lot of different ways that you can do it.  One other example is Dylan’s Candy Bar which sells all types of candy.  For their nostalgic retro candy bundle, instead of actually showing the candy or people eating the candy, they’ve got old cartoons on there.  It builds this atmosphere where you start getting nostalgic, and once you’re in that state of mind, you’re like, “yeah, I have to have this candy.” So, there’s a lot of ways you can get creative with video.

Justin Foster: Do you think it is okay to blend a little bit of entertainment in with the product oriented videos, if it’s congruent with the brand?

Linda Bustos: Yes…I mean you should test it as well, but yes definitely there’s room for that.

Justin Foster: That makes sense. Now Linda I want to switch gears a little bit. There’s been a lot of talk in the industry about video SEO and you indicated you have a background in SEO and web design, and I know that you’ve blogged about video SEO in the past.  I’m curious if you think that video SEO represents an untapped opportunity for a lot of retailers? Or do you think it is more of red herring?

Linda Bustos: No, I think video SEO is extremely important and even more so this year, next year, and the year after, because YouTube itself is a search engine, right? And we’re getting tablets and people love to watch video on their iPads, and even on their phones. People are searching in mobile engines now too, so it’s very, very important that your videos are being indexed, and that their meta data is being indexed, and the keywords that are actually in your video transcript are getting picked out. The most important thing that you need to have is a video site map inside Google webmaster tools or your other search engines, because that will show you where there is problems or errors with your file format or anything else.  It is also important to make sure all of your videos are hosted on their own URLs, so that they can show up in the video search.  You will know when you go into Google and it has links with image verticals, video verticals, and social links. The traditional SEO works tactics of building back links, creating good title tags, and syndication are important as well.

Justin Foster: You mentioned a lot of great tactical recommendations; let me see if I can list them out here: Publish video site maps, include video transcriptions, make sure that videos have their own URL, and include links back to videos.  Did I miss anything?

Linda Bustos: One more thing would be to utilize the video site map for troubleshooting. If you have some formats that are not working or if your tags aren’t working, the sitemap will show you where you can fix those problems quickly and easily.

Justin Foster: Great. Now moving on from SEO, I would like to touch on the topic of video in email. This July, Hotmail became the first major webmail client to begin supporting HTML5 video directly within the body of an email message. Do you see this trend of video in email accelerating particularly when it comes to retail and e-commerce? Or do you see it as something that just happens to be the latest bell or whistle, but doesn’t actually create value for retailers?

Linda Bustos: Well I think it poses a challenge for retailers, because now you’re going to have to segment your list by the clients that support video. So in this sense we have to create a campaign that works with compatible clients. I think it’s too early to know whether this is a proven tactic, so testing is really important. The videos would need to have some kind of clickable call to action either inside the video or around the video. What makes email works from our e-commerce perspective is its ability to generate interest; you don’t convert right from the email message. It’s there to generate interest and desire for your products and to point people back to your site and your site has to pick up that job. I absolutely think that there is a place for this in online retail, and that it can create a lot of excitement and interest in visiting your site again. It’s easier to show someone that video content right there in the email than to try and sell them in the email to actually come to your site to watch the video. I think there is room to test it and generate new ideas for using it, but I think it is too early to say what the best practices are.

Justin Foster: When it comes to using video either in or with email, do you feel that more email marketers are focused on driving click-through rate in e-commerce or more focused on driving conversion rate? And what is the metric that email marketers in your opinion should be focused on when it comes to determining the success of the campaign?

Linda Bustos: Usually with any type of metric, marketers want to drill down as far as we can into revenue. You can have a great conversion rate, and still have poor revenue. With any type of email, you have got to be focused on all the metrics, because all of them matter. If you have a low click-through rate, then you have to fix that because that will ultimately affect your revenue. Adding video in the subject line, just like you do in a blog post or in a Twitter post, might even increase your open rate. That’s something to play around with, and then measure open rate, clicks, and ultimately conversion. I think that if you’re just trying out video that it would be a success if you have a higher open rate than your regular emails.  It doesn’t necessarily have to convert more.  You would come away with the knowledge that putting video in the email subject line gets more clicks.  Then you could start to learn how to optimize the creative layout, and call to action.

Justin Foster: That’s something that we see as well.   Marketers that use video in the subject line of the email consistently drive higher open rates, and see anywhere between 5 – 20% increase in a/b split testing.  It can of course depend on the particular segment and retailer list. One last question for you Linda on the topic of mobile video: do you see real opportunities in the e-commerce space to leverage video on mobile devices for shoppers that are maybe in store, or looking to make a purchase away from their computer?

Linda Bustos: Yes, I think so.  Going back to that example of Tiger Direct, I could be inside the electronics store talking to a sales rep, and still not get that demonstration that I had on that video.  You can’t just open up boxed product, plug it in, and start using it to see if you like it. If the retailer had little kiosks, or had customers sales reps walking around with iPads showing video demos.  It would also be cool to have kiosks where you would be able to wave your mobile device in front of a larger screen and activate some kind of interactive video or multimedia.  There is so much potential for mobile video both in store and on the go. There are more and more mobile devices supporting HTML5 video with larger, more shopping friendly screens.  Many people are already using their smartphones to do quick searches while shopping, and that is where your video SEO comes back into play. The technology is going to catch up and I can see that rather than reading through tons and tons of customer reviews, people will be using mobile devices to see the product in action.

Justin Foster: Absolutely. Linda we’re close to out of time here. Do you have any closing thoughts that you’d like to share with our listeners here before we break?

Linda Bustos: If you are using video right now, congratulations, because you are now ahead of the pack.  Never stop testing, never stop pushing the boundaries of your creativity and make the most that you can out of it.