zBoost, one of the leading producers of cell phone boosters, came to us looking for help producing an e-commerce sales video to explain their products on online marketplaces. Every business video production is different, but their cell phone boosters presented an especially interesting challenge from a strategic marketing perspective.
Here’s the problem: Poor cell phone signal can be caused by any number of things: distance from a cell tower, tall buildings or mountains surrounding a home, or even construction materials within the home itself. These different problems require different solutions, so zBoost produces over a dozen different products designed for specific use cases.
Unfortunately, that means that the average online shopper is going to be confronted with as many as 10 different products, all purporting to solve the same problem. When we set out to produce an e-commerce video, we need to ask ourselves a couple of important questions.
How can a customer make a purchasing decision that he or she is comfortable with? More importantly, how can we prevent a customer from purchasing the wrong equipment and losing faith in the brand as a result?
Examining the E-Commerce Video Audience
As always, our process started by trying to get inside the head of our viewer. The person on the other end of an e-commerce video is unique in a couple of ways.
- They are already shopping: They have already come to an online marketplace, done a search, and found the product page. That means that they have already established a need for the product, and taken an active role in searching for it. They already want to make a purchase. Conclusion: We don’t need to convince them to buy a cell phone booster, we need to help them decide which cell phone booster to buy.
- They are multitasking: Most online shoppers compare lots of products simultaneously before they make a purchase. That means that they may have multiple tabs open, or they may be scrolling down the page and away from the video. For the purpose of our e-commerce video, that means we can’t count on having 100% of our viewer’s attention. It also means that if our video doesn’t deliver the information our viewer wants right away, he’s not going to let it play through. Conclusion: Our video needs to be concise, easy to understand, and can’t rely too heavily on the visuals.
- They can probably read: All snark aside, there’s a lot of information on a product page. We don’t need the video to explain every feature, benefit, or tech spec of the product. What we need is to relay those ideas in practical terms and make the features/benefits feel relevant to the customer’s life in some way. Conclusion: We don’t need to go over information that is covered elsewhere on the page.
- They want reinforcement: By clicking play on our e-commerce video, our viewer is telling us something. They want more information to help them make a decision. We need to be ready to give them that information in a no nonsense way. We don’t need to disguise that we want them to buy our product, but we do need to give them peace of mind that they won’t regret their purchase. If we can take away that uncertainty, our viewer won’t hesitate to pull the trigger on a purchase. Conclusion: Remove doubt by being transparent about who the product is and isn’t for.
Our Solution?
So we’ve established our audience, and in so doing we’ve identified our challenge. We need to produce a series of e-commerce videos that are short, informative, and help our viewer identify which cell phone booster matches his particular set of needs.
For this project, our solution was to introduce each product as part of a “product parade.” With that approach, we let the consumer know that each booster was just one in a line of products. The rest of the video was dedicated to explaining the specific use cases for each booster in 20 seconds or less. Finally, we capped it off by directing the customer to other products in the line. After all, we want the customer to find the best product for their needs. That’s how you build brand trust.
Long story short, if you want to make an e-commerce video, or even if you’re just writing content for e-commerce, think about what your customer actually needs, keep your content relevant to their mindset at the moment they hit your product page, and offer them a service by helping them sort through the clutter in their comparison shopping. If you can do that, you’ll make the sale, but more importantly, you will have built a relationship with your customer.