How to Use Instagram Videos for Ecommerce Growth
Your online store should stand out from the competition to attract clients in today's oversaturated market. To achieve this, you need to show them something so aesthetically compelling that it grabs your target audience's attention in a split second as they’re scrolling through their newsfeeds.
The solution? Use videos for ecommerce growth. According to Wyzowl, 95% of marketers claim that videos help to boost brand awareness, 89% of people say that videos affect their purchase decisions, and 71% of marketers create social media videos.
Marketing your online store using Instagram videos can be quite effective. As specified in Meta's own data, 91% of Instagrammers watch videos on the platform weekly, and 50% of users visit a website to buy a product or service after seeing it in Instagram videos.
In short, Instagram videos aid in spreading awareness of your business, encourage interaction with your target audience, and persuade clients to make the purchases you want.
This piece will explain the main reasons to use Instagram videos for ecommerce, and then provide some actionable tips on how to leverage Instagram videos for ecommerce growth.
Why Should Ecommerce Businesses Use Instagram Videos?
Since its debut, Instagram has been a potent marketing platform for companies seeking to increase brand awareness and product exposure. Instagram is a great social media marketing tool for promoting unique, cutting-edge, fascinating, and aesthetically pleasing goods and services because of its emphasis on visuals.
Adding Instagram activity like stunning IG Stories to marketing strategies has proven to be a huge success for businesses in the fashion, culinary, travel, beauty, home décor, gardening, and events industries. Here's why your ecommerce business should capitalize on Instagram videos:
Demonstrate your products in details. Online shoppers can't physically try on products when buying them, so it's important to showcase your products from various angles. Although you may rely on carousel posts to upload up to 10 images in a single post, Instagram videos do wonders. Because they grab attention, Instagram videos give you an opportunity to demonstrate your ecommerce products in an engaging way that cultivates purchase intent.
Influence purchase intent. The visually engaging format of Instagram videos allows marketers to provide users with product showcases, testimonials, and behind-the-scenes content which helps to create a more personal connection with potential customers. It boosts their confidence and desire to make a purchase, ultimately driving sales. It may also lead to impulse purchases when your target sees something that captures their attention.
Keep up with trends. Instagram is a dynamic platform where trends evolve rapidly, and the popularity of videos is on its rise. Plus, video content allows brands to showcase their products in current, engaging formats. Staying updated with popular video styles, challenges, and features helps you remain relevant and resonate with your target audience, fostering a stronger online presence and customer engagement.
Find new ways to interact with customers. Today, practically every business has an Instagram presence, which means your competitors may want to vie for the attention of the same audience. When you create interesting and engaging Instagram videos, you explore more ways to communicate with potential consumers on a more personal level.
Now that you know about the importance of using Instagram videos, let's check out a list of brilliant ideas for how to do it the right way.
7 Ideas for Using Instagram Videos to Drive Ecommerce Growth
It may seem like a lot of work to provide a wide variety of Instagram videos to increase sales and traffic to your online store. However, since its inception, Instagram has made it remarkably simple to produce and publish videos. For marketing services and goods online, video is one of the most engaging forms of information. Your brain is hardwired to process images faster than text; thus, pictures and videos are always preferable.
You can use Instagram videos in a variety of ways to promote your business and online shop, including the following.
1. Leverage the Power of Storytelling
Telling a story about your products with Instagram videos is a compelling strategy for ecommerce growth. You create an emotional connection with your audience by showcasing your products in action and narrating their journey.
Through storytelling, you can convey the value and authenticity of your custom products, ultimately driving increased interest and sales on your ecommerce platform.
Here's an example from H&M. In honor of the new Mugler x HM collection launch, the company made an engaging Instagram video with various stars wearing the new collection items. This helped to take viewers behind the scenes and spark an interest in the release.
2. Spark Interest with Outfit Transition Videos
Using Instagram videos for ecommerce growth can be amplified with "Outfit Transition Videos." These brief clips showcase the transformation from a casual or everyday look into a stylish outfit using products from your store. By leveraging the visual appeal of fashion and the allure of personal style, these videos pique viewers' curiosity and spark interest in your products.
The transition element adds an engaging narrative, making potential customers envision themselves in your offerings. This strategy effectively utilizes Instagram's visual platform to entice and convert viewers into shoppers, enhancing your ecommerce business's growth potential.
At first blush, creating outfit transition videos takes much time and effort. But when you make good use of video editing apps like Videoleap by Lightricks, you get a chance to create these stunning videos with just a few clicks on the go. It allows users to mix different videos and images to create double exposure and then customize layers with special effects like prism or glitch. Plus, you can fit your video clips to the right format within the app.
Check out how one Instagram creator teamed up with Nänosupps to make an eye-grabbing outfit transaction video with the help of this easy-to-use video editing app:
3. Make Good Use of Short-Form Videos
With the limited attention span of 8 seconds, marketing via short videos has grown in popularity, particularly on social media sites like Instagram. Short clips are a great way to get your point through. They are well suited to Instagram, where users often scroll through their feeds rapidly. Many audiences now choose this format over others.
Quick, entertaining videos are a fantastic attention-grabber. Instagram is flooded with material, so short videos are a great way to stand out.
In addition to being extremely shareable, short movies are also a great social media format. Short videos are ideal for spreading across the internet since people love to talk about things they find funny or intriguing. Making films that people want to share is a great way to expand your audience and maybe even go viral. As a bonus, brief videos play well on mobile devices.
4. Showcase Your Products from Different Angles
When buying products on Instagram, your profile is like a storefront that sparks interest in products and creates a purchase intent. With Instagram ads, you can show your products from all angles and explain to customers how a product is used or emphasize its special features.
By creating dynamic video content that highlights your products from various perspectives, you engage your audience and provide a comprehensive view of your offer. This approach helps potential customers make informed decisions, as they can more effectively assess product details, quality, and aesthetics.
For instance, when Vans released its new sneakers, they used this strategy, and it resulted in thousands of likes and views:
When you showcase products from different angles, it also adds an element of authenticity, building trust and credibility with your audience. You can drive interest, increase conversions, and enhance your brand's online presence and sales on Instagram through visually appealing and informative videos.
5. Provide Social Proof with Video Testimonials
One of the most powerful methods to gain credibility and encourage purchases is to provide social proof. If you share customer reviews, you give yourself a chance to convince more potential customers to buy from you. But if you share video testimonials, you stand out from the crowd of your competitors and get to the next level of providing social proof.
Therefore, it's important to encourage customers to share their feedback in the form of video testimonials. Becausethey are often shorter and less formal than evaluations posted on a website, videos are an excellent choice for client feedback. Check out how Whoop did it in the partnership with Michael Phelps:
You can obtain customer testimonials using the following ideas:
- To make your videos seem more genuine, have some satisfied customers film a brief testimonial.
- Share a video of happy consumers who have used your product.
- To create a one-minute video, you can have a consumer give you an unpacking video.
6. Reach a Wider Audience with Instagram Video Ads
Instagram's 2 billion active monthly users attest to the app's widespread appeal, particularly among the young. With so many potential customers, an Instagram marketing campaign may go as far as the company owner wants.
Luckily, Instagram advertising is a flexible and trackable way to market your business to a wide audience. Aim at a defined audience, drive traffic to your website, and gather user feedback to improve future social media marketing efforts. But you have to choose the correct ad format for this to function. Instagram's many ad sizes and formats allow for flexible placement and serve unique purposes. Ensure you check several Instagram ad examples before using any ads, just like the one below:
The haircare brand Prose made a video ad creative to market its products, and the company added text overlays and captions for sound-off play. The campaign got wonderful results: 3X higher completed video views, 52% higher unique audience reach, and 43% lower cost per impression.
7. Go Live with Niche Influencers
You may use influential people to help promote your business. Social media users who have amassed many dedicated followers are known as "influencers." They promote goods and companies, typically providing novel options to the mass market, and may be well-known figures or members of a certain demographic.
A trustworthy influencer may take your company's sales to the next level through higher digital marketing ROI and access to audiences you wouldn't otherwise reach.
Recruiting influential people to promote your product by going live with them may help you reach tens of thousands of new customers with only a few sessions.
Conclusion
Promoting your online shop on Instagram is a great idea. Shoppable posts are only one of several features that facilitate increased revenue. For other businesses, Instagram checkout handles the whole app purchasing procedure. Consequently, if you want to produce a large number of sales, you need to devote more time to your Instagram marketing efforts, particularly your Instagram video marketing, to build the type of interaction that ultimately leads to buying. Making a video takes more time than posting a snapshot, but the increased interaction and revenue that might result from doing so are worth the extra effort.