Explainer videos go hand-in-hand with e-commerce companies - partly because of the digital nature of both, and partly because an explainer video is the perfect marketing channel to, well, explain how your e-commerce business works. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the best e-commerce marketing videos out there. We’ll also dive in to the elements that make each video work.
1. The Watch Standard
Design is the first element that draws viewer attention, so it should never be skipped when planning out a video. Whether it's an advertising poster, a journal illustration, or a video, the first thing that the viewer sees is a look at your visuals. That look may only last a second, so you have only that sliver of time to convince them that your content is worth their attention. The Watch Standard ecommerce video was selected to highlight the importance of design. It grabs the viewers' attention and carries them into the message.
If you want to generate great ideas on how to design your ecommerce marketing video, then the Watch Standard video is worth watching. Here’s a little trick. Try watching it without audio so that you focus only on the visual and design elements. What do you notice first? What sticks out to you overall?
Created by Yans Media
2. Plateau
Short explainer videos are great. Not only do they have a better chance at being watched all the way through, but they can also contribute to a message of simplicity.
When we say “short” explainer, we mean video content that runs 30 seconds or less. Using this option for your business means that you as a creator should first focus on your script fitting that timing. You should think about a concept that will help you showcase the single best offer to your potential audience, and avoid all those less important questions. Obviously there are plenty of benefits you could talk about, but when you’ve only got 30 seconds, you only have time for one key point.
This Upwork Plateau video is a good example of that. I'm sure Upwork has much more to offer, but what they did instead was highlight their best benefit. In this case, it's an opportunity to find any freelance specialist a business would need to get better.
As a marketing video, this is great e-commerce content to learn from, as it helps you understand how it’s important to stay concise when creating a marketing message.
Useful Resource
What’s The Ideal Length For An Explainer Video?
3.Upseller
Did you know that 68% of consumers prefer video content over audio or text? The important thing about this stat is that it hints that we should concentrate on creating more video content. It’s more digestible, less time-consuming, and in turn drives more prospects to our businesses.
I've selected this ecommerce explainer video to show that - especially for the businesses that offer more complex solutions - an explainer video plays a vital role.
Upseller is one of those ecommerce platforms that offers more complex solutions. But watching this explainer video, we see how creators can break those hard-to-understand system solutions into more easy and tempting offers.
4. NEAR
What could be better than helping your target audience understand the benefits of your business? I’ll answer for you: nothing! And it doesn’t matter if it’s an e-commerce ad or an e-commerce explainer video, or any other piece of video marketing content. All these tools are built to help different businesses profit from the endless opportunities in front of them.
Watching the Near video, we see how it makes it much easier for their target audience to understand what Near is, and how both purchasers and other e-commerce businesses can benefit from it.
Whatever your business is, there’s nothing that can’t be explained with video.
5. Square Online Store
If you are running an ecommerce business, you already know how much effort and time are needed to accomplish everyday tasks. Managing all those things alone seems impossible. But what if there was a solution to help with nearly everything? Things like selling, design, marketing, shipping, and much more can all be done with the Square online store.
Watch this ecommerce video to see how the creators introduced the simplicity and helpfulness of their e-commerce platform. To assure their viewer that this is an achievable task, they made this incredibly convincing video with one character who plays herself as a business owner, a designer, marketing specialist, shipping assistant, and more. It’s a fairly common tactic - using the actor as the personification of the viewer's own desires. This way the viewers can imagine themselves as a person that can easily manage all the tasks alone.
6. Amazon Business: Everything you love about Amazon. For work.
Modern consumers need more information about your business to make their final purchasing decision. Sure, you may have produced a lot of content about your business and feel that there’s plenty of information available, but believe me, it’s not enough!
Amazon is one of those companies that knows producing content never ends - not only to explain, but also to remind the viewer about their services.
This time the Amazon team has come up with a new video that has a completely different design, yet still reminds you of the same shopping opportunities you can get with them. If you already have an explainer video about your business, then it's time to think about creating something new that will help you tell the same story differently.
7. Shopify – Anywhere
I've selected explainers mostly from big ecommerce companies, but that’s not an accident. All those big brand names have faced difficulties, but challenges made them stronger and even helped them out. If there’s something to learn, it’s that the strongest survive, and the marketing they’ve done should be examined.
Shopify has done it so many times with so many great marketing videos. ''Anywhere'' is another perfect work from their portfolio that you can get new design and style inspirations from. It’s a great blueprint to create something new from that also employs the best practices of those who have the experience and have conquered many trials.
8. What is Airbnb
An explainer video is a wonderful marketing tool that helps ecommerce business owners bring interested parties to their online platforms.
Airbnb is one of those companies that has used this tool for a long time and has created a lot of great advertising content so far. "What Is Airbnb" is just one example, but if you go through the other marketing videos they have created, you'll see that success is never an accident - it's persistent hard work on every angle of your business; especially marketing.
9. Cash Back So Crazy
Have you ever thought about creating an explainer video that can also run also as a commercial for TV? If so, watch this Rakuten video. I'm sure you'll like it. It’s an incredibly convincing video that has run everywhere from websites to social media channels to TV and as an e-commerce ad, as well as an explainer video. If you’re looking to create cross-channel content, you won’t find a better example than this.
10. What is Salesforce?
Another video on my list that works both as a TV commercial and as an explainer video is this one from Salesforce.
It’s a nice, fun video that uses live-action elements and text animations to bring you into different life situations where the salesforce team could be a helpful tool for e-commerce marketers.
As you can see, combining different styles is often a great idea and can help you create effective multichannel content.
Final Words
If you’ve got an ecommerce business, an explainer video can work wonders for your marketing strategy. We’ve created e-commerce explainer videos for dozens of businesses, and we’d be happy to talk with you any time in a free consultation.
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