3 Principles for Creating E-Commerce Video That Sells

With the holiday shopping season in high gear, I'd like to spend some time this week focused on web video for e-commerce. I'll start things off with an interview I did at the Streaming Media West show with my friend Justin Foster, Co-Founder of Liveclicker and founder of the Video Commerce Consortium.  In this interview, Justin talks about what he considers to be an ideal framework for e-commerce merchants to follow when looking at producing video content that sells.

More and more e-commerce merchants really are moving to use video content both on and off their e-commerce site. The reason why so many retailers are moving to use more video is because it can be such an effective way to present a product or service, tell a story about a product or service, visualize a product or service in a way that is more akin to what it might appear like in real life - as opposed to looking at a still of a product or a 360 zoom of a product.

As retailers begin to focus more and more on creating video content for e-commerce purposes, obviously, their primary concern lies in creating video content that sells.

In order to create a piece of video that sells, there are 3 main components that an e-commerce merchant is going to need to consider.

Justin points to a conceptual model called the Fogg Behavioral Model, created by BJ Fogg, PhD., a Stanford University Professor and author of a research paper published back in April titled, "A Behavior Model for Persuasive Design." As Justin describes, the model is comprised of 3 principal components, that when presented together within e-commerce video content, help to increase the likelihood that a potential shopper will take action.

1) Motivation - What is motivating the shopper to buy the product? It is important to address this question in a simple, easy to use way, within the video content itself.

2) Simplicity/Ability- Retailers need to help simplify the purchase decision.  Make the shoppers' purchase decision easier by telling as story that  features the USP (unique selling proposition) within the video content.

3) Triggers - There needs to be a trigger mechanism, or call to action. E-commerce merchants can add links within their video content at opportune moments.  BTW - if you want to read more about creating effective trigger mechanisms for e-commerce video, read Justin's post, "Creating Persuasive Interactive Video for E-Commerce."

Stay tuned this week and next as will have some more great insights from Justin regarding creating and deploying web video content for e-commerce.

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