10 Ways Video Can Increase Conversion Rates

Looking for an easy way to increase conversion rates? Then you need to jump on the video marketing bandwagon. Video is hot, hot, hot and some have even described the Google-owned YouTube as the world’s second biggest search engine. Video makes it easy for searchers to get information and answers without working too hard, and it’s also popular with mobile device users.

According to CISCO, mobile video represented more than half of all mobile data traffic in 2013. Whichever way you look at it, video is getting attention, while TV viewing is on the decline. That’s why it’s a no-brainer to use video in your marketing to boost conversion rates. Here are 10 ways that video works to improve your success.

6 Ways Using Video Boost Conversions

First of all, let’s look at some of the ways using video works for you.

1. Building Trust

Using trust signals like social proof and safe shopping logos helps people to buy, but there’s nothing that builds trust like the human connection – and that’s what video offers. Instead of looking cautiously at your brand logo, people can see the faces behind the company and are more likely to trust you. And you know what else? People don’t even have to see the video to trust you more. According to a study by Reel SEO, just having the video on your site builds trust, even if web users don’t actually watch it. Go figure!

2. Grabbing Attention

A Forbes article shows that psychologically, people tune into video because:

• We’re wired to pay attention to faces.


• We’re wired to listen to human voices.


• Body language in videos conveys emotion that affects viewers.


• We pay attention to movement.

Since video incorporates all those elements, viewers pay more attention – it’s hard wired into our brains!

3. Keeping Visitors on Site

How many times have you visited a site looking for information and then gone elsewhere because you couldn’t find what you wanted? It happens all the time, but the attention-getting properties of video means that people stay longer on your site. As an article on Entrepreneur points out, the same people who won’t read a long article may stay to listen to a short video, thus reducing your bounce rate. And if you get them to stay on your page rather than the usual 10 or 20 seconds, you increase your chance of encouraging them to take the next step in your conversion process.

4. Answering Questions

Many people visit your site and wonder if your product or service is right for them. The best way to answer this question is to show real people using your product or service. As far back as 2009, Zappos successfully videoed employees demonstrating their products, resulting in an upturn in sales of between 6 and 30%. If you can condense your product message into 90 seconds or less, then it’s clear and easy to understand for most viewers. And if you don’t want to use people, screencasts also make effective videos.

5. Telling Your Story

Product videos aside, people want to understand your company before doing business with you. That’s where the explainer video comes in, to get to the heart of your vision and mission and tell your story in a few seconds. Explainer videos are extremely successful in boosting conversions. Studies published on Unbounce show that companies using explainer videos consistently increase their conversion rate by between 10 and 20%.

6. Being Shareable

People love to share the things they love – and that includes online video. In 2013, more than 700 YouTube videos were shared on Twitter every minute, says the UK’s Three Motion. Provide a useful product video or a humorous explainer video and you’ll increase the chances that people will share those videos on social media. Include this as part of your content strategy and you will see even more uplift.

Four Ways to Improve Conversions on Your Videos

The qualities above give a good overview of how videos work for you. Next, let’s look at four ways you can enhance your videos to improve conversions even more.

7. Use a Winning Formula

As we’ve said before, there’s no room for bad video in 2014. Whether you’re creating a product video, an explainer video, an instructional video or a presentation, you have to have a plan. Crazy Egg suggests that a winning formula is to illustrate a problem, show a solution, explain how it works and include a call to action (more on that in a moment). Keep the video short and focused on a particular audience and topic, and you also have to nail the script, the audio and the visuals.

8. Include a Call to Action

I mentioned this above, but it’s so important it deserves its own heading. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, so ask! If you want the people watching your video to visit a landing page, share the video, contact you for more information, just ask. And here’s another tip: although many people will watch your video right to the end, some won’t. That’s why it’s a good idea to put a call to action early in the video as well, to grab the attention of those who won’t watch the whole thing.

9. Embed Links and Hotspots

Clickable hotspots and links can also help boost conversions. An example on the Kissmetrics blog shows how one company used clickable hotspots on videos to take viewers straight to product pages and create a better shopping experience for them.

10. Think about Hosting

Where you host your video affects conversions too. If you embed the video on your own site and you have a super-fast hosting service or content delivery network, then you get some SEO benefits. On the other hand, you might get more traffic if you host your video on YouTube or another popular video site. Check out the pros and cons of each on Moz and decide. There’s also a useful study from Visual Website Optimizer that shows that it makes a difference whether you embed the video on your page or simply use a link to it. In the end, the study showed that embedding the video in your page led to 28% better conversions.

Source: B2C_Business

10 Ways Video Can Increase Conversion Rates