Updated: Feb 15, 2021
With 93% of marketers using video and businesses publishing on average 18 videos each month, video has never had a bigger focus in marketing strategies. There is also a fast-growing trend of making videos interactive and shoppable by adding clickable hotspots to videos.
“Tech giants and social media companies have been heavily investing in making their platforms more shopping-friendly. Last year, Amazon launched Amazon Live, where hosts talk about and demonstrate products sold on Amazon. Google’s R&D launched Shoploop, and Facebook has made shopping more prominent on Facebook proper, WhatsApp and Instagram.” CNBC
When a viewer is watching the interactive video they can click on the hotspots to instantly see more information and to shop. This provides the viewer with a fun way to engage with video and easily access more information. It also helps brands to convert more customers and access interaction data to better understand video performance.
1. Sharing the interactive videos on an ecommerce site
Including interactive and shoppable videos on an ecommerce website is a highly effective way of making your website stand out. Video commerce enables customers to instantly discover items from videos, which helps with site navigation as well as increasing overall engagement and sales. Especially on mobile devices where navigation across various product and category pages can be difficult, it is crucial to make product discovery and shopping as easy as possible.
If the interactive video features shoppable products, the video can be seamlessly connected with the ecommerce website shopping cart allowing for a single click checkout process.
2. Sharing interactive videos through email newsletter / CRM
Interactive videos can be used to amplify client communication via email newsletters and other CRM tools. Interactive and shoppable video experiences can be launched directly from a newsletter, creating a more immersive experience for customers. The interactive videos also help drive users to more specific pages on your website, which in turn can increase conversion rates by sending more qualified traffic. Including interactive videos in newsletters is very simple and adds a new depth to this content marketing strategy.
This format can also be used to share exclusive content in interactive video format to a select group of customers.
3. Sharing interactive videos via social media
Photo: Smartzer & MINI Interactive Facebook & Instagram Campaign
Social media channels have been at the forefront of providing shoppable formats. Instagram began using shoppable images before introducing live shopping formats, tuning into TV shopping channels like QVC HSN.
In addition to using the platform's native tools, brands can also share external interactive video experiences through stories, posts, and ads. This is particularly helpful for advertisers and influencers who don’t have their own product catalogues and promote products from multiple other brands and retailers.
Updated: Feb 15, 2021
Shoppable videos are the most talked-about video format in 2021 digital marketing strategies. This format started to gain popularity as Instagram introduced shoppable images across the platform. This quickly evolved to include shoppable videos with associated shoppable products from the Facebook product catalogue. Most recently this includes livestream shopping which is currently being tested in the US market.
Outside of Instagram, brands are using interactive video platforms like Smartzer to create interactive and shoppable video experiences that can be shared across e-commerce, social platforms and forms of paid media. The interactivity occurs through a clickable overlay that can tag videos with additional information about available products. Smartzer’s platform has an overlay that offers multiple ways for the viewer to explore and shop products to maximize the value of this technology.
1. Tags on the video
The most widespread way of adding interaction is to make products on the video itself interactive and shoppable. This can be both in the form of invisible tags or visual hotspots that mark the clickable items. This provides an easy way for the viewer to simply click on anything that they have been interested in to immediately access more information. This form of interaction is particularly convenient for mobile users and mirrors the expected user behaviour driven by social media channels.
2. Shoppable Carousel
Another unique feature of Smartzer is a shoppable carousel alongside the video. This includes all the items that are featured throughout the video and can be either opened or closed. The viewer can click on anything in the carousel to activate a popup with more information. This is perfect for longer videos, or videos with lots of featured items providing quick and easy navigation.
Photo: Brown Thomas live event with Smartzer shoppable carousel
3. Shoppable Replay Screen
In addition to enabling the interactive overlay during video playback, the shoppable items can also be listed on the video replay screen as another way to shop the video once the video has ended. This provides a great alternative to viewers who prefer to finish watching the video and then explore the related shoppable items.
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- Jan 28, 2021
Updated: Feb 11, 2021
Video itself has come a long way from analog video in television systems, nowadays the quality of digital video and reach has surpassed that of analog video. People are walking around with mini-computers in their pockets that are able to connect to 5G networks reaching mind-boggling speeds that many find unobtainable in their home. With this in mind, it’s not only that video that has been changing but also how and where people are watching it.
Since 2005 interactive video has seen a vast growth in usage. On the face of it, this is due to more people having access to devices that enable them to interact with digital video and also over faster internet speeds that allow for more complex content to be streamed.
But what exactly is interactive video?
According to the Collins English Dictionary interactive video is defined as “a computer-optical disk system that displays still or moving video images as determined by a computer program and user needs”. In layman’s terms, interactive video is a type of digital video that supports user interaction.
Functionally, video interactivity can manifest itself in a few different ways. Videos that contain these interactive elements are easily defined as interactive. Here are some of the most popular ways in which brands and content creators are adding interactive functions to videos online:
Adding Hotspots: Probably the most widely used form of interactivity, adding clickable hotspots to a digital video often results in an action to be performed, for example activating a pop-up window within the video (Eg. JD Sports Christmas Campaign).
Branching: Video branching enables the user to click on various options while watching a video to determine which part of the video to watch next (Eg. Buzzfeed Parenting Challenge).
Involving Data Inputs: While viewing a video, an interactive layer might provide the users with the opportunity to input their own data in a form like structure.
Gamification: Through the usage of various UI components such as slider controls or steppers interactivity can be added to host game principles in an otherwise non-game environment.
Using Carousels: Interactive Carousels within the interactive video player are also often widely used to allow the user to interact with the featured elements while the video is playing.
Interested in creating an interactive video for your own use? Speak to us here.