- Jan 28, 2021
Due to the current COVID-19 crisis, for most businesses, online sales have been the lead source of revenue for the past months. To try and help, Smartzer offered up free access to the Smartzer platform to small businesses in need to help drive additional sales through digital channels.
As part of the initiative Smartzer started to collaborate with HANX.
About HANX:
Founded in 2017 by best friends, Dr. Sarah Welsh and Farah Kabir, HANX make sexual wellness products designed with people’s wellbeing in mind. Their latex condoms are vegan, ultra-thin, and clean scented and HANX lubricant is long-lasting, natural, and is compatible with condoms and sex toys. Even better, they’re free of unnecessary chemicals, so they’re kinder to your body and the planet.
The team at HANX & their Performance Marketing Team @ Regital had been using Social Media campaigns to help drive sales via their e-commerce site over the past couple of years and were looking for new ways of picking up sales over a particularly unpredictable period. To aid their efforts over lock-down in the UK, the team at Smartzer and HANX got together and ideated around how the technology could be best used to support their campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. After reviewing the available materials the Smartzer MINI Page came up trumps as a useful way of enhancing results by reducing bounce rates and offering users a fully custom mini landing page to browse each item in the collection.
Having run the campaign over a few months the team has been thrilled to report an increase in conversions on the product pages featured. Following the campaign, the teams are looking to further utilise Smartzer technology for interactive video in particular, once the appropriate content becomes available.
Until then, it has been a pleasure working with HANX and Regital on this project and we are excited to see what is still to come!
- Jan 20, 2021
Updated: Feb 15, 2021
Photo: from Google
Online shopping has taken over the market in recent years. How to make the most out of the online experience is one of the top priorities for brands now that offering in-person experiences seems impossible in some places and will be for the coming future due to the current global pandemic situation.
Growth of video
Video content marketing has taken over the web to make the online shopping experience more personal, easy, interactive, and exciting. From tutorials, reels, and IGTV to interactive videos and Livestream shopping, we’ve seen a lot of changes in the way video can help improve e-commerce performance and enhance the experience for customers from the safety and comfort of their houses. As we dive deeper into using content as a sales strategy we will continue to see more and more ways to sell through video and to use it as a key element in marketing.
By 2021 we are expected to consume an amount of video content bigger than ever before, and by 2025 76% of mobile traffic will be video (link to reference here). Every platform will contain video, from social media to brands' own websites and most of this content will be consumed from a mobile device. This means that video content should be both mobile-friendly and adaptable to any social media platform.
Video eCommerce
The side-by-side growth of the use of video and e-commerce creates a huge opportunity for generating a seamless link between the two creating a new form of online shopping: video e-commerce.
Like Rose Tsou, Head of eCommerce and International at Verizon Media explained: ‘It’s about bringing commerce and content closer together’, and some even think that by the end of 2021 the line separating these two might blur further. (reference link here)
The ‘new normal’ of e-commerce will definitely involve video content’.
Shopping and entertainment or “Shopatainment” will go hand in hand, and it’s something brands should look out for if they want to attract younger social media consumers. Even older generations immerse in the e-commerce world as a result of the global situation that has driven almost every business into web platforms. It’s as easy to understand as Connie Chan and Avery Segal explained it ‘Think of them as compulsively watchable commercials-with a direct link to buy’, that’s something we all want to be a part of. (reference link here)
Video content is the topic of today and will remain so for the future. It allows the consumer to be more involved in the product and to interact in a more organic way with the brands. Shoppable and interactive videos are the next big thing for every brand to focus on if they want to increase their e-commerce sales.
Platforms including Smartzer offer an easy way for brands to transform their regular videos into seamless interactive and shoppable experiences. These interactive videos can adapt to any e-commerce or social media platform. Smartzer also offers livestream shopping format as a highly relevant form of shoppable video.
Interactive video enables brands to provide an entertaining experience for consumers introducing them to the content in a seamless way.
Example of a Smartzer shoppable video from Zimmermann:
Updated: Jun 18, 2021
Photo: Valentino onsite shoppable video.
Video is one of the fastest-growing forms of marketing with 92% of marketers saying that video content marketing is an important part of their marketing strategy. Video and other visual content are typically seen as the top of the funnel marketing assets used to create awareness. The link to commerce has been very limited, requiring the viewer to go through potentially dozens of clicks to find the featured items on a website. With social channels encouraging consumer behavior that is driven by interactivity and immediacy, there is a huge opportunity in viewing content from a more commercial angle and providing a seamless link between videos and shopping.
Creating video interactivity is now possible with new and innovative technologies enabling brands to bridge the gap between content and commerce. Videos and other visual content can be converted into assets that also allow customers to enter the purchase funnel and to start their shopping journey from video e-commerce.
By using an interactive video platform to tag videos, brands allow consumers to click on anything in a video to instantly see more information with direct links to shop. Video interaction can start a shopping journey through several layers of the funnel from awareness all the way through to conversion.
Photo: Purchase funnel diagram displaying stages of consideration unlocked via interaction
STAGE 1: AWARENESS View the interactive video
STAGE 2: DISCOVERY Click on interactive items on the video
Viewers are able to click on products within the video, pausing the video and opening an overlay with a summary of the information related to the particular item. This can include details such as images, descriptions, pricing, and a call to action.
The viewer can click open a carousel alongside the video which contains information about all the items featured throughout the video. This could include details of singular items or groups of items, such as a ‘shop the look’ in a fashion video.
STAGE 3: CONSIDERATION Clicks on Call to Action buttons in the interactive video overlay
Once the viewer has opened the interactive overlay by clicking on an item, they are able to see additional details including further possible actions such as ‘Shop Now’, ‘Learn More’, ‘Book a Test drive’, and so on. Viewers can click on the call action button which can take them to a product detail page for example. By clicking on this button after seeing a summary of the item details, the user is indicating consideration to purchase.
The interactive video can also include direct actions within the video itself, such as adding an item to a shopping cart on an e-commerce website without first visiting the product details page.
STAGE 4: CONVERSION Completing a final conversion such as placing an order, booking an appointment, or downloading a document.