Video Marketing: Electronics retailer injects fun into product tutorials to achieve 1.75% purchase rate
“We try to have fun with everything we do, and our audience seems to respond to it pretty well,” Gregg Barclay, Senior Videographer, SparkFun Electronics, told me in an interview at last year’s MarketingSherpa Media Center at IRCE.
What it takes to produce online video marketing
YouTube, Vimeo and other online video sites have lowered the bar on what it takes to use video to promote your product to consumers. They no longer expect a slick commercial with a massive production staff and budget. The DIY feel can resonate with customers, as well (and for the right product, feel more authentic).
But, as with any business initiative, video still requires a resource investment. For a company with relatively limited revenue ($30 million in sales), SparkFun has nonetheless chosen to make a significant investment in video with seven or 130 employees dedicated to this purpose.
Only two (including Gregg) are involved in the actual shooting and editing of the video. Additionally, there are three full-time creative technologists building products. The team invests a few days in preproduction while the shooting and editing is complete in just a few hours.
This may be a reason SparkFun’s videos have been successful. After all, no matter how slickly a video is produced, it is just a container. You must fill that container with entertaining, helpful content.
“I never wanted our videos to feel like commercials,” Gregg said. “I wanted them to feel like these are projects that we would build whether we were working there or not, and I think that that’s what our audience really responds to because they’re doing the same things that we are.”
The electronics retailer introduces 10-15 products per week, and its team is able to produce two to five videos per week that shows customers how they can use them.
Video content driven by fun online tutorials
While the site also includes more traditional tutorials, along with informational product and how-to clips, fun is a key component in many of the videos, such as in the LIDAR Lite Module video or SparkFun Claw Machine! video.
“We always think of fun first. It’s in our name — SparkFun Electronics,” Gregg said. “There might be more conventional uses for these products, but we try to think out of the box a little bit and really get people thinking of other ways to use this kind of stuff.”
As a result, 1.75% of people who view a video on SparkFun Electronics buy a product within that session. This doesn’t include people who watch a video and come back later to purchase, or those who watch a video on YouTube, so the real impact might be even higher.
We’ll be heading to Chicago in a few weeks to bring you more stories of marketing, ecommerce and fun from the MarketingSherpa Media Center at IRCE 2016.
You can follow Daniel Burstein, Director of Editorial Content, MECLABS Institute, @DanielBurstein.
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Categories: Marketing, Video Marketing
I have a plan to produce online video marketing for my company ( an electronic retail company). But the challenge is how to create videos not feel like a commercials. FYI we sell a various electronics brand. Do you have any sugestion ?
Ryo,
Thanks for the question. For a short answer, I think the tactics in this blog post are one great idea. Also, this webinar provides the basics of content marketing — Content Marketing: How MarketingExperiments increased blog traffic by 232%
For a longer answer, I’ll consider your question for a future blog post topic.