Video marketing for the retail sector: the power of personalization

Summary

Retail is a large and diverse sector that brings together the retail giants as well as the small neighborhood stores. 

One of its most significant characteristics is that it is a kind of litmus test of consumer habits. And today, the big change taking place is all about Digital Transformation. At the heart of this paradigm shift is a new relationship between companies and customers that is increasingly through digital communication. And the king of digital communication is video. 

When we talk about video marketing for retail, moreover, we can’t avoid talking about personalization. Retailers have a formidable tool that combines the effectiveness of video with the boost of personalization at their disposal: personalized videos. 

Video marketing for retail: an introduction

It is difficult to establish clear-cut boundaries to define the retail sector. It ranges from large-scale retail companies, to the family-run neighborhood store, to digital shops, whether huge or tiny. It’s an extremely diverse landscape. Yet, there are characteristics that unite these very different commercial actors. 

First of all, these are businesses that rely on a high number of small transactions. In this, they differ from wholesale operators, for example. 

Going deeper, one discovers another very interesting element that they share in common: the retail sector, as a whole, constitutes a kind of litmus test on the state of the well-being of a society and its economy. And not only that: retail also offers fundamental insights into changes in consumer habits and transformations in the type of relationships between companies and customers. 

We saw this with dramatic clarity in the long emergency phases triggered by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. In an absolutely tight timeframe, retailers have had to come to terms with the limitations of various lockdowns, unprecedented and stringent regulations, and the fears of their customers. A change in behaviors, habits, and processes to which almost everyone reacted as best they could and with great speed. And what made this great and rapid reaction possible has a name: Digital Transformation. 

It is this revolution that has saved our economies and our production systems. It was already in place before the pandemic. But it has accelerated; and this acceleration will certainly not stop as we come out of the emergency phases. 

The topic, as you can guess, is really broad and articulated. In this post, we want to approach the topic from a decisive visual angle: that of digital communication with customers. 

Even more specifically: we want to focus on the tool of video, which is without a doubt the most powerful and effective means of digital communication between company and customers. 

In the continuation of this post, we will address the topic of video marketing for retail by drawing a path in three stages. First we will analyze, through unequivocal numbers and statistics, the power and effectiveness of video. Then we will add a crucial element: that of personalization. What is it all about? Why is it so important? Again, we will rely on numbers to answer these questions. 

Finally, we will conclude by combining the two, and telling you about personalized video, the ultimate breakthrough for video marketing for retail. 

The power of video for digital communication – some numbers 

Without getting lost in too much preamble, let’s get right to the heart of the matter and take a look, as promised, at some data: 

• By the end of 2022, video will make up as much as 82% of total Internet traffic. In 2017, the figure was already a sizable 73%, but the growth has been truly impressive (source: cisco.com). 
• More than 1 billion hours of video are viewed on YouTube every day (source: oberlo.com). 
• More than 1 million videos are viewed every second worldwide (source: socialmediatoday.com). 
• On Facebook alone, more than 4 million videos are viewed every day (source: 99firms.com). 
• On Instagram, from 2013 to the present, time spent by users watching videos has increased by 80% (source: yumyumvideos.com). 

In short, the numbers on the uptake of videos and the audience’s habit of viewing them could not be more telling.  

But let’s proceed further and go deeper into what business and video marketing is all about. Again with more data: 

• 50% of people watch a video before making a purchase (source: smallbizgenius.net). 
• 93% of brands say they have acquired new customers by posting a video on social media (source: lemonlight.com). 
• 86% of companies use video as a key tool in their marketing mix. In 2020, the percentage was 85%. In 2016, it was only 61% (source: smartzer.com).
• Using a video on your landing page increases your conversion rate by at least 86% (source: hubspot.com). 
• On average, videos record organic search engine rankings that are as much as 50 times better than links that contain only text (source: seoinc.com).  
• 88% of marketers said they were satisfied with the ROI of their video-based campaigns (source: oberlo.com). 
• Finally, watch out for this statistic as well: 87% of consumers still want more video from the brands they follow (source: wyzowl.com). 

It all seems very eloquent and crystal clear to us. So, we’re ready to move forward and address the second decisive element for video marketing for retail: personalization. 

Personalization: the decisive boost for retail…even when it’s digital  

Think about your experience with retail. To make it simple: think of one of your favorite stores below your home. What do you expect from the retailer? Quality, sure. But above all, you want products that meet your tastes and needs.  

But that’s not all: you certainly expect to be treated well, you don’t expect a cold and abrupt relationship, you don’t want to feel like a number, or just a means to increase sales. At best, you would like to establish a relationship of trust with the merchant to make sure it knows your preferences and is able to provide you useful, valuable, and mutual advice. 

Well: what until yesterday was only possible in the physical world and only for small numbers is now possible in the digital world, even when we are talking about potentially endless audiences. How? With personalization. And how does it work, concretely? 

The starting point is in Big Data, the most valuable asset in the digital world, what is often called “the new oil”. 

For companies, then, it is a matter of collecting as many “digital traces” left by online users as they visit physical and “digital places”. 

Beware: what matters – now more than ever – is not so much the quantity as the quality of the information collected, the accuracy and the depth (which is why we often talk about “Smart Data“ or “Deep Data“). All, of course, with a great deal of attention to privacy and security. 

The result of these operations is the emergence of a broad and detailed picture of one’s audience. This is no longer an indistinct, tentatively identified target, but a set of very precise micro-targets, isolated on the basis of real information. In fact, it’s a vast set of individual people, each with their own characteristics, behaviors, needs, and possible desires. 

The next step? Move from knowledge to communication. Automatically, in fact, companies can address tailored digital communications to each individual customer, thus moving from one-size-fits-all to a true one-to-one dialog that is more effective than ever. At this point, we’re ready to pull the strings.  

If you combine the power of the video tool with the boost of personalization, we get personalized video. It’s the ultimate breakthrough when it comes to video marketing for retail. 

Personalized videos – what are they? How do they work?

Personalized videos are videos built automatically based on the characteristics of the target audience. Companies, in short, make a single video marketing campaign, but it becomes – at the same time – multifaceted. 

That’s not all. Personalized and interactive videos can adapt in real time to users’ browsing choices, breaking another traditional barrier of communication between brands and customers. In fact, we move from a mono-directional dynamic (the company launches a message that is passively received by its target audience) to a bi-directional dynamic (the message becomes interactive and turns into a real opportunity for exchange and dialog).

Translating this even more practically: in personalized videos, companies can carry out data-driven and user-oriented storytelling, which is complemented by tailored call-to-actions. The consequences? First and foremost, a surge in engagement and conversion rates. A dramatic decrease in the rate of interruption of views. Also: the possibility of upselling and cross-selling operations that are designed specifically based on the individual recipient. And in the long term? 

It’s a definite improvement in communication between company and customers, with a net increase in loyalty, therefore in revenue. 

Finally, a very important technical aspect: personalized videos can be distributed through different channels. And this contributes to a decisive step: that towards an omnichannel perspective. 

The future of the retail sector, in fact, lies entirely in the integration of the physical and digital sides. There is talk of a “new proximity”, which is already in place. The topic is vast and fundamental; but just take this data as both a compass and a yardstick. 

According to a recent survey as many as 31% of users are influenced in their choice of a product by the research they do on their smartphone while already inside a store (source: Digital4Biz). And this percentage is even higher among younger people. 

In short: personalized videos are one of the keys to this revolution that still has a lot of fruit to offer. How to take advantage of it? It involves relying on specialized platforms such as the one offered by Babelee!