Using Video And QR Codes To Increase Ecommerce Sales

Today’s guest blog post comes to us from Dave Goodwin, CEO of Digital Winds Media, a video marketing and production company based in Jacksonville, Florida

Teaming QR codes with video connects the retailer with the fast-growing mobile marketplace by leveraging the power of smartphones to both access and display rich content. QR codes are a physical-world tool. Since not all ecommerce sites have a physical presence, today I’m going to cover how ecommerce-only companies can leverage video with or without QRs and how those with a physical presence can combine QR codes and video.

QR codes are two dimensional bar codes that can be read by smartphones; once scanned they take us to a destination such as a web page, a picture, or a video. Any Android, Blackberry, iPhone/iPad can read a QR code after downloading a QR code reader from that phone’s app store.

60 Million Americans Is A Big Market

By the end of 2011, smartphones are expected to account for 50% of the cell phones in use in the U.S.—that’s 60 million of us. As this trend continues,  both brick-and mortar and online retailers need to be thinking about a mobile marketing strategy or risk falling behind as people increasingly use phones for shopping.

Retailers use QR codes in a variety of settings, such as alongside products on store shelves, in store windows, on promotional items like coffee mugs, on billboards, and in magazines, catalogs and newspapers. In short, QR codes are meant to be printed or displayed on something. Companies that are exclusively ecommerce operations must consider different methods of getting their QR code into the physical world if they want to use them.

The Majority Of Smartphone Users Know The Code

Video Is The Top Of The Marketing Food Chain

A natural QR code destination that doesn’t require a physical location is video since all smartphones can play web videos and video is the most effective online sales tool. Whether arriving at a video via QR code or keyboard, video can show consumers how a product works in a way that pictures cannot. Video has been proven to shorten the sales cycle, improve conversion rates, and significantly reduce product returns (by 60% in one case).

An August 2010 report from comScore, noted that shoppers who watched a product video were 64 % more likely to buy compared to shoppers who did not watch video.

Custom Vs. Automated Video Production

There are two ways to integrate video with ecommerce. The first is with standard web video shot with a video recorder. These are commonly hosted on YouTube or another hosting platform and embedded in the company’s website.

This type of video is great for showing us how to use a product. Seeing something in use is an effective way to overcome buying hesitation and to reduce returns since the guesswork about the product and purchase is removed by the video. This type of video can also deepen the customer relationship by using company staff to make a personal connection. People like other people.

The second type of video is an effective solution for ecommerce sites with large product catalogs where it is not feasible to produce a traditional video for each product. In this case, product catalog images and descriptions are sent electronically to a video service provider who uses an automated process to combine the still product images into a video. The service provider also hosts the videos, which can then be embedded into the online store’s product pages. You may not think this process could make an effective video, but the ones I have seen are excellent.  Treepodia is probably one of the best known companies in stills-to-video field.

QR Codes To Video

With video being such a powerful sales tool, it is good business practice to use it and to let consumers access however you can. Circling back to QR codes, let’s finish by talking about how to make a QR code that links to a video, and review some guidelines that will keep a QR code campaign from sinking.

The first step is to make the video to which the QR code will link and host it somewhere. That will provide the URL you’ll need to make into a QR code.

QR codes can be created for free online. Search for “QR code generator” and pick one. I use goqr.me because it lets me size the QR code with a greater range than others I’ve tried. Once the code is made simply right click and save it to your computer where it’s ready to be printed or sent to your printer/publisher.

QR Code Guidelines

• Use a URL shortener for long URLs such as are typical with products. Shorter URLs make a less busy QR code that is more reliable and easier to scan.  For example, both of these QR codes go to the same location, but the second example has a shortened URL.

• Test the code in its final form before spending the money to mass produce it. Otherwise you run the risk of running into worst-case scenarios, such as: the design department of a publication shrinking your working QR code to fit within the confines of an ad and unwittingly making it too small to scan. Or, the code being placed behind a plastic film that wrinkles or scratches, making it unreadable.
• Link ONLY to a mobile-friendly user experience that is relevant to what the user has just seen. If the QR code is on a product page, then it should link to more product information in the form of a video or a mobile web page. A full-sized website is inconvenient to read/navigate on a smartphone, and users will likely abandon the exercise when they are sent to one.
•   Placing a QR code on a web page doesn’t make much sense to me, since a web page is typically where scanning the code is supposed to take me. The one exception I can think of would be scanning the code to load a coupon into the phone, which could then be redeemed in a brick and mortar location. QR codes on web pages might be acceptable for other reasons not related to ecommerce, but that’s another topic.

Why QR Codes And Video Marketing Work

Overwhelmingly, people scan QR codes to access a promotion/get a discount coupon and to get more information about what they were just looking at. Taking them on an unexpected journey elsewhere risks not meeting their expectations and setting yourself up for disappointing results.

Video is a proven method of increasing sales. Ecommerce operators with a brick and mortar arm or who use print media as part of their marketing mix can drive mobile consumers to product videos by using QR codes. Ecommerce-only stores can still tap into the mobile market by using mobile advertising to drive people to video.

It’s interesting to watch as smartphones and mobile marketing have begun to shift consumer behavior. Ten years ago online shopping was in its infancy, kind of where mobile marketing is today. Has your company adopted video and a mobile marketing strategy?