Revolutionize Your eCommerce Game With Dynamic Short Shoppable Videos

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Live video is fast becoming a preferred way for customers to interact with their favorite brands and discover new products. By sharing short live shopping videos, you can easily improve your engagement metrics, boost brand recall, and significantly power your sales numbers. Find out how.

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When you engage in live shopping sessions, you empower your customers to participate in the selling experience from the comfort of their homes. However, the success of live commerce goes beyond just the convenience of making a purchase. Here are a few additional reasons why it has gained popularity:

• Shorter Purchase Journey:  The ability to add items to the cart and make a purchase without leaving the video stream appeals to customers' impulse buying tendencies, resulting in shorter purchase journeys.
• Inspires Confidence: Real-time product demonstrations and immediate answers to customer inquiries contribute to a sense of trustworthiness, making viewers more willing to try new brands or products.
• Makes Your Brand More Accessible: Video shopping bridges the gap between the offline retail experience and the more impersonal nature of online shopping. When customers can see the real people behind the brand, they develop a greater sense of openness and trust.
• Heightened Brand Recall: In today's fast-paced social media landscape, it's easy for brands to be forgotten. However, by incorporating shoppable video content as a core strategy, customers spend more time engaging with the brand and the host, leading to increased brand recall.

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By understanding and leveraging these advantages, brands can harness the power of live commerce to forge deeper connections with their audience and drive sales.

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Find out more about how live video shopping can help increase sales. 

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How To Add Video To Your Live Shopping Strategy With Swirl

With Swirl, incorporating shoppable videos into your eCommerce marketing strategy is a breeze. This platform provides a wide range of features and tools that enable you to effortlessly create and share captivating live shopping videos in various formats tailored to your brand's needs. 

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Here are a few options you can try: 

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• One-to-One virtual shopping: Offer exclusive one-on-one video shopping sessions, personalized styling appointments, or private consultations for customers.  
• Short video stories: Create TikTok-style snackable videos to improve engagement on social media and enrich your product pages. 

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Thanks to Swirl's user-friendly platform, you don't need any technical expertise. Simply download, follow a few easy steps, and you'll be ready to leverage the power of live video shopping for your brand.

Creating A Robust Short Video Strategy

Before you begin to create short videos, these strategy basics will help you design an effective strategy that works for you. 

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Live Video Shopping Basics 1: Deploy Sales Associates As Hosts

Influencers can help build trust and attract attention to your live shopping events. However, they can be costly, particularly for emerging brands. If you're thinking about incorporating live commerce into your sales strategy, consider leveraging your sales staff as hosts instead.

Here’s why:

• Your sales associates know as much about the products as you do and are possibly even more aware of what an audience is looking for because they interact daily with your customers.
• They are comfortable talking to new people and are able to cross-sell and up-sell.
• They understand the product range and are aware of any discounts or special offers.

Training your sales associates to host live shopping sessions for your brand is relatively easy. As long as they are familiar with smartphones and social media, they can comfortably host a livestream session.

Read our blog on Turning Sales Staff into Influencers for some great tips and case studies. 

Live Video Shopping Basics 2: Mix Video Content Themes

When you make a content plan for your livestream video events, add a mix of different types of themes so that your customers remain interested and engaged. Here are some options: 

• Advice and tips: Customers love getting tips from brands on how to style or use products in different ways. With live shoppable videos, you can demonstrate the versatility of your products and show customers how they can provide excellent value. You can engage viewers and help them see the multiple benefits and uses of your products.

• Demos and tutorials: Demos and tutorials are useful for various product categories, including cosmetics, fashion, home goods, and more. People enjoy watching products being used in real-time and find value in receiving tips on how to combine, style, and make the most out of them.

• Unboxing, hauls, etc.: Unboxing and haul videos are a great way for brands to showcase multiple products and packaging that is unique (pretty, eco-friendly, luxurious). 

• Behind the scenes: Customers feel a stronger bond with brands they connect with personally. Showcasing behind-the-scenes moments in your livestream event can help establish these connections. Share videos of product packing, production time-lapses, exclusive event footage, and friendly chats with founders or team members. 

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No matter what your brand sells, there is a livestream strategy that can be deployed. Check out our blog on How Brands are Using Livestream Across Industries for inspiration.

Live Video Shopping Basics 3: Simulcast To Maximize Social Media Followers

If you have a significant social media fan base, you should try out Swirl’s Simulcast feature. With this, you can share a live shopping event on Instagram, Meta (Facebook), YouTube, and an exclusive link for those who don’t follow you yet, and all in real-time.

There are multiple benefits to using simulcast live shopping videos:

• It offers you a chance to optimize your social media following, which is already predisposed to liking your brand
• On social media, your shoppable video content becomes eminently more shareable and likable, improving your organic reach and bringing in free new followers.

With Swirl’s simulcast feature, you can host on Instagram, which most live shopping apps cannot offer due to Instagram’s closed settings. 

Read our blog to find out how Swirl’s simulcasting can work for you. 

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Live Video Shopping Basics 4: Create A Calendar For Promos, Product Planning, And Event

To host a truly successful live commerce event that optimizes your ROI and gives you a boost, you have to plan for it well in advance. A successfully planned live event covers three major areas:

• Products: Choose products available in stock, on your website, and with suitable pricing. Ensure the host and customers have access to information on special offers or discounts. Allocate sufficient time and space to showcase each product, allowing the host to explore and explain them fully.

• Event: Select a date and time that works for your customers. Avoid conflicting scheduled posts on social media channels. Test connectivity, lighting, and sound in advance at the event location. Consider having the host rehearse in the space to address any layout issues.

• Promotion: Allocate ample time to create engaging visuals and captions. Share event announcements across customer channels, including SMS, WhatsApp, email, and social media. Send reminders a day before and a few hours before the event to maintain viewer interest and participation.

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This client case study demonstrates how StyleNook successfully planned a promotion strategy before the event.

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Live Video Shopping Basics 5: Add To Product Pages 

Live video events and short shoppable videos make for great watching even after the session is over. New customers can learn a lot from them and will be more likely to attend your next session. 

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By skillfully repurposing the video, you can use it in multiple ways: 

• Share on social media and save in easy-to-find spots like Instagram Highlights or Facebook albums. 
• Embed on product pages on your website
• Create a landing page on your brand website to store all live events and offer updates about the next session

To read more, check out our blogs, The Definitive Guide to Live Commerce