Treepodia – The leading Product Video solution for e-commerce

Considering that the difference between success and failure often rests on how well e-tailers are able provide convincing descriptions for the products they sell it’s surprising how often one still runs into poorly written, and what’s worse, poorly conceived PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS.

Rather than bitch and moan about it I  figured we might as we’ll dedicate a post to a few simple tips that, should you choose to implement them with dedication, will make a world of difference to how your customers perceive your offerings and will ultimately improve your conversion rates (CVR) and online sales figures.

So here goes:

People Buy BENEFITS, not Features

Probably the most commonly made mistake in marketing is the attempt to sell a product on its features alone. Here’s an example of two descriptions for a fictional health care product that should help illustrate the difference between selling on features and selling on benefits:

FEATURES:

“Doc Darnell’s Potent Poultice is made of the finest ingredients known to modern medical science and is served in a durable, yet beautifully crafted, travelling vial. Composed of only the finest herbs and extracts this wonder drug not only solves aches and pains of all sorts, but is guaranteed to solve baldness too!”

BENEFITS:

“Are you suffering from Aching joints? Headaches? Baldness? – Doc Darnell’s Potent Poultice will heal your pain instantaneously!”

As odd as this may sound initially, when we think about it the fact this mistake is so common makes perfect sense:

Marketers tend to be very well versed in their products and hope to impress consumers into a purchase by sharing their expert knowledge, whereas consumers are much more focused on simply understanding how a product will SOLVE THEIR PROBLEM.

People Expect Details

Online customers are usually devoid of any opportunity to interact directly with a salesperson. In most cases they have no one to turn to with the questions and worries they have about their planned purchase.

What they do have at their disposal is the opportunity to click “Back” and seek another provider if they don’t feel their questions are fully answered on any particular vendor’s site.

E-tailers that want their audience to stick around and spend money on their site MUST make the effort of providing detailed product descriptions and great product images to have a FIGHTING CHANCE to make a sale. We at Treepodia also have some very convincing statistics on how effective adding videos into one’s product listings is in terms of increasing sales…

People Believe People

Whenever possible it’s always a good idea to provide a story illustrating how your product gave value to your customers. The best way to do this is by offering clients an opportunity to submit reviews and testimonials about the products you’re offering. This might require a volume of traffic that you’ll find difficult to reach, so another alternative is to actively solicit feedback from customers you know bought your product, and to get their approval for posting their testimonials on the product’s page.

When soliciting feedback of this sort always aim to understand how the product helped your customers improve their life and stress these points in the testimonial.

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Image Credit: apdk

This post was provided by our friend Corrie Davidson, who works as the New Media Coordinator & Product Manager for Washington based online marketing agency Captico. Corrie is a savvy communicator with an interesting perspective and I consider us lucky to have the opportunity to host her here

One of the clearest indicators of online shopping’s growing popularity is “Cyber Monday”.

For a few years now the the Monday after Thanksgiving has seen millions of Americans hit online stores searching for hot digital deals from the comfort of their homes.

The Cyber Monday phenomenon is clearly on the rise since first sarted in 2005 and according, to Internet marketing research company Comscore, this year spending crossed the billion Dollar threshold for this first time.

E-commerce has clearly entered the mainstream of the American public’s shopping habits. The question is what are you, as a business owner, doing about it?

Videos, as my friends at Treepodia can tell you, will certainly help you sell your merchandise once your shoppers are in your store. But how do you get them looking at it to begin with?

Introducing GoPromoIT

GoPromoIt is a new coupon-code based application hopes to help you solve that question. Installed as a button added to any ecommerce website it enables purchasers to share a link back to the site with their Twitter or Facebook friends. In return for the social advertising they thus provide the site they become eligible for a discount or deal predefined by the vendor. Sites must be able to take accept coupon codes in their checkout process as a prerequisite for using the platform.

Tested successfully on Wall2WallStickers and jewelry seller JJ Singh GoPromoIt reportedly came through on the promise to increase exposure. Traffic on these sites has spiked as high as 65% above preceding averages since implementing GoPromoIt. Denny Hamlin’s Speed Wash, a Virginia based car wash, also reported getting positive feedback for their discount offerings. The increase in traffic, one must note, did NOT come at the cost of increased bounce rates, indicating that the new visitors sent to the sites represented interested consumers and qualified leads.

It’s still early days for the service but so far the 50 or so businesses participating in the Beta phase pilot agree that GopromoIt seems to be  a great way to increase awareness and sales via a simple utilization of one of the most basic principles of the social web – the ability to harness “Word of Mouth” validation online.

GoPromoIt also actively promotes the brands who use its service on its website and its Twitter account.

Sharing Statistics – Facebook vs Twitter

An interesting by-product of GoPromoIt’s pilot is sharing statistics:

• Sharing on Facebook was 63% more likely than on Twitter
• 85% of users elected not to customize the promotion message offered by the system as default -

For more information on GoPromoIt, screen captures, and a walk through of how it works, check out: “GoPromoIt.com – Discounts for sharing with your social network”