For leading consumer brands, video offers the opportunity to build deeper connections with customers — not just leading up to a sale but also post-purchase. Video strategies aren't one-size-fits-all. Instead, they allow brands to get creative in everything from the content to how the viewer interacts with the material.
For a closer look at how brands are getting creative with using video to educate customers and enhance their experiences, Vimeo recently hosted a webinar with Heaven Schydlowsky, Director of Digital Product & Ecommerce at MERIT Beauty, and Blanka Csizmadia, Creative Manager at Non-stop dogwear.
MERIT has become well known for its "Five Minute Morning" tutorials, showing viewers how to use their products in an approachable, easy-to-understand manner. Similarly, Non-stop dogwear has been increasingly leveraging video for product explanations, significantly reducing the burden on their support teams.
Let's take a deeper look at how these two brands uniquely use video to create better customer experiences.
Brand identity and values
One of the most critical priorities for MERIT Beauty in its digital experience is to communicate the brand's values and how their products can fit into the customer's lifestyle. "Video has been really important to be able to convey that on the site and to show the customer how they can fit (our makeup) into their routine," says Schydlowsky. "We want our customers to really see how impossible it is to mess up our makeup."
MERIT Beauty takes a unique step to emphasize their identity and values by featuring their founder front-and-center in their tutorials. "She speaks about the why: why it was designed a certain way, how it's applied, and how it fits into her morning routine," says Schydlowsky.
This genuine and relatable approach has positively impacted the brand by using the people behind it (in this case, the founder) to support its values.
Elevate creativity with interactivity
Video isn't always the starting point for a successful creative strategy or campaign — in many cases, it can be used to elevate a brand's existing approach. Norwegian canine equipment brand Non-stop dogwear uses interactive quizzes to help customers find the product they need, asking targeted questions about their use case and their pet to provide personalized recommendations. Recently, the brand began using video for these quizzes, resulting in a more personal touch.
"We made interactive videos where it's a person guiding them through this journey," says Csizmadia. "The quiz was already very successful before introducing video, but we feel that having this personal feeling makes it easier to connect with someone."
These videos let shoppers see how to use products like leashes and harnesses more clearly, which traditionally could confuse or intimidate them. These interactive guides also reduce the burden on support staff by solving problems before they ever reach a customer support specialist.
"We have videos that show the viewer how to measure their dog correctly," says Csizmadia. "We realize that people are just simply measuring wrong, so they order the wrong size of equipment and then we have higher return rates. In order to reduce the return rates, we created content that we can provide them with. We've also tweaked our videos to support B2B customers, so people working in shops are able to sell our products better."
What’s next
MERIT Beauty and Non-stop dogwear continue looking for new opportunities to enhance the customer experience using video. As MERIT continues introducing new products, the company hopes to expand its use of shoppable video to streamline the customer experience.
Non-stop dogwear also plans to introduce more interactive and shoppable video across category pages, allowing customers to click on specific products within the video and go directly to the product page. Csizmadia also expects the company to take advantage of AI translation, another opportunity to scale up support for global sales.
For more details on how these leading brands use video to enhance their customer experiences, click here to watch the full webinar.
Interested in using Vimeo to elevate your own brand's customer video strategy? Book a call with Vimeo sales.
