How to come up with a powerful strategy for your product videos: The Product Video Strategy Canvas
High-quality product videos need a solid foundation. A strong product video strategy helps you not only to stay on-brand with your content creation across channels but ensures consistency in your output. As a brand it puts you back in control: a product video strategy enables you to align different stakeholders in working together towards the same overarching goal. With our Product Video Strategy Canvas, you’ll learn all the necessary steps of establishing an effective product video strategy for your business.
What is the Product Video Strategy Canvas?
We developed the Product Video Strategy Canvas based on our customers’ experiences and their struggles with creating a solid product video strategy. The canvas rests on four blocks - two foundation blocks (customer journey and buyer persona) and two technology blocks (hardware and software). Building on those, there are two creative blocks (brand and products), as well as two analytics blocks (KPIs and success criteria).
Your canvas is supposed to be a living document. Adapt and tweak it as you learn more about what works for you and your brand. When reading this article step by step, start filling in your canvas, brainstorm with your team members, and evolve as you go.
With that said, let’s dive in and put your canvas to use!
#1 - Foundation: Customer journey
In the first block of your canvas, you’ll want to find out in which phase of the customer journey your target customer is in when watching the video you are planning to create.
If you target your product video to a customer audience that is currently situated in the awareness phase you’ll have to consider the different needs they have compared to those already in the purchase phase. Along the customer journey, your customers experience different touchpoints with you as a brand and your products or services. Depending on your business model, those touchpoints can take place offline and online. For example by stumbling upon an appealing shop window, later reading a related post on social media, and then making an actual purchase in the webshop.
Currently, most of the offline touchpoints within the customer journey fall out due to social distancing. You might believe that the current situation won’t last forever, however think about how shopping behavior and habits are already changing. Consumers are more motivated than ever to shop online and retailers will have to shift their thinking significantly to “digital first”.
Product videos are a great way to adapt your offline touchpoints to the online world. They can function as a virtual salesperson, reflect your offline shop window digitally, or assist during online (shopping) events.
#2 - Foundation: Buyer persona
The second block of the Product Video Strategy Canvas touches upon the buyer persona. Here you’ll define who exactly the customer is that you’re targeting your video content towards.
A buyer persona is a fictitious character that should represent your perfect customer as specific as possible. Having a buyer persona in mind makes it easier to tailor your content and your messaging in order to appeal to your target audience. Buyer personas can, of course, differ quite a lot from each other. Consider the following two characters.
Firstly, Chris. Let’s call him Convenience Chris for the sake of simplicity. For Chris, shopping needs to be quick and easy. He doesn’t dress according to trends, potentially has three pairs of the same jeans and sneakers, and favors good quality clothes that will last. Opposing to that we have Trendy Annie. Annie is highly interested in fashion and new trends. She reads Vogue like a bible and loves browsing social media and webshops for inspiration.
These two personas have two very different shopping behaviors that you as a brand have to cater to in a different way with your video content. For Convenience Chris, a video that is cropped at the torso of the model and simply shows a pair of jeans in front of a plain background with little distraction might be the best fit. Trendy Annie might favor a more dynamic and playful video showing the model in full length, wearing bright colors and matching accessories, so she’d get inspired to purchase a whole outfit together with her jeans.
#3 - Technology: Hardware
To produce high-quality product videos, the right technology is a must. Let’s have a look at which hardware you need to create the best output.
Traditionally, there is a long list of gear you have to invest in when getting started. It all starts with a professional camera - preferably a DSLR one that is 4K video capable, along with different lenses and respective adaptors for them. Besides that, lighting should be on top of your mind when equipping your studio. We recommend high-quality, daylight-calibrated LED lights to perfectly capture colors and ensure color consistency between product photos and videos.
To avoid wobbly videos you’ll need a tripod and a jib on set. If you want to create smooth 360° spin videos (you’ll definitely want to), you’ll need a turntable to position your products on while you film them. On top of that, there are miscellaneous cables, extensions, and SD cards you’ll need for a traditional studio setup. Then it comes to installing, connecting, and calibrating everything for consistent video output.
Profoto StyleShoots automated solutions take the hassle out of your setup. The whole list of gear is integrated into the solutions and product videos can be taken with the click of a button - with Profoto StyleShoots Eclipse for smaller items and Profoto StyleShoots Live for bigger items, whole outfits, or model videos.
#4 - Technology: Software
With regard to software, there are many factors to take into account. In this article, we will focus on finding the right hosting platform that works for you and your videos.
You might freeze with regret for not taking that coding class back in the days when it comes to uploading and embedding videos on your website - but it’s really not that tricky! If you find the right hosting platform, adding video content to your pages will be a breeze - you just need to find the one that suits you and your business needs.
When choosing your hosting platform, take the following four aspects into consideration. Firstly, hosting and management of the platform. Videos will pile up with incoming collections that need to be shot. Anticipate that and find a platform with intuitive management capabilities to keep an overview and eventually ensure great streaming quality. Secondly, integration. Make sure that the platform you choose integrates seamlessly with other marketing and e-commerce tools you’re using (e.g. Shopify, Marketo, SquareSpace, HubSpot). Thirdly, analytics. Perhaps one of the most important aspects of a hosting platform, analytics will give you all the data you need to see how your videos are performing and to continuously improve to grow your business. Be sure to make analytics capabilities a priority when searching for the perfect hosting platform. Last but not least, comes pricing - of course, the platform has to fit into your budget. There are different platforms out there with flexible pricing models, matching different needs and goals that work for you.
#5 - Creative: Brand
First up within the creative block is your brand. Here you’ll ask yourself what your brand personality is and how you can communicate it in your product videos.
In general, product videos are a great format to get creative and express your brand personality. Whether your brand is more dynamic and targeted towards a younger audience or more sophisticated addressing a more mature target group - you can tailor your product videos to reflect exactly what you stand for.
For young and fresh brands like ASOS, dynamic posing and camera angles work well and create authenticity. The models are shown in full length and often bring a unique attitude across. Customers are able to get inspired to shop the model’s full look as outfits are usually very much on-trend, creative, and often combined with statement accessories.
On the contrary, Net-a-porter is a website that stands for sophistication and high-quality craftsmanship. This is also reflected in the product videos on their website. With calm posing, models are shown from the neck down for less distraction and letting the clothing speak for itself.
Find out what works for your business to stay on-brand and come across as authentic towards your target group. There is a lot of room for experimenting with different backgrounds, fun props, or unique posing of your models.
#6 - Creative: Product
Part two of the creative block addresses what kind of product you’d like to show with your product video. Depending on your industry, branch, and portfolio, there are different variations of videos to work with.
A contextual product video shows your product, as the name suggests, in a context. For an activewear brand that could mean that a sports top is shot featuring matching sports accessories, like boxing gloves or a water bottle, as you can see in the example below.
Inspirational product videos can help you to tell a story with your products. You can make use of voice-over or subtitles, different backdrops, or matching props that help to tie the story together and inspire or educate your audience.
If you are trying to stage a product or service that needs a lot of explanation, for example when it comes to setting the product up, its usage, or its different features, an explanatory product video can help to bring the message across. Potential customers will be able to understand how your product can solve their problems or fulfill their needs without you having to write a long product description or having to capture every single step photographically.
#7 - Analytics: KPIs
We have reached the last and one of the most important blocks of the canvas - analytics. The first part of this block addresses KPIs (key performance indicators) and characterizes how you measure the performance of your videos.
To determine the long-term success of your product videos, it’s important to define relevant metrics and KPIs you want to track, beforehand. The KPIs you’ll want to track not only depend on your goals (conversion, CTR, etc.) but also on the different phases of the customer journey your audience is in.
#8 - Analytics: Success criteria
“It’s hard to score without a goal”
Lastly, the second part of the analytics block comprises the success criteria you’re choosing for your product videos. Here you’ll note which (numerical) goal you’re trying to achieve with your video content. Measuring your KPIs is the first step in this. However, to understand how you are actually performing you need to have a ballpark figure defined that you’re trying to achieve.
“It’s hard to score without a goal” might sound like an almost ancient saying but is truer than ever when it comes to keeping track of your data. Define what you want to achieve with your product videos so that you can evaluate your performance and gradually improve it as you develop and mature your strategy.
Take aways
Setting up a solid product video strategy might take quite some time in the short run but it will bear great results and prove as a stable foundation for your video content in the long run. To develop a strong strategy, think digitally first, and upgrade your online customer journey according to new shopping behaviors and buying habits. For smooth sailing and optimal workflows, decide on tools that seamlessly integrate with your existing infrastructure. Communicate who you are as a brand. Bring your brand message across and tell a story with your product videos that will capture your audience - but stay on-brand and be consistent. To create continuous output in high-quality product videos, keep monitoring and analyzing your KPIs so that you can improve and grow your successes long-term. Don’t forget that your Product Video Strategy Canvas functions as a living document that should continuously be updated with new insights as you evolve and your strategy matures. Coming up with a consistent and continuous stream of content requires smart technology and reliable tools such as our Profoto StyleShoots Eclipse or Profoto StyleShoots Live, that all example content on this page has been shot with. These solutions generate continuous high-quality, standardized video and photo content with the click of one button.