I recently had the opportunity to do a complete series of short, simple web videos for two different companies; one Telecom company and one Furniture-making company. Coincidentally, both companies required 18 different videos. One took a day to shoot, the other (slightly more involved) took two. And since I charge by a day rate, neither were expensive.

In both cases, each company set themselves apart from the competition by introducing a friendly, helpful, personal presence to their respective sites.

Beyond that, the videos, placed on various pages throughout the sites, helped customers understand the various specific unique products and services, and also (in both cases) helped the customers through the shopping cart. Now that last may not be something that everyone needs (and there’s an option to play the video or not), but in certain cases where customers, particularly older generations, may feel skittish about “identity theft” and are not really familiar with how safe purchasing can be on bonafide websites, the support was right there explaining each step and what was going to happen next.

The telecoms company took it a step further. They sent out an email promoting one of their most popular services (“Call Whisper”) with an HTML link in the email that said “Watch Video”. That link took you to the video right on the site page on that particular service.

Result? 40% sales increase in the first 30 days of the email campaign for that service.