As an HR Manager in a fast-paced retail environment, you’ll understand the importance of onboarding new employees so that they’re engaged members of the team and able to take on their new role quickly.

Equally, you’re probably aware of all the challenges you may face if a new employee isn’t onboarded properly.

One tool in your arsenal that you may not be using yet is an onboarding video. They’re a great way to turn your onboarding into an immersive, informative, and inspiring experience. An onboarding video that not only imparts critical knowledge but also champions your company culture right from the start.

At Super Motion, we support HR Managers to deliver exciting and engaging onboarding videos that make use of excellent visual storytelling. Today, we’re sharing our knowledge of what goes into making an excellent onboarding video for the retail industry.

Defining Company Culture from the Get-Go

Company culture breathes life into the workforce. It’s what makes employees not just show up, but truly belong. In the world of retail, where the customer experience hinges on employee engagement, culture is king. Your video’s first segment should be a window into your company’s personality, sharing its values, mission, and vision.

Keep language clear and aspirations high — visual aids and animated infographics can bring these abstract concepts to life. This part isn’t just about telling; it’s about showing the new hire where they fit in the bigger picture of what the company is striving to achieve. This creates a sense of purpose and alignment that money can’t buy.

Team Introductions that Warm the Heart

We all crave a sense of belonging from the first day at any new job. The second segment of your onboarding video should feature warm welcomes and insights from team leaders and key members.

This isn’t just about who’s who; it’s about the faces and stories that convey a team united behind a common goal. Short, personal messages work wonders — they break the ice and set the tone for the friendly and supportive relationships that your workplace champions.

Making Expectations Crystal Clear

One of the most anxiety-inducing aspects of a new job is uncertainty about what’s expected. Your ongoing success in or out of the retail industry relies on clear communication.

Use this part of the onboarding video to ensure that your new employee has a clarity and understanding of their role, key responsibilities, and how they fit into the business’s strategy.

When they understand their part in the bigger picture, they’re more able to engage fully in their role and contribute to the success of the organisation.

Training Wheels Are Ready to Roll

Retail is filled with nuanced practices that can make or break a brand’s integrity. This means training has to be a non-negotiable.

The onboarding video should provide a comprehensive summary of the training structure and resources available, including role-specific modules and the timeline for completion. In retail, knowledge is power, and ensuring your team has the knowledge they need isn’t just responsible — it’s strategic.

Compliance and Retail Ethics

Policies and compliance may not be the most exciting aspect of retail, but they’re among the most important — and your video must reflect this.

A clear, unambiguous overview of company policies, health and safety guidelines, and any retail-specific compliance requirements is essential.

Make sure that you don’t just present the information but underscore the ‘why’ — people are more willing to follow rules when they know why they exist and why they’re important.

Navigating the Retail Workplace

Finding your way around the building when you start a new job is just another hurdle for a new employee’s career journey.

Your onboarding video is the perfect platform for a virtual tour of the retail environment, from the shop floor to stockrooms and break areas. Familiarising them with the lay of the land eases that first-day anxiety and lets them know where to find resources and assistance.

The Perks

Rewards and benefits can be key motivators for an employee to join a new business — but often companies forget to tell their employees what they are and how they can take advantage of them.

Don’t waste the opportunity to shout about the perks — make sure you vividly capture these in your video, clearly explaining benefits and employee discounts available to them.

The goal here is to make the new employee feel not only appreciated, but also excited about the opportunities your company provides.

Prepare the Employee for Day One

End your onboarding video with a clear call-to-action. The final segment should outline next steps, including any immediate tasks to be completed before day one on the job. This section acts as a roadmap, ensuring they feel equipped and ready for their first shift.

Conclusion

Crafting the ultimate onboarding video may sound like a daunting task, but with the right expertise, it becomes an exciting opportunity to set the stage for a new level of engagement and performance in your retail team.

At Super Motion, we know the value of exceptional onboarding. A well-produced video sets the standard from the word go, making your new employees not just excited about starting their new role, but also sets them up for success.

If you’d like to set your employees up for success, book a free 30-minute strategy call with Super Motion today to discuss how an onboarding video can enrich your onboarding experience.

As a retail marketing manager, you know that videos have become an essential tool to grab audiences’ attention, showcase your products and services, and explain key concepts.

But how can you make sure your educational videos are engaging enough to deliver your message effectively?

In this guide, we will discuss the best practices you need to follow to create amazing, engaging educational videos. We’ll give you a mix of technical tips, video-making best practices, and industry-specific examples to help you create videos that captivate your audience.

Define Your Goals and Target Audience

Before you start creating an educational video, define the purpose of the video and your target audience.

What is the objective of your video? Who is it for?

As an example, if you are creating a video to explain the features of a product, you should focus on product-specific details and how those details help the customer. Keeping your goals and target audience in mind will help you create a video that is informative, engaging, and relevant to your desired outcomes.

Choose the Right Video Format

There are several video formats you could use to create your educational video. Some popular video formats include whiteboard animation, motion graphics, screencasting, and live-action video.

Each format has its unique strengths and weaknesses. For instance, whiteboard animation is great for explaining abstract concepts, while live-action videos are ideal for showcasing real products. Consider which video format will work best for your content and audience.

A video production expert could help to guide you on what type of video would work best for your project.

Craft a Compelling Script

Once you have identified your goals, target audience, and video format, it’s time to write a script. Your script should be clear, concise, and compelling.

Start with an attention-grabbing opening line that piques your audience’s interest and keeps them watching. Use storytelling techniques to communicate your message; stories help to create an emotional connection, making your video more memorable.

And, don’t forget to make sure your script is conversational. Speak as if you’re having a conversation with your audience to keep them engaged.

Avoid using technical jargon or complex terms that your audience may not understand.

Add Visuals and Audio

To make your educational video engaging and more visually appealing, you need to add visual elements such as images and animation.

Visuals help to break down complex concepts into digestible pieces that your audience can easily understand.

Also, use high-quality audio to complement your visuals. Poor audio quality can be a distraction and take away from the value of your message.

To ensure you have high-quality sound, you need to record audio in an area with minimal background noise and use professional audio recording equipment.

If you’re going to produce your project in-house, you should consider investing in professional equipment — but this can be a large investment. So, it’s worth weighing up the cost of the equipment and how often you’ll use it, against the cost of working with a video production company.

Optimise Your Video for SEO

Once your educational video is created, you need to optimise it for search engines. Optimise your video with relevant keywords in the title, description, and tags. This will make it easier for your audience to find your video when they search for topics related to your video.

Also, ensure that your video is hosted on a platform that allows you to embed it in webpages or share it on social media. Vimeo and YouTube are two of the most popular options.

Conclusion

By following these essential tips, retail marketing managers can create engaging educational videos that capture their audience’s attention, educate them on their product, and persuade them to take action.

Keep these best practices in mind when creating your next educational video, and remember to focus on your goals, target audience, and compelling storytelling. Invest in high-quality visuals and audio, choose the right video format, and optimise your videos for SEO to help your videos get the attention they deserve!

To start your video journey, book a strategy call or get in touch on 01225 970242.

As a retail business owner, you already know that it takes more than just selling products to keep your customers coming back.

Customer experience is king, and one of the best ways to improve your customer experience is to understand your customers’ needs and preferences. That’s where case study video interviews can help.

However, conducting a successful interview requires strategic planning and asking the right questions — which is what we’re good at here at Super Motion.

We’ll be walking you through the best questions you can ask your customers to conduct successful retail case study video interviews.

Introduce Yourself

First things first, start the interview by asking your customers for a brief personal introduction. This will help create a friendly and comfortable environment.

These simple questions can be great conversation starters:

• What’s your name?
• Where are you from?
• What do you like to do?

Shopping Habits and Preferences

To understand your customers better, ask them about their shopping habits and preferences. It will help you determine the type of customers you cater to and what they’re looking for.

Some great questions to ask include:

• How often do you shop?
• What products do you typically buy?
• What factors influence your purchasing decisions?

Previous Shopping Experiences and Store Choice

To understand your customers’ preferences more deeply, ask them about their previous shopping experiences, including their store choices.

You can ask questions like:

• What motivates you to choose a particular store?
• What were your previous shopping experiences like?
• What did you like or dislike about the stores you shopped at in the past?

Purchase Process

A bad purchase process can be a turn-off for customers, and it’s essential that you address these challenges.

Ask your customers questions such as:

• What difficulties did you face when purchasing products in the past?
• What can we do to improve our purchase process?

Post-purchase Satisfaction and Customer Service

Post-purchase satisfaction and customer service are critical factors in customer loyalty.

You can ask about customer service by asking questions such as:

• Have you ever had any issues with our products or services?
• What did you like or dislike about our customer service experience?

Don’t forget, if you get any negative responses or problems, always follow-up with additional questions to find out how these issues were resolved.

These answers can often highlight your dedication to putting things right, when they do occasionally go wrong.

Conclusion

In summary, conducting retail case study video interviews with your customers can help you understand their preferences, needs, and shopping habits better. Asking the right questions is key to a successful interview, and the above questions are just a starting point. You can modify these questions based on your business needs.

Remember, the ultimate goal of the interview is to understand your customers better and tailor your products and services to their needs and preferences. By doing so, you can build loyal customers that keep coming back to your store.

If you’re struggling to draw out the right responses in your case study interview, book a strategy call or get in touch on 01225 970242.

Increasingly, consumers want information quickly and easily. That’s why retail explainer videos have become an essential tool for retail businesses to showcase their products and services.

However, not all explainer videos are created equal. In this post, we’ll explore what separates a good retail explainer video from an average one, and how to create a video that engages your audience and drives sales.

Keep Your Explainer Video Concise

The attention span of today’s consumers is shorter than ever, so it’s important to keep your retail explainer video concise. Ideally, your video should be between 90 seconds and two minutes long. This time frame is long enough to showcase your product or service and short enough to hold the viewer’s attention.

Use Strong Visuals

Visuals are a critical element of any retail explainer video. Strong visuals that are simple yet impactful can aid communication immensely and help viewers understand your product or service better. Using graphics, animations or other visual aids can make the information more digestible and engaging.

Standout Concept

An innovative and memorable concept tailored to your audience is an essential component of a great retail explainer video. To achieve this, you need to know who your audience is, what their pain points are, and how your product or service can help solve their issues. A standout concept that resonates with your target audience can ultimately make the difference in your video’s success.

Easy-to-Understand Language

Avoid ambiguous jargon or acronyms and use colloquial language instead. Use simple, easy-to-understand language that your viewers can relate to. Speak as though you are talking to a friend, not a colleague, to ensure your message is clear and concise.

Address Specific Audience Pain Points

Addressing specific pain points helps your audience understand how your product or service can benefit them. Instead of making vague statements about how great your product is, focus on addressing specific issues and provide solutions that your potential customers are seeking.

Smooth, Engaging Animations

Well-thought-out movements and animations are essential for keeping viewers engaged. Slow animations, poor transitions, and lack of movement can make viewers lose interest and switch off. Instead, create smooth animations that are visually appealing, that hold the viewer’s attention, and make the video more engaging.

Balanced Tone

Strike a balance between being informative and being fun. You want viewers to enjoy watching the video, while also understanding your message. A balanced tone that uses appropriate humour and memorable elements can make your video stand out and help viewers remember your brand.

Highlight the Benefits

As a business, you’re ultimately selling a product or service to your customers. A great retail explainer video highlights what the product or service does for the customer. Always focus on the benefits your product or service offers and how it can improve your potential customer’s life.

High-quality Audio

Often overlooked, but high-quality sound and music can provide an immersive experience for the viewer. Utilise appropriate background music and sound effects that can enhance the video’s story and immerse the viewer in your message.

Robust Production Process

A good retail explainer video requires a robust production process that must ensure quality at each stage. Video production can be time-consuming and a drain on resources. Still, you must allocate sufficient resources to create a professional, high-quality video that engages your audience.

Conclusion

In conclusion, creating a great retail explainer video requires careful attention to every piece of the puzzle.

Investing time in a memorable concept, scripting with easy to understand language, attention to smooth animations and sound, succinct timing, and a robust production process will ensure you create a great retail explainer video that informs and ultimately drives sales.

To start your video journey, book a strategy call or get in touch on 01225 970242.

The retail industry is known for its high employee turnover rate, which can be attributed to a number of factors, such as seasonal hiring, pay scales, job stress, and other issues. It’s no secret that the cost of hiring and training new employees can be substantial, which is why onboarding programs are crucial to the success of retail operations.

However, there can be a more cost-effective and efficient way to onboard employees: induction videos.

In this article, we will explore the advantages and disadvantages of both traditional onboarding methods and induction videos, specifically in the retail industry.

Induction Videos

Cost Savings

One of the major benefits of induction videos is that they save the costs associated with instructor-based sessions. This is because induction videos can be created once and used numerous times, as opposed to traditional onboarding methods, which require an instructor to be present each time there is a new hire.

Consistent Message Every Time

Another significant benefit of using induction videos is that it ensures consistent messaging is delivered to every new hire, regardless of who is conducting the induction, resulting in much clearer messaging for all.

Tailored Onboarding Experiences

Induction videos also offer more flexibility than traditional onboarding methods. They can be tailored to specific audiences by using a variety of styles, formats, and contents to meet specific needs, such as seasonal staff vs full time staff.

Long Shelf Life

Induction videos offer a great ROI since they can be used for a long time. It reduces the need for regular updating as is the case with printed materials.

Interactive and Engaging

With today’s video technologies, there is a range of interactive features that can be added to induction videos to make them more engaging and informative to employees. The use of animations, infographics and other graphical elements ensures that the induction experience can be immersive and engaging for the new employees.

Available Anytime, Anywhere

Induction videos provide on-demand availability, and new hires can view them around other induction activities, reducing the impact on time and resources required to onboard a new member of your team.

Can be Tailorable to Different Roles

With induction videos, employees from different divisions and departments can undergo separate induction programmes tailored to their roles and needs. This can improve specific learning goals for each employee and improve efficiency.

Reduction in Printed Materials

Induction videos eliminate the need for printed materials, which is typically a more environmentally friendly option. It also allows for easy digital sharing over various platforms.

Traditional Onboarding Methods

Face-to-Face Interactions Can Help Develop Relationships

Traditional onboarding allows for face-to-face interactions between new employees and their colleagues, which can foster relationships and a sense of community among employees that can be difficult to replicate in a virtual environment.

Allows for Tailored Goal and Target Setting

In a physical classroom or workshop environment, it’s easier for trainers to establish a rapport with new hires and discuss their goals and aspirations, which can be beneficial for their professional development and retention.

Buddying to Offer Support

The buddy system is another common traditional onboarding method used to create a community feeling and provide support to new employees during their transition period.

Structured to Build Trust with New Employees

Traditional onboarding programs are often structured to build trust between the organisation and new hires to ensure that they feel welcome, safe, and valued at their new place of employment. This can result in higher motivation and job satisfaction.

Can be Costly

Traditional onboarding methods can be costly in retail, where high employee turnover rates are prevalent. The expense of hiring and training employees can be substantial, and the need for seasonal staffing can further compound those costs since more resources may be required to handle larger groups of new hires.

Moreover, traditional onboarding can present challenges when hiring large numbers of temporary seasonal workers, who may not be around for an extended period.

Conclusion

When it comes to onboarding new hires in the retail industry, it’s clear that induction videos offer many advantages over traditional methods. They are cost-effective, customisable, and provide consistent messaging.

However, it’s important to note that traditional onboarding methods can foster strong community relationships, goal setting and build trust.

Rather than seeing video inductions as a replacement for traditional methods, consider how you could combine both for a greater onboarding experience for your new employees.

To explore how induction videos could compliment your existing onboarding process, book a strategy call or get in touch on 01225 970242.

Explainer videos are an effective tool for retail companies to simplify complex topics, educate customers, and promote products or services. However, creating engaging explainer videos can be challenging in a highly competitive market where customers have shorter attention spans.

This blog post will delve into the challenges that retail businesses face while producing effective explainer videos, from audience understanding to resource management. Additionally, we will provide suggestions on how to overcome these challenges and create compelling explainer videos for your retail audience.

Understand Your Audience

Before creating an explainer video, it is essential to understand your target audience’s preferences and behaviours. Research their pain points, desires, and expectations as to what they expect from a video. Consumer insights gathered from focus groups, surveys, and customer feedback can be valuable inputs for message crafting and identifying the right tone of voice. A well-crafted message and perfect tone can make a video more engaging, valuable and improve engagement rates.

Set Your Goals

Clarity in the goal of the video is critical in creating effective explainer videos.

Retailers should define their objectives and metrics for focused and purposeful videos. Measurable goals can help you put your effort and resources into the creation process, including budget, timelines, and production methods, to achieve improved end results.

Get Clear On Your Message

The retail industry is full of technical jargon that can be overwhelming to customers. Therefore, it’s essential to tailor your message in a manner that resonates with your target audience.

The message should be clear, concise, compelling, and action-oriented with a call-to-action that inspires viewers to take action. The message should also be aligned with the desired audience reactions and actions to make it effective.

Get Help from the Experts

Video production requires a set of technical skills that are hard to master.

Therefore, you may not have the right talent on your team and may need to collaborate with an external agency or bring in the right experts. To get the desired results, it’s essential to balance in-house resources and external expertise for quality production.

Maintain Consistency

Consistency is crucial throughout the entire planning process, starting with setting detailed technical specifications. By doing so, retailers can ensure a smooth project flow without encountering any technical hiccups. Documenting technical standards is essential for maintaining consistency in production, even when team members or contractors change.

Moreover, while maintaining audience interest, it’s equally important to prioritise brand identity in videos. Retailers should highlight their brand values in the video, all while keeping audience engagement in mind. This approach not only builds customer trust and loyalty but also encourages them to return for more, establishing a consistent and lasting connection.

Control Your Costs and Manage Resources

Creating an explainer video involves various costs, from scriptwriting to post-production. However, there are plenty of cost-effective tools and software that can help you save costs. By utilising these tools and outsourcing complex tasks only when needed, you can efficiently manage your budget.

Collaborating with external companies can be the right decision to make, as it helps allocate resources effectively and ensures production efficiency. Retailers should explore different resource management techniques to streamline the production process and produce top-quality explainer videos. In-house video production might not always be the best idea, but with the right collaboration, it can lead to success.

Production Process

Producing a video is a collaborative process that involves different teams across the organisation.

Retailers should periodically check in with the teams and have regular meetings to assess the project’s progress, including storyboarding, scripting, and post-production work. This will help ensure quality output in the final production while ensuring that the message stays on point.

Performance Analysis

Analysing the video’s performance is critical in measuring its effectiveness.

Retailers should analyse the effectiveness of their videos and make necessary improvements so that they closely align with their business goals. By leveraging metrics like view depth, conversion rates, and engagement levels, retailers can optimise the video content and improve performance.

Conclusion

Creating a successful explainer video in retail marketing may seem like a daunting task.

However, by understanding your audience, developing a clear message, and making use of technical expertise, you can create a video that engages, educates, and drives action. By adopting a strategic approach and efficient resource management techniques, you can produce top-quality explainer videos within a given budget. Regular quality checks and analysis will help you to continuously improve the performance of your videos.

Ultimately, creating an effective explainer video can provide a significant competitive advantage in the retail industry. By following the tips outlined in this blog post, retail marketers can create videos that inform, educate, and drive customer engagement.

If you’d like to discuss your explainer video project with an expert, book a strategy call or get in touch on 01225 970242.