Step 1: Prepare Your Spreadsheet

Start by exporting product data from your online store’s backend. Our service is built to handle spreadsheets filled with your valuable data, making every row of data a video. Your Spreadsheet is the foundation of your video content. Each row represent the data for one video, and each column of data is the content for one scene in the video. Make sure it is well-organized with clear headings for each data point to be included in your video.  The most important thing that all the rows has similar data on each column. For example, you want to have a strong short text at the beginning of the video, then make sure all rows has a short text on the same column that fits there. 

The easies way to get started with  Spreadsheet to videos project is to export your data from your website. If you have an ecommerce store it is an easy  export function from the product backend. Remove any columns with data that are not necessary, for example price is often left out as it may change. And include any data you want – as mentioned above. Keep media file name data in each cell as you have exported. This allows us to track down right media for each video.

IMPORTANT: Make sure your media file names are on a correct row each in its own column. If not possible, make it comma separeted in one cell on a corresponding row.

Step 2: Include all Media in One Folder

Alongside your data, provide us with media files related to your products. Each piece of data in your spreadsheet will be matched with the correct media, ensuring relevant images, audio and possible video on your new marketing video. Video Factory can scrape the data with media files from your site too. In this case you need to remember that media on your site are low-res and most likely you want HD quality videos. Thus, make a folder with all the media files as high resolution as possible. If you have organized media files in own folders, it is okay, just put all folders in one folder and send that over.

Step 3: Customize your data on a spreadsheet

You have full control over which aspects of your data are spotlighted. Choose the columns that tell your story best, from product names to unique features, and let us craft a video that highlights what matters most. Further customize or enrich your data by adding anything you wish to have (like text) on categories or products that you want to have. For example, on your site there’s no mentioning that this particular brand is an award winner, so we can add that on each relevant video. For data that you want to have on each video the same, there´s no need to add on the spreadsheet. For example, if you have an intro you want to use, logo or some end screen scene (like a website domain with a logo).

Step 4: Choose the Right Video for You

Video Factory will design a video template or several templates from your brief – and according to your order details. Your brief may include examples, or even send us a video you want to use. Let’s focus on your branding and style of the video. Give us your visual and brand guidelines and we will draft samples based on that information.

Step 5: Review and Feedback

This is your chance to give feedback. We will make a set of sample videos from your Spreadsheet data and available media files. Amount of sample videos is based on your order’s terms and conditions. It is important that you go through every step of the review process to avoid any mistakes in a larger production batch. Video Factory often makes thousands of videos with a one production “drive”. At this stage of the process we will make short random spot check of the data with a customer to make sure all data is as planned. Despite this, Customer has a full responsibility of the correct data used in videos (typos, matching text and media on each product). After this stage and final approval, Video Factory will start the production. Video Factory carries a full responsibility of videos technical quality, for example, if there is an error and video file does not play, we will remake a video.

Step 6: Distribute / Publish

Choose the right channels to distribute your personalized videos to your target audience effectively. The most powerful use of data-driven videos from Spreadsheet is to publish on YouTube and link it on your site / product pages. You will see ranking results within days if you follow our guidelines. Videos from Spreadsheet is also suitable for any social media platform and format. Just tell us your use case and we will make the videos in that format. The same data can be used for several formats.

Best Practices

• Accuracy is Key: Verify your Spreadsheet data to avoid errors in your videos.
• Keep It Simple: Short-form content works best. Start with basic templates and gradually move to more complex projects. For example, after you have published thousands of product videos, you can start to plan making category videos and simply brand videos.
• Test and Iterate: Use feedback to refine and improve your video creation process. Let us know what you like and if there was something we should do better. For publishing, test different cycles and find the right for you. 
• Recommendation: start publishing with a bang and put the max 100 videos on your YouTube channel immediately. After that you can schedule publishing for example every 15 minutes.