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Video marketing can help set the tone for your entire brand.
Building trust with customers makes them far more likely to buy your products and services and continue doing business with you long term. Established businesses succeed because they’ve built trust in their brand reputation and forged a genuine bond with their customers. Newer and smaller companies must also create this bond to show customers they can be trusted to provide a quality product or service, handle their payment data securely and take care of customer service issues.
Here’s where video marketing can prove invaluable. The intimacy of a video marketing campaign makes it uniquely well-suited to building trust. We’ll explain effective trust-building strategies businesses can incorporate into their video marketing campaigns, share typical mistakes to avoid and highlight excellent video marketing platforms.
Building trust is more than aiming for customer satisfaction. It’s a commitment to fulfill the customer’s needs over the long term and deliver a quality experience. Here are five ways to use video to build trust and ensure customer loyalty.
Your marketing campaigns should include “cornerstone videos.” These videos build the foundation of your brand’s identity, voice, mission and goals by telling your brand’s story — what it’s about and why it was created.
Here are some tips for creating storytelling videos:
Storytelling videos will inform your other advertising messages, creating a foundation of crucial, timeless content you can use throughout your brand’s marketing efforts.
Customers tend to trust other customers, which is why third-party review sites and word-of-mouth advertising are so effective. When customers become aware of your business, they’ll want to know how other consumers feel about you.
Video testimonials are a valuable tool to show that your customers trust your business. A good video customer testimonial contains the following elements:
Above all, a good customer testimonial must be earnest and can’t seem coached. It must come from real customers with real problems.
To find people to create video testimonials, reach out to customers with whom you have excellent relationships. They’ll be your most valuable advocates — they may even become the cornerstone of a future brand advocacy program.
Video shouldn’t be a one-way street. The more interactive and engaging your videos are, the more your customers will know and trust you. Your customers may feel disconnected if you distribute videos without context or engagement.
Here are a few ways to improve your video engagement:
Video is a powerful medium, so it’s crucial to get it right. Be sure to avoid these video marketing mistakes.
Establish an overall goal for your video marketing and create specific goals for each video. Decide how many videos you want to create for each objective and determine a topic for each.
For the trust-building part of the customer journey, consider creating videos about the following topics:
To show authenticity, feature the business’s owners, managers and key employees on screen.
If your company has been in business for a while, you should understand your customer base well. However, if you’re new, it’s essential to research your audience and discover what interests them.
For example, if your audience is full of people experienced with your product category, avoid videos on basic topics. If your audience consists mostly of new users, create explainer videos. You can make video series for different customer personas to address each group’s needs.
Watch your direct competitors’ videos to discover topics that may appeal to your target audience. Additionally, ask your customers to share their problems or questions so you can address them in videos.
Ideally, each video should be between one and two minutes long. According to Vidyard’s Video in Business Benchmark Report, 66 percent of viewers will watch the entirety of a one-minute business video, but their willingness to watch decreases with length.
If you have very long videos, you’ll lose viewers’ attention — and they’ll be less likely to return for more video content. You can always make another video if you have more information to cover. Bite-sized video content tends to work best.
Like your online written content, video content should be part of your small business SEO strategy. If done correctly, video can give your entire website an SEO uplift because search engines value video.
Here are some tips for optimizing your videos for SEO:
Just as every video has a specific goal (such as creating awareness, building trust or answering product questions), each should also include a call to action (CTA) — something you want the viewer to do after watching it.
The CTA may be to watch another video, visit the website, call the company, make a comment, fill out a form or make an appointment. Your CTA can be at the end of the video as a next step or included throughout the video.
Even if your product isn’t interesting, find something about it or your company that is exciting. For example, you may deliver a truly delightful customer experience or efficient customer service. You may offer an exceptional warranty or have a longstanding track record in your industry. Viewers may find it interesting if your company is family-owned or your products are the first of their kind.
To liven up your videos, choose an engaging presenter who’s comfortable in front of a camera. Use visual aids and live video feeds to avoid talking head syndrome. Finally, humor can always make a video interesting and memorable.
To get started with video marketing, you’ll need tools to create and distribute your videos.
Once you know what kind of video you want to create and have a script, props and a camera, shoot the raw footage. Then, use one of the following video creation platforms to edit, polish and enhance your video so it’s ready to post:
When your video is ready to go, it’s time to distribute it to your audience. Consider the following top video-sharing platforms (use two or more for a wider reach):
Adding video to your marketing plan isn’t just about brand and product exposure. It’s a way to foster trust and build a long-term relationship. A well-executed video marketing campaign will help you establish a rapport with customers and slowly build trust over time. This trust will pay dividends as customers return to your business and spread the word about your company.
Jennifer Dublino contributed to this article.