Would you buy from a company that you don’t trust?
Then why would you expect anyone else to?
In the hubbub of our marketing efforts, we often forget the core component of trust in establishing a new customer relationship.
Bring your passion to life
You feel passionate about what you do, don’t you? If you don’t, you are in the wrong career. This passion is not only necessary for you to personally lead a happy and healthy life, but is vital when it comes to marketing.
With this in mind, don’t be afraid to express your passion on video. I am not suggesting that you do your best infomercial impression, or hire a caffeine-riddled Carrot Top to deliver your message; what I am suggesting is that you make a point to not misguidedly hide your passion under the veil of professionalism.
In our studio’s homepage video, we make a very definite point about just how passionate our company is about producing videos. We let the audience know that when we aren’t producing marketing videos, we are avid filmmakers engaged in a variety of projects: short films, music videos, etc. Some might suggest that would worry some folks. But the truth in the matter is, it serves precisely the opposite purpose.
The sincere passion that we make evident in our video profile attracts clients. We are constantly hearing from them that they knew we were the right video production company for the job, because of how in love we are with what we do. They realized that all of our artistic ventures were simply a laboratory in which to test new techniques, and further hone established skills.
Don’t be afraid to express how cool you think what you do is; Apple sure isn’t, and this approach seems to be working quite well for them–wouldn’t you agree?
Show your industry expertise
We all want to work with experts. We want an expert mechanic to work on our car, an expert chef to cook our meals, and an expert skydiver to jump with us! One of the keys to supercharging your marketing is to position yourself as one of these experts.
An approach oftentimes used to obtain this coveted expert status is the creation of a content rich quality blog, such as this one. If you are maintaining a consistently updated blog that offers solid value to your readers, you can prove yourself as an expert in the field. Additionally, authoring guest posts on other relevant, quality blogs furthers you exposure and guides qualified traffic back to your blog and/or website.
Now that we have established the importance of blogging we are going to throw video into the mix. According to Mauro D’Andrea of Blog-Growth.com blog posts that contain video and images get 567% more backlinks than normal posts. And, in SEO terms, links back to your site means potentially higher rankings on the search results page, as it is a signal from the sites doing the linking that you provide relevant, trusted content.
So what sort of video will position you as an expert, whether embedded within your blog, or as part of a guest post on an external blog? A profile video on your organization is a good start but don’t forget about the power of a good customer review.
Video testimonials of your customers
Most modern shoppers pay a lot of attention to what other people say when making their purchasing decisions. A survey by PR firm Cone Communications found that 89 percent of consumers consider online channels trustworthy places to find reviews of products and services. Consider how Amazon has made customer reviews an integral part of their product listings: I read them, and I’m sure you do too.
Testimonials are our peers’ endorsements in action. They prove to us that there are people much like ourselves out there who have had positive experiences with the product or service that we are considering. Since they are so persuasive, individual businesses can, and should, incorporate testimonials on their websites.
While written testimonials are the most common type, why not use video to deliver these customer endorsements? After all, while consumers are interested in other customer’s reviews, most have developed a level of sophistication in analyzing them. Your prospects are intelligent enough to realize that some companies merely post the few positive responses to their offerings—or even have friends and family compose fake testimonials for them.
Video has a built-in trustworthiness, because it allows viewers to absorb not only the words of the customer, but their tone and body language as well. Most consumers are adept at reading the sincerity of others through their voice, gestures, and other indicators. Also, appearing in a video puts an individual’s reputation on the line far more directly than a snippet of text. No one is likely to put their own trustworthiness on the line, for a product they don’t truly believe in.
Because of this, viewers seek out video testimonials. A survey by Google and researcher Compete found that customer testimonials were the type of video most likely to be viewed by apparel shoppers.
Many customers are themselves business-owners. To increase the authority of a testimonial, ask a subject’s permission to link to their website at the end of a testimonial video. This will help underscore their credentials and show they are a real customer rather than paid spokesperson. This link may also serve as an incentive for them to participate; since it may improve the search engine positioning of their own website. If they links back to your testimonial, it may also improve your search ranking—everybody wins!
Since trust is such a major currency on the web, if you have not invested in building an image of trustworthiness, you will miss out on many opportunities. Video testimonials are an outstanding way to help build this image. Be selective when you choose your endorsers, and make certain to emphasize their authority as much as possible.
About the Author: Craig Bass is the co-owner of Motion Source, a video production company based in Chicago. Craig has over 14 years of experience behind the camera and in the studio. When he is not busy creating video solutions for clients, he is collaborating on indie film projects and immersing himself further in film culture.