5 ways to build trust in your brand using video
We live in a post-truth world. And when it comes to products and services, only 59% of us actually trust the brands we buy from.
For marketers, this means shifting focus from short-term performance metrics to long-term relationship building for sustained growth in the digital economy.
In the words of Zig Ziglar;
‘if people like you they’ll listen to you, if they trust you they’ll do business with you’.
But how do you build genuine trust and affinity with a brand? The answer lies in a content marketing approach using a key medium of marketing communication — video.
The content marketing institute (CMI) defines content marketing as ‘valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience’.
This tactic is all about creating a value exchange that treats brand communication more like a conversation than a sales pitch to help win, keep and grow customers over the long term.
81% of people believe trust is an important part of purchase behaviour and more and more businesses are now using video to humanise themselves through stories, interests and personalities.
If content was once king, it is trust that now sits on the throne.
Whether a start-up or an established brand, video content marketing provides ideas, inspiration and education that act as gateways into the lower funnels of the buying journey.
It also compliments SEO as websites without video have 59% less traffic than those that do. Besides, 78% of all mobile data traffic is predicted to be video by 2021, so brands need to be producing and distributing the medium as it becomes an expectation rather than a nice-to-have.
So, what types of video are good for building trust?
Testimonial video
Nothing beats peer to peer recommendation. If it’s good enough for them it’s good enough for me, right?
In fact, David Ogilvy thought testimonials extremely powerful as they made marketing communications more believable (and trustworthy).
Known as ‘social proofing’, this behavioural bias is described by Richard Shotton as ‘the best tactic [to] state your brand’s popularity in a relevant way to your audience’.
Get real people to leave real reviews to camera. Nice.
Behind the scenes video
In an era of fake news and manicured Instagram feeds, a yearning for transparency has come to the fore.
Use video to show off your brand world in an open, honest and self-aware way. Besides, who doesn’t feel special with an Access All Areas pass?
Interestingly, by admitting a weakness or flaw, a brand’s credibility increases — known as the pratfall effect. This communication technique works particularly well if your competition are braggards.
About us / Brand story video
John Hegarty described a brand ‘[as] the most valuable piece of real estate in the world: a corner of someone’s mind’.
We live in an attention deficit, so marketers need human stories to cut through the clutter of me-too rivals.
Video is proven to be the most memorable form of content so get storyboarding.
Product / service demo video
These are the most popular type of videos businesses invest in and it’s easy to see why.
64% of people state that seeing a video makes them more likely to buy whilst 72% prefer a video over text when learning about a product or service.
From retail to financial services, industries are investing in more visual communication to showcase themselves.
Don’t tell me, show me.
How-to / explainer video
Our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than text so video is great at packaging information into a short narrative that is easy to understand.
Think the explosion of branded tutorial videos on YouTube.
In fact, users of the platform are 3x more likely to watch a tutorial video than read a product’s instruction manual. These types of video can also position a brand as a thought leader in their industry.
We need to stop focusing on short-term marketing strategy
Yes, immediate uplift metrics such as clicks and sales conversions are seductive but devoting time to brand health over the long term will keep the marketing funnel in perpetual cycle.
Like any good relationship, brand loyalty is built on trust. Find your tribe and offer them something of value.
Only then can you expect anything back in return.
[Originally published on iProspect, the world’s leading performance marketing agency]
