5 Strategies for Building Brand Trust Through Video

How to build brand trust through video marketing

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.

1. Tell your brand’s story through video.

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: 

• Tell your customers what they can expect: Storytelling videos typically don’t highlight specific products or services. Instead, they tell your customers what they can expect from your business and how you differ from the competition.
• Create a narrative about your business: Customers don’t want to hear a list of facts about a business. They want a narrative — how the business originated, how it grew and what struggles it faced. These elements create a memorable, relatable and compelling brand story. 
• Introduce your employees, customers and relationships: Storytelling videos can include information about your employees and customers, your business’s environment and its impact on the community. 

Storytelling videos will inform your other advertising messages, creating a foundation of crucial, timeless content you can use throughout your brand’s marketing efforts.

2. Create customer testimonial videos to build trust.

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:

• The initial problem: The customer should begin by explaining a problem they faced.
• How your business helped: The customer should discuss how your business worked with them to help fix their problem.
• The ultimate results: They should wrap up by highlighting your solution’s ultimate results and discussing how they feel about the business. They can explain why they value your business or why the product or service differs from the competition.

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. 

3. Engage your customers directly with video.

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:

• Answer questions in video format: If you receive questions from your customers, post a follow-up video and address them directly. Answer questions and post clarifications or corrections as needed. This response helps customers feel like they’re part of your video community.
• Start using live videos: Live video streams are an excellent way to interact with your audience. You can see comments and reactions as you record on many platforms. Use the live video for question-and-answer sessions or to show customers your daily routine. Consider making explainer videos or showing customers a behind-the-scenes look at your company’s processes. 
• Always respond to comments: Most video posting platforms allow comments. Responding to comments shows your personality and establishes you as an expert in your products, services and industry.
• Share videos directly: Share appropriate videos when customers ask questions about products and share relevant videos on social media. Sharing videos increases your audience exposure.
• Respond to other videos: If others make videos about your product or service, chime in with helpful tips, corrections or additional promotions. Never respond harshly or take feedback personally. Criticism will happen; how you respond is crucial to how others see you. 
• Interact consistently: Don’t post videos and forget they exist. Focus on continually interacting and sharing with your audience. The more your audience interacts with you, the fonder they become of your company. You’ll create memories associated with your business and positive impressions that customers will discuss in the future. 

Video marketing mistakes to avoid

Video is a powerful medium, so it’s crucial to get it right. Be sure to avoid these video marketing mistakes.

1. Don’t create videos without a clear goal.

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:

• Company history 
• Company values
• Behind-the-scenes processes
• Customer testimonials
• Industry videos 
• Videos that answer common questions 

To show authenticity, feature the business’s owners, managers and key employees on screen.

2. Don’t create videos without knowing your target audience.

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.

3. Don’t make your videos too long. 

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. 

4. Don’t neglect video SEO.

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: 

• Ensure the title and description contain your relevant keywords. 
• Include captions and transcripts. 
• Make your videos mobile-friendly.
• Have a captivating thumbnail image.
• Use relevant tags.

5. Don’t forget to tell viewers what you want them to do.

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.

6. Don’t bore your video viewers.

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.

Best platforms for video marketing

To get started with video marketing, you’ll need tools to create and distribute your videos. 

Best platforms for creating 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:

• FlexClip: FlexClip has extensive artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that allow you to create a new video from as little as a prompt, generate voiceovers from written text, write scripts, remove backgrounds from still images or videos and more. It has over 6,000 templates, 4 million video clips and photos and various effects and filters to help you create a truly unique finished product. Visit the FlexClip website to learn about its free tier and paid plans ($9.99 to $19.99 per month).
• Visme: If your marketing employees aren’t graphic designers, Visme can help them upskill quickly. This platform offers a huge library of graphic elements and thousands of well-designed templates. Its built-in AI capabilities allow your team to create custom graphics quickly and add interactive features without coding knowledge. Visit the Visme website to learn about its free tier and paid plans (ranging from $12.25 to $24.75 per month).
• Loom: If you need to create video content featuring yourself or your team via screen capture, Loom is an excellent platform that simplifies the process. This cost-effective tool is ideal for adding videos to sales and customer service pages, conducting product demonstrations and discussing use cases. Visit the Loom website to learn about its free plan and options to unlock additional features ($12.50 per month).
• Animoto: Animoto started as a platform focused on custom animated videos but has since branched out to include live-action videos. You can upload clips, insert stock video or use its screen recorder. You can invite viewers to comment on your video and easily download and share it on multiple platforms. Visit the Animoto website to learn about its free plan and featureful paid options (ranging from $8 to $39 monthly).

Best platforms for sharing videos

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):

• YouTube: YouTube is the original video-sharing platform and, by far, the biggest. It has over 2.49 billion monthly active users worldwide, more than a third of the Earth’s population. You can use YouTube to build community as well as share videos. It’s free to post and create a YouTube channel for your brand, but your videos may be interrupted by ads.
• Vimeo: Vimeo helps you host ad-free videos and livestream events, create screen-capture content, edit your videos and monetize them with ads and subscriptions. While Vimeo has a free plan, its paid plans provide more storage and features, including auto-closed captioning, custom URLs and analytics. Paid plans start at $12 monthly and go up to $65 monthly.
• TikTok: TikTok is an excellent platform if you have short videos aimed at an audience of millennials and Gen Zers. TikTok is free for general posting, but you must pay for video ads. 
• Instagram and Facebook: You may already know that using Instagram for business can be highly effective. However, Instagram Reels is an excellent way to get your brand videos in front of your audience organically. Similarly, Facebook is a venerable platform for posting images and videos alike. Both platforms also permit livestreaming (e.g., Facebook Live Q&As) and have paid video ad options. 
• Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive: These platforms allow you to host longer videos that take up a lot of storage space, such as thought leadership talks and training videos.

Connecting with your customers through video

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.