When you have an eCommerce business, consumer trust can never be taken for granted. It is a key element that allows you to build a solid online reputation, attract new prospects, and nurture them into becoming loyal customers.
The thing is, consumer trust is usually slow to build and easy to lose. You need to strategically and consistently convey brand messages that inspire confidence and reflect genuine authenticity. Or else, you risk your efforts falling short.
Luckily, this can be achieved consistently through video content – especially on social media!
Regardless of your business’ size or niche, these platforms offer the most optimized environment to run hyper-targeted ad campaigns, create meaningful interactions with an audience, and ultimately make your brand more approachable and reliable.
So, today, we’ll go over some essential techniques that professional video companies use to build trust with video ads and help you enhance your campaign’s performance!
Three Key Traits to Inspire Confidence
Building consumer trust can’t be forced down or established overnight, especially in the all-too-often fishy digital world. On the contrary, it takes a lot of work, planning, patience, and time.
That said, if you develop video ads that focus on displaying competence, expertise, and humanity, it’ll be much easier to earn your prospects’ trust and create deeper, more personal relationships with them.
Let’s see how you can do that!
Display competence through video production quality & professional finish
One of the most important elements that’ll define how new audiences perceive your brand is your online content – that is, your website, blog posts, email campaigns, social media accounts, videos, imagery, and more.
And for that matter, quality is essential because it says a lot about the standards you hold your company to. Mind you; these are people that don’t know what you do and what your company stands for. So, to make an excellent first impression, you’ll have to showcase professionalism and competence with quality content.
Now, in terms of video ads, there are many different factors that’ll play a role in defining their quality. For instance, a good script, top-notch visuals, and excellent sound design are elements that can’t be missing. But it’s all going to depend on the type of ad you want to create.
All in all, just remember that people online are pickier than ever, and they won’t hesitate to skip your ad or, worse, ignore it if it doesn’t match their expectations. So, focus on producing pieces with a certain quality level and make sure they have a professional finish.
For example, check this sleek and beautifully animated video. It combines smooth text elements with dynamic visuals to quickly (and very clearly) explain how an onboarding platform works. It’s the perfect type of ad that you can use on Facebook or Twitter to introduce your product to new audiences and encourage them to find out more about your brand.
Show expertise through explainer videos that address relevant topics
From a prospect’s point of view, there are few things more trustworthy than a brand selflessly sharing expertise and knowledge with their audience. Especially if it answers their most relevant questions or doubts.
And this last part is crucial: When browsing online, people are usually trying to find a solution – the best one – to a specific problem they’re dealing with. Therefore, if you reveal useful and relevant content that sets you up as a reliable source of information, you’ll get prospects to trust your brand.
Of the many different avenues you can take to share knowledge online, explainer videos stand as the most effective one. These are very short, usually animated pieces that are purposely designed to illustrate complex business ideas (or concepts) in simple, meaningful, and engaging ways.
What makes explainer videos such a powerful tool is they aren’t overly promotional or give a sales pitch – Their ultimate goal is to showcase a company’s product or service in a way that addresses their intended audience’s pain points or needs. Introducing their offering as the perfect solution.
To achieve that, they tell a relatable (and highly compelling) story that deeply resonates with prospects’ personal experiences. All while using gorgeous animations and stunning visual design that immediately attracts the viewer.
Also, explainers are versatile and can adapt to all types of businesses, industries, topics, and audiences. So, whether it’s cartoon animation, motion graphics, whiteboard animation, 3D, or live-action, they will help you create a personal connection with your target audience and foster trust.
Take this Collaboration Squared as an example. It addresses a problem common to many modern businesses – connecting in-office teams with remote employees – and describes how their platform can help them with that.
Pro Tip: Given that Instagram is ideal for sharing educational videos and short tutorials, it might be a good strategy to run a paid campaign of explainer videos that revolve around your potential customers’ problems or needs. Focusing on showcasing how your product (or service) can easily solve them.
Humanize your brand with company story videos & testimonials
These days, people expect more humanity from brands they like and engage with, especially in the cold and impersonal online arena. So, to create strong and sincere relationships with your prospects, you’ll have to prove to them that there are real people behind your eCommerce company that actually care about them and their problems.
This means that you should focus on developing video ads that show that your brand is more than just a logo, an office, or a set of products that need to be sold. Create video content that’s relatable, interesting, empathetic, and, above all, human.
And for such purposes, company story videos and customer testimonial videos are ideal.
Company story videos’ main purpose is to convey a brand’s culture and/or story. The idea is to use them to let the audience see the “human element” behind your company and bring them closer to your brand – which is something they achieve by telling a compelling and resonating narrative that revolves around a brand’s core values.
For these videos to work, though, it’s very important to be authentic and genuine. There’s no other company like yours, so take the opportunity to tell your audience what drives you, how you like to do things, and what you stand for.
For example, take a look at this company story video developed Basecamp, a project management, and team communication platform. Basically, it has nothing to do with what they do or the solution they provide – It features people from the staff tasting two brands of coffee and deciding which one’s best. It’s fun, entertaining, and super relatable!
When we’re interested in buying something, one of the first things we do – if not the first – is to check its online reviews. Mainly because there’s nothing more trustworthy and credible than reading other people’s raw opinions.
So, customer testimonials and general comments in any form are perfect for building brand trust. But testimonial videos are especially effective because they include normal people with faces and emotions, candidly sharing their own experiences with a brand, product, or service.
Now, when developing testimonial videos, it’s imperative that they feel real and honest. You can’t script or force an answer because audiences can really tell when someone’s faking an opinion. Hence, the more casual and “conversation-like” the testimony, the better the viewers will respond.
Check how all that plays together in the following testimonial video. The people being interviewed look very comfortable and calm. They smile and talk using their own words and gestures, which makes it far more casual and enjoyable!
Pro Tip: Since these videos tend to be a bit longer, they’re ideal for sharing on YouTube or to generate interactions on Facebook. For example, you can create a playlist on your YouTube channel to centralize all your customer testimonials with positive reviews. Or you can also develop a series of company story videos tackling relevant topics or issues and implement a targeted video ad campaign to reach people who are more likely to be interested in them!
Summing Things Up
In a highly brand-saturated digital world, consumer trust has become a key brand differentiator and one of the most important marketing goals. Doubly so for eCommerce companies that want to attract new prospects, convert them, and thrive!
That being said, trust, respect, and credibility are all values that your company – or anyone, really – can’t buy. You need to earn them by patiently building meaningful, genuine, and empathetic relationships with your prospects and customers.
Fortunately, video provides marketers and advertisers a lot of different options that they can use to bridge relationship gaps and foster trust. Mostly if they project competence, professionalism, experience, honesty, and humanity.
So, when you start outlining your next video ad campaign for social media, take into account what we’ve learned in this piece. We promise that if you follow these tips, you’ll be on your way to winning over your prospects!
