It’s no news that trust, or lack thereof, is a deciding factor in ecommerce.
Customers perceive a higher risk when shopping online due to the possibility of malfunctioning products, failed deliveries, and unreliable payment methods. Additionally, potential data privacy issues and the lack of in-person interactions limit the level of trust many users decide to place in online selling platforms.
Luckily, video marketing initiatives can give you a very effective way to overcome some of those issues and provide ecommerce customers with the information and assurance they need to make a purchase. But trust is a multidimensional concept; many factors can and will impact how others perceive your business.
So, in this article, we’ll explore how different types of videos, like animated product explainers, brand videos, or testimonials, can be strategically used to reduce the perceived risk associated with online transactions and increase customer confidence in your ecommerce pipeline. Let’s dive right in!
1. Create a narrative with brand videos
Solid branding is fundamental to customer trust. We rely on labels to decide whether to make a purchase or not, setting what to expect from a product and even judging how long it’s supposed to last.
That’s why building awareness around your brand is vital to nurturing trust, and brand story videos are an effective way to help you do so.
Behind every great brand, there is a great story. Sharing how your business became what it is today can help customers better understand your brand’s identity, values, and vision. This is paramount to connecting on a deeper level with your audience and ultimately gaining their trust.
By taking advantage of tried and tested storytelling techniques, brand story videos bring your business’ past and track record to life. Unlike more sales-focused videos, whose purpose is to be persuasive, these videos use narrative elements to create a tale that evokes the viewers’ emotions.
The goal is to make a significant impact tied to your audience’s values and preferences so they can relate more to your business and feel connected. That said, brand story videos are more than simply explaining how your company was born and what struggles you faced.
To be effective, these types of videos need to be problem-based and show the purpose behind your brand and what it does. Every business’ operations stem from a need or a desire that needs satisfying, commonly known as a mission.
Be it protecting the environment, making your customers’ lives easier, or simply providing them with entertainment, make sure to showcase your brand’s mission in your brand story videos. This will help customers trust your brand because they’ll know that your actions align with what they want and believe.
2. Provide extra information with explainer videos
Have you heard of the ZMOT? This acronym stands for Zero Moment Of Truth, and it refers to the stage in the shopping process when consumers research a product and its brand before purchase.
Nowadays, people are way more selective with their purchases, and most buyers’ journeys arrive at a spot when they thoroughly investigate a brand and its products. If they can’t find the insights they came looking for, they’ll have a harder time taking action, so aiding them in their research can be a way to reduce their doubts and show yourself as a trustworthy company.
And it just so happens that explainer videos are designed to do just that.
Explainers combine visual elements with optimized (and often narrated) scripts to illustrate complex or abstract concepts in the most straightforward manner, making even the most difficult topics much easier to follow.
Animations are also a popular addition to most explainer videos, as they make for more dynamic visuals and facilitate keeping your audience engaged — with the added bonus of facilitating retention.
Making relevant information available and accessible to prospects this way can dramatically influence how people perceive you as a brand. It’s also worth mentioning that even though explainers are most commonly associated with product marketing, they are a highly flexible format you can use to convey all kinds of relevant brand messages — from demonstrating to customers how to get a refund to showing them how to navigate your new app.
To make explainer videos that gain your customers’ trust, it’s essential to research your audience. The ZMOT theory tells us that every customer’s journey starts with research, but it’s not an absolute thing. Depending on the product or the industry, this process can take different forms; after all, we don’t do the same type of research to buy a car as we do to buy perfume.
Start by finding out the most common questions about your product and what your customers look for the most in a brand.
You can leverage tools like Google Trends to gain better insights into your customers’ pain points and searches. Then, take those topics as starting points to plan explainer videos that tackle any doubt potential customers might have while also communicating what you can do to help.
3. Show transparency with behind-the-scenes videos
If you want to gain your customer’s trust, showing yourself as an open brand is key. Label Insight’s Transparency ROI Study revealed that almost 9 in 10 consumers say transparency is important to them.
Buying is an act of trust — not only that the product you’re offering will fulfill its promises but also that it was developed ethically. Today’s consumers are interested in things like where you source your materials, how your products get made, whether your employees are treated fairly, and so on.
This is particularly true for online businesses because, on the Internet, dishonesty and deceit can be easily fact-checked. Everything you share online leaves a record, be it emails and texts, blogs, chats, or tweets — should I say Xs? — and no matter how hard you try, you have no control over what your clients or staff post online.
But you shouldn’t completely leave the power of sharing the real practices behind your company to others. Showcase them yourself as a means to build trust.
Behind-the-scenes videos (BTS videos), in particular, are meant to offer a glimpse into your company’s operations, allowing customers to see how their favorite goods or services are created and learn more about the team responsible for their production.
BTS videos tend to be lighthearted and funny pieces. Unlike other, more traditional types of marketing video productions, behind-the-scenes videos showcase your brand using a casual tone, reassuring viewers that what you do is what you say you do in an unassuming way.
As you work on this type of video, make sure to showcase your team and your business culture. Show off your employees — who they are, how they came to work with you, and most importantly, what drives them.
Seeing how work is done in your company and understanding the people who make up your ecommerce business will showcase your brand’s authenticity in a way few other types of content ever could.
4. Engage with customers directly using live videos
We are more likely to trust a brand when we have interacted with it in the past or when we feel we can do so easily. Ecommerce businesses that actively listen and engage in dialogue with their customers have a far easier time making them feel recognized and heard, which ultimately leads to increased trust.
Through live-stream videos, you can create a space to interact with your audience directly, responding to their real-time reactions to news and developments and giving them the opportunity to ask questions, voice concerns, and express themselves.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that even though live streams are great places to interact with viewers in real-time and “go with the flow”, you really need to do a lot of planning ahead of time to ensure things go smoothly and maintain a level of quality that befits your brand.
Additionally, consistency tends to be a big factor in a live stream’s success rate and how it impacts your credibility and trustworthiness.
Whether it’s once a week or every six months, setting a streaming schedule ahead of time and keeping to it provides a level of consistency this type of content requires to reach your audience. For special occasions, like product launches or industry events, it’s okay to go off schedule and make special live video events; just remember to notify your audience well in advance and make a couple of reminder announcements the closer the date gets.
Being available and in constant engagement with people will help you build stronger relationships with your audience and become a more reliable brand in their eyes.
5. Tell customers what to expect with product demo videos
One of the biggest drawbacks ecommerce brands face is the fact that customers cannot physically see and touch a product as they would in a traditional store. To overcome that critical challenge, you can create demo videos that give viewers an overview of what to expect.
As the old saying goes, seeing is believing. Product demo videos are meant to show your products in action to educate prospective customers about their different features. It allows viewers to easily visualize what they will experience with the actual product once they buy it and better understand all it has to offer, helping reduce the perceived risk.
However, creating a demo is more than just dumping all of your product’s features. These videos need to encourage viewers to check your product or service out more closely by giving them a glimpse of what their lives could be like if they were using it. This is why they are designed in a real-life setting based on your customer’s lifestyles.
How will they use it? What will they do with it? For how long? Ask yourself these questions to make a video that places your product in your customer’s hands. That way, you will have a valuable marketing tool to encourage prospects, give them assurance, and sort out the barrier distance creates for ecommerce businesses.
6. Provide social proof with testimonials
Humans are social creatures, so we’re easily influenced by those around us. When we lack first-hand knowledge of something, we tend to depend on others and their experiences to decide whether to join a movement, hire a service, or buy a product.
This is called “Referential trust,” also known as word-of-mouth. Testimonial videos take advantage of this as they allow your audience to follow a former customer’s experience from beginning to end: what product they bought, what led them to choose your company, and what need they wanted to fulfill.
Because testimonials are made to showcase the buyer’s journey through the customer’s eyes, it’s easy for viewers to perceive what they’re saying as genuine and credible. This provides prospects with social proof and lays the foundation for trust-building.
The first step to making effective testimonials is asking former customers personally if they would be willing to record one for your brand, highlighting how much it means to you. If they are reluctant, you can offer something in return, like a discount or free shipping on their next purchase.
This will allow you to establish a system where former customers turn into testimonials that attract new people, and so on. Once you’ve got enough testimonials under your belt, visitors will be much less likely to doubt your ecommerce business.
Wrapping Up
Every ecommerce business faces the difficult challenge of gaining its customers’ trust. Not being able to see the products in real life and having to submit valuable contact information makes people reluctant to blindly depend on shops where they haven’t bought before.
To sort out these difficulties and gain your customer’s trust, the best way to go is with an integral approach. Creating different types of videos will allow you to provide different levels of reassurance, support, and interest to your potential customers, making it easier for them to take the risks that come along with online shopping.
A seasoned ecommerce marketing agency can be instrumental in transforming online shopping experiences through varied video content, thereby helping you gain your customers’ trust.
