How Video Marketing Helps Create Authority Positioning by Attracting Attention, Engaging Audiences and Building Trust
One of the biggest challenges business owners and professionals face is how to position themselves as an authority among their ideal prospects so their products and services attract customers instead of being perceived as pushy salespersons.
With rapidly increasing competition across most business sectors, the challenge is to stand out among everyone who markets themselves as experts.
Nowadays, it’s not enough to just be the best. Many business owners and professionals believe that if they have great products or have mastery in their skills, there will be a demand for what they offer. The real truth is that if you don’t promote yourself, you will be lost among a crowd of others who may be as good as you are. The key here is to promote yourself in a way that is authoritative, without appearing aggressive.
Many of today’s business owners and professionals have realised that it’s no longer enough to rely on their website or blogs to build their preeminence.
So, how do you stand out as an authority, without appearing to be pushy or aggressive?
The answer lies in the power of video marketing, which is quickly emerging as the dominant media for building strong personal brands.
A 2016 survey of 311 marketing professionals and online consumers by Wyzowl revealed the following;
- 63% of businesses are using video as a tool to market their products and services.
- Of these, 83% indicated that videos resulted in giving them a satisfactory return on investment.
- 82% will invest more money in video marketing during 2017.
But that’s not all.
- 74% of online traffic to websites will come from online video (KPCB).
- 65% of people watch more than ¾ of an online video (Syndacast).
- Using ‘video’ in the subject line of an email boosts open rates by 19% (Syndacast).
- Videos in a landing page can increase conversions by 80% (EyeView).
- Businesses using video grew their revenue 49% faster than businesses which did not (VidYard).
While these statistics are indicative of the pulling power of the medium, here are important reasons why video marketing is important for business owners and professionals to gain a competitive edge:
Building trust with prospects and clients
Long-term trust based relationships, not pushy sales tactics are the key to generating sales. Nowadays people are increasingly cautious about the quality of products they buy or the trustworthiness of professionals who approach them.
Videos help business owners and professionals with a vast industry knowledge present useful and interesting information in a way that ignites emotion and is far more engaging than content presented using plain text.
When your YouTube videos are shared by an elite audience, they serve as ambassadors in promoting your personal brand. Updating a YouTube channel regularly can soon result in a large following which makes the need for pushy sales tactics superfluous.
Once a significant follower base is built on a channel like YouTube, you can create promotional videos to present your offers or services using a conversational tone which makes prospects comfortable and gives them the confidence to buy.
Three Ingredients Required for Achieving a Micro-Celebrity Status in Your Field Using Video
There are only three ingredients that are required to turn you from a relatively unknown expert in your niche to a micro-celebrity, using video marketing. Although they are simple ingredients, it takes time, effort and consistency in implementing a proven strategy.
Ingredient 1: Enlighten the Audience
The first step is to enlighten the market about who you are and what you do. Start by telling your story, so your audience gets to know you and begins to resonate with you on a personal level.
Your prospects would prefer to do business with someone they can identify with, rather than a faceless entity. What’s important to remember is not to launch into generalities about the quality of your products or the excellent service you provide.
Instead, demonstrate your expertise by identifying a common problem or challenge which your target audience is facing and what they need to do to overcome it. The content should be concise, clear and easy to implement.
The objective is to demonstrate your expertise and create the “Wow Factor”, which will have your audience looking up to you like a 12-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert.
Ingredient 2: Frequency
Once you’ve published a few videos, an expectation would have been set among your target audience for more. Don’t leave your target audience hanging for information, or they will move on to the next expert who feeds their hunger for content.
The more often someone watches your videos online, the faster you will build the Know, Like and Trust factors with them.
When you begin to post your videos regularly, you will be recognised as a Big Fish in a Small Pond. Combine this with the latest technology to place your videos in front of your ideal clients, and you will quickly start building your authority status.
Ingredient 3: Recency
The final ingredient to building authority in a market is recency. How recently someone has seen your video content affects how much they trust you.
One of the reasons, why someone may not buy from you is because you haven’t been seen by them recently and they’ve forgotten about you. You aren’t on top of their mind.
So how do you get your ideal clients to see you recently so you stay top of mind without spending a fortune on advertising?
Using available technology for platforms like Youtube, Facebook and Instagram, your videos are shown only to people who are engaged with your content, so you’re only paying to be in front of the right people at the right time.
So, there you have it. If you want to stand out and get noticed, video marketing is one of the best ways of getting started.
If you would like to know how to get started with video marketing, book a 20 minute no-obligation exploratory call on sam@thinkbigonline.com.au and together we’ll explore the best way to get you started.
