This month in the blog I’ve been writing about the importance of credibility, and how it is a vital marketing tool. Credibility is what you need in order to build up the right level of trust with potential clients, to help encourage them to buy from you. But how do you build up your credibility if no-one has heard of you?

In last week’s blog (which you can read again here) we looked at a number of ways in which you can build up your credibility through your marketing content. There is one particular tool that is really useful for showing people that you know your stuff and can be trusted – and that tool is videos. There are two specific ways in which you can use videos:

Share your own opinion – sharing your knowledge and expertise for free is a great way to demonstrate to people that you know what you’re talking about. If you can write a blog or newsletter in which you share some tips, you can do the same with a video. Pick a topic that you know a lot about, and select one small section of the topic, into which you can go into more detail. You only need enough to fill a 1-2 minute video, and since most people speak at around 120 words per minute, that’s a maximum of 240 words. This blog is about 500 words long, to give you an idea of the length you’re looking for. Don’t worry about trying to talk for hours – people want short videos that quickly answer their questions. In this way, it’s really easy to produce a series of short videos, in which you can share your expertise on a number of related topics. There’s a really good example of how one of our clients, Sue Ferguson at Options HR, does this. Sue and I agree 3-4 topics, and we then create a short video for each one, which we use on her website and in her blogs. We add her logo and standard graphics to make the videos look professional – all helping to build Sue’s credibility as an HR expert.

Share someone else’s opinion – when you’ve done a good job for one of your clients, you can ask them to write a testimonial for you. You could also ask them to create a video testimonial. Written recommendations are great; video recommendations are even better, because they are completely honest. It is very easy to write some nice words and put them onto your website as a client testimonial, but are they true? When one of your clients says what they think of you to a camera, anyone watching it knows that it’s true. It is a great way of building up your credibility. Here’s an example of a video testimonial that blew me away when I first watched it!

Are you using video to prove your credibility and promote your business? If not, perhaps it is time you started! If you need any help getting started, coming up with topics you can speak about, or just some tips on how best to film your videos, do get in touch. Call 01635 578 500 or click here to email me.