5 Tips to Help You Grow Your Brand with Video Content

A successful brand is one with a 360-degree vision for its growth; one that doesn’t have a narrow vision for short-term benefit; one that uses the best tools for its continuous growth.

The digitalization of business has also increased the number of tools and hacks that promise exponential growth in months. The people who bet on the instant growth hacks showcase the rare success as a common occurrence to sell their strategy.

You do not need any magic strategy to grow your brand. The clever use of existing tools in your marketing strategy is enough to guarantee the success and growth of your business.

In recent years, video content has assumed an important role in brand marketing strategy. It’s understandable.

The web is becoming video-centric: Soon 82% of all web traffic will gravitate towards video content and 68% of consumers prefer to engage with brands that use video.

It would take several volumes to list the reasons to implement videos on your website and use video content. But, doing so will defeat the purpose of this article.

Today, we’ll discuss how to use the broad appeal, flexibility, and perennial nature of video content to drive the long-term growth of your brand.

Tip #1. Distinguish Your Brands From the Competition

Many businesses sell the same products or services. Without a compelling story that’s unique to your brand, you’re no different from your competition. Use creative storytelling techniques and different angles of approach to distinguish your brand from others.

The word ‘Storytelling’ has been part of the marketing lexicon for a long time. The problem is most brands are too focused on injecting facts, figures, and sales pitches in the video.

Hence, they seldom think of using storytelling to convey their brand message and communicate with the customers.

The second we open our door and see a person with a book/product in hand the mind automatically expects a sales pitch. The same feeling and resistance to sales pitch develop when we watch a product video.

A product video with a compelling story deviates from the usual product-centric approach to a better strategy of creating an emotional connection with the target audience.

To connect with the audience take a more customer-centric approach. In the story, focus on their problem and the things they care about. Brand videos that offer solutions to problems affecting the customers find ready acceptance from the target audience.

Most product videos fail because they lack one or both of the essential ingredients: Honesty and Emotional Hook.

The hyper-aware customer of today can quite easily spot a brand that’s insincere trying to show itself as something that it’s not. Convey a story that reflects your brand’s values, vision, and strengths.

Customers check features, functions, prices, etc. while researching a product. But, there is one factor that’s often overlooked by many brands.

In most cases, emotions drive the buying decision. So, while creating a product video include an emotional hook that draws the customers towards your brand and message.

Tip #2. Using Videos to Nurture the Customers Through the Buying Funnel

Long-term growth is guaranteed to brands that look to nurture their customers through every stage of the buyer’s funnel.

The process of nurturing and engaging customers not only converts leads into sales, but it also lays the foundation for a long term relationship that results in repeat sales.

Of all the content types that are used by businesses to connect and engage with potential customers, video content stands out. That’s because the versatility of the videos allows them to be used at every stage of the customer’s journey.

To convince new customers and reinforce the trust with the existing ones, success stories, case studies, and testimonial videos are a great option.

These types of content work best when used during the final stages of the buying process, where there is still a slight issue of trust lingering in the minds of potential customers.

By this stage, a potential customer has almost all the facts about a product or service. Seeing other customers talk about their positive experiences with the brand removes the concerns they have and encourages a sale.

So, video testimonials/success stories are more effective than other methods of building trust.

Case study and success story videos can be effectively used in email marketing and published on landing pages. As mentioned-above effective use of these types of videos can convert leads into customers time and again.

Tip #3. Adopt a Customer-Centric Approach to Provide a Positive Experience

A brand’s engagement and relationship with a customer doesn’t end with the sale. You must be familiar with the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 rule.

According to the Italian economist, 80% of your sales would come from 20% of your clients. So, it isn’t enough for a brand to close a sale, it’s equally important to make your customers happy, so they become repeat customers.

A brand doesn’t grow on a handful of sales. It needs a stable base of repeat customers. Onboarding videos could play a vital role in delighting customers and ensuring a positive experience with the brand.

For example, onboarding videos play a disproportionately large role in SaaS companies. These companies provide software solutions to other businesses and customers around the world.

For not so technically-savvy users, the SaaS software is complicated and needs hand-holding till they master its use.

Onboarding videos make this possible and by doing so give customers a positive experience, which they wouldn’t forget the next time they go software hunting.

Customer service is vital for the growth of a brand. Happy customers increase the credibility of your brand. Plus, they can bring in more business by recommending your brand to others.

You can start with a simple ‘thank you’ email after the sale, where you further your relationship with how-to videos to explain how to use your product or service.

Tip #4. Use Video Content to Find the Right Talent

Although the product and marketing get all the attention, it’s the talented and hard-working employees who carry the brand on their shoulders.

Video content can help brands hire the best talent to further their growth and maintain it in the future.

It isn’t just you; every business out there is looking for the right talent. The visual medium is your best bet to convey your message and showcase the passion of your team.

Brands need the visual-audio medium to explain their office culture, brand vision, and show rather tell the perks of being a part of their team.

Nowadays, before joining a company, employees want to know the growth prospects as an individual and of the brand.

Where is the company heading? What are the brand’s plans for the future? These questions are best answered using videos. That’s because it’s easy to communicate passion and emotion using videos, compared to other channels.

Tip #5. Build a Community Around Your Brand

Although many businesses are familiar with the benefits of building brand communities, their numbers remain small.

For businesses, especially B2C companies, brand communities are a real asset. The communities expand the brand’s reach, encourage conversions, and improve customer relationships (existing and new ones).

Furthermore, during tough times like the present COVID-19 crisis, brand communities can serve as excellent platforms where the brand can connect with the customers, create awareness, and also contribute funds and also raise money for a cause.

The major stumbling blocks that many brands face in building communities are the investment of time and money. Videos can serve as the most compelling tool for authentic brand community building.

Facilitating the rise of video content is the decrease in production cost. This has enabled brands of all sizes to embark on community building measures by creating a wide range of videos on a budget.

Brands such as Sephora, Apple, and Nike have managed to create large communities. They have captured the attention and interest of people by providing a place where they can communicate and share ideas, tips, and stories with the brand and like-minded individuals.

According to a Comblu report, the three pillars of a successful brand community are support, feedback, and advocacy. Video content can help brands in all three endeavors.

An excellent example of a brand community is the SCN (SAP Community Network). The SCN has a 2.5 million member community which is one of the largest and most active in the world.

On social media, the SCN members range from the multi-billion dollar, multinational companies such as Bose and Disney to small brands operating at the local level.

The SAP Community Network encourages members to connect and share so everyone benefits. SCN has grown from strength to strength because its members are willing to share their time and expertise to support others and grow the network.

Final Thoughts

An effective marketing strategy, motivated employees, happy customers, and brand community – all these are part of a foundation that supports a successful brand. Video content will help you in building this solid foundation.

Just because the video production cost has gone down, using videos whenever and wherever possible won’t help you grow the brand.

We recommend a clever and judicious use of video content. Use the tips given above to develop an effective marketing strategy that’ll help you grow your brand for years to come.

About the Author!

Cristian Stanciu is a freelance video editor, owner and post-production coordinator of Veedyou Media – a company offering video editing services to videographers, marketing agencies, video production studios or brands all over the globe. I can catch up with him on LinkedIn.