Credibility matters. It’s one of the most important factors that influence buyer decisions. But how do you establish or strengthen your brand’s credibility? And is it possible to do so using video marketing?

In this blog post, I’ll answer both questions. I’ll also share five tips any organization can use to position itself as a trustworthy brand using video marketing.

But first, let’s demystify brand credibility.

In 2004, Tülin Erdem and Joffre Swait published Brand Credibility, Brand Consideration, and Choice. The paper reveals that credibility is a product of trustworthiness and expertise.

Trustworthiness is defined as the degree to which consumers believe a brand will deliver on its promises and continue to do so, while expertise relates to whether consumers perceive that the brand has the means to deliver on its promises.

Brands can use various marketing elements, such as think price, product, place and promotion, to influence consumer behaviors.

For example, when consumers know little about a product, brands can position their products as high-quality solutions by assigning them a higher premium. A higher-price signals greater value.

Brands can also establish credibility by providing warranties or distributing their products through certain channels. A solid track record with positive results also reinforces trustworthiness.

Video marketing provides ample opportunity to build your brand’s credibility and inspire confidence. Video does something no other medium can: It helps brands get in front of their audiences with visuals and sound and make the right impression. It tells emotional stories well.

Here are six tips on how to use video marketing to strengthen your brand’s credibility.

1. Establish your Brand’s Tone and Voice

Voice is the way your brand consistently relates to its customers and other audiences. It’s influenced by who your audience is and what matters to them. For example, HubSpot’s journey to becoming a leading marketing software provider is based on engaging with and helping marketers navigate inbound marketing.

Their About Us video speaks of its company culture and how they strive to empower brands. This message is echoed through all of their video content.

Tone relates to the emotions your marketing embodies and the emotions you want your audience to experience when viewing your content.

Take Inc. Magazine’s Peak Performance video series. It’s inspirational and helps entrepreneurs achieve success. In it, athletes, astronauts, entrepreneurs, musicians and pilots share how they achieved almost impossible feats. In one video, Captain Sully Sullenberger describes how he safely crash landed an aircraft into the Hudson River.

It’s all about your audience.

Determine your brand’s tone and voice by examining your audience personas. Figure out what their interests are, what words they use to communicate and how they relate to themselves. These insights, along with others, will help you create a brand personality that’s aligned with your audience.

2. Build a YouTube Marketing Funnel

YouTube is a powerful platform. It’s filled with audiences in almost every niche imaginable, and all of them are looking for video content to solve specific problems.

An organization’s track record is an important aspect of building a credible brand, and YouTube is the perfect place to create a portfolio of evidence. But don’t just record and post video. Be strategic.

Create a YouTube marketing funnel with videos that attract an audience with ads, educational and explainer videos, educate them with product information videos and tutorials, and then convert as many as possible with product demos and customer testimonials.

Leverage Influencers

One of the fastest ways to grow your reach and build a strong community around your brand, products and services is through influencer partnerships.

Influencer marketing is a booming industry with analysts predicting 2020 global spend to reach $10 billion. If you haven’t already partnered with an influencer, this is the perfect time to. The right influencer will be able to expose your brand, products, and services to a larger audience that’s more aligned with your offering.

Influencers are also highly resourceful. They spend a lot of time learning about their audience, what matters to them, and how to best position offerings and information in front of them.

For example, we turned to YouTuber Nick Nimmin to create a video about our service. Nimmin has a large audience of over 467,000 followers looking for ways to grow their channels. Since we are an over-the-top (OTT) service, which streams videos over the internet, partnering with Nimmin was the perfect fit for us. To date, the video has received over 15,000 views and over 215 comments.

3. Create strong, data-backed content

Research shows that only 37% of B2B buyers believe their vendors are forthcoming about product information. Building trust calls for strong evidence, logical arguments and results that reinforce brand and product credibility.

Share facts, figures, and results about the effectiveness of your solution to support arguments in your videos. This includes customer testimonials that highlight quantifiable results or interviews of specialists or experts in your field to corroborate your findings.

In episode 11 of the Wordstream Weekly vlog, the PPC SaaS company shares compelling stats that support using Instagram as a traffic source for selling products.

4. Share High-Value Content

There’s no shortage of information today, but there might be a shortage of valuable content. High-value content is best described as content that your audience would either have to pay to access or cannot find anywhere else.

This requires digging deep to do thorough research and planning. As you focus on delivering high-quality content, keep your audience in mind. Focus on problems they need to solve and how you can help address their challenges.

Growth Tribe is a European growth hacking academy. They’re known for producing strong and insightful YouTube videos about growth hacking tactics and tools. In their video on how to optimize LinkedIn profiles, they share 15 ways to elevate your profile.

5. Be Consistent and Think Long Term

Whether you’ve just started a live streaming show or you’re producing insightful educational videos, consistency signals credibility. Over time, your audience will begin to know that your brand consistently delivers value. And as new viewers are attracted to your videos, the quality and volume of content will indicate that your organization is trustworthy and has the expertise needed to solve their problems.

QuickBooks understands that video is an essential tool for engaging audiences. Its YouTube channel provides a consistent feed of content that dates back to 2014.

Bottom Line: Video marketing can enhance brand credibility. But it takes more than a good idea to make audiences pay attention and believe in your brand. It takes consistent high-value content that solves your audience’s problems and a focus on the long game. Credibility is built over time and the right video marketing can establish or strengthen the credibility of any brand.

Amir Shahzeidi

Amir is the digital marketing manager at Uscreen, an all-in-one video monetization and live streaming platform that empowers video entrepreneurs and creators to monetize their content and build thriving businesses around their videos.