How Can I Use Video to Increase Website Sales?

Roof Life Oregon effectively uses video to help the visitor learn more about the CEO of the company.

Summary: The web is a very insecure and impersonal medium. Customers fear identify theft, unfulfilled orders, and other fraudulent activity. Hearing a human voice on your website, especially a video of you or an employee can calm customer nerves.

Have you ever heard of someone being defrauded online? Of course you have. There are email scams, phishing scams, stolen credit card numbers, etc. Though you or someone you know may never have been defrauded, no doubt you are very aware that it happens. More importantly, your customer is also aware of the real risk of fraudulent activity on the internet. Fear of fraud is a major reason that customers don't buy from websites they don't already know. How can we use video to calm the customer's nerves?

We all know that most con men like to hide who they are. Criminals don't like to give away their real name and they don't like to show their faces. When we see a person or company exhibit similar behavior, red flags go up. So, to build trust, you need to do the opposite on your website. With video the customer can see your face, he can hear your voice, and learn your name. This makes videos a great way to build trust.

What makes websites feel untrustworthy is that they appear anonymous. Fortunately, video of company executives or employees can remove much of this anonymity. To see an example of how this is done successfully, look at Roof Life Oregon's website. Roof Life Oregon is a successful roofing company in the state of Oregon. They effectively use video to introduce the customer to the company CEO.

Commenting on Roof Life Oregon's use of this technique, and the use of video in general, Tom Wanek, of Marketing Beyond Advertising comments: "Nothing bridges that chasm of anonymity on the web like real pictures/video."

You may wonder, what if customers don't like the person they see in the video? This is a natural concern. But everyday we do business with people at grocery stores, restaurants, banks, etc. Usually a friendly smile and caring tone of voice is all that's needed to satisfy us. It is no different with your video. Just make sure to be friendly and show that you care about the customer and you won't need to worry about customers seeing your video in a negative way.

Again, why is it worthwhile to build trust? Because for a customer to turn over his contact information or billing information to you, he has to trust you. It doesn't matter if you sell the best product or service ever invented. If the customer can't trust you, he can't do business with you.

So, you do well to ask yourself, "Can my website benefit by building greater trust?" If you answer, "Yes," then by all means start planning when and how you are going to incorporate trust building videos into your website.