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Does Your Video Address Your Customers’ Needs? It Should
Too many companies focus their content, especially their corporate videos, around themselves. While it’s certainly important to differentiate yourself from the competition, the plain truth is that your audience doesn’t necessarily care about you. Who do they care about? Themselves.
When your audience takes a look at a piece of content, they’re trying to figure out how your company can help them out. They have problems, and they’re looking for solutions. In order to truly connect with your audience, you need to figure out what their problems are and create content that either helps them solve it or explains how you can solve it for them.
The first step is understanding exactly how to identify what your audience’s most relevant and pressing problems are.
Identifying Your Audience’s True Needs
Your company exists because people have a particular problem that they need to be solved, but it’s easy to overlook exactly what it is. Take Uber for example. They were able to effectively create an empire by identifying a key need – getting from one place to another quickly – and solving it in a way that was convenient and cost-effective for their audience.
The good news is that as a successful company, you are already solving your customer’s needs. You simply need to identify what they truly are. If you’re a car company, for example, you’re not solving a need to buy a vehicle, you’re solving a need for transportation. If you’re a restaurant, you’re solving their need to satisfy their hunger. You’re not only competing with other restaurants but with grocery stores and delivery services, too.
Here are some helpful ways to identify the key problems your customers are facing:
- Map out the customer journey. Think about the very first thing that happens when your customer decides they need to make a purchase. Whatever causes these initial triggers are your customer’s true problems.
- Ask your customers. Simply interview a sample of your clients or send out a quick survey asking your audience what problems they’re facing. A benefit of this is that you might discover some additional ways you can help serve your existing customer base.
- Ask your employees. If you have a sales or customer service team, set up a meeting to discuss what issues your customers are facing. They speak directly to them every single day so they’ll have a good idea of exactly what’s going on.
Examples of Videos That Address Customer Needs
With a better understanding of our customers in hand, it’s time to take a look at how we can leverage this knowledge for our next corporate video. Let’s learn from those who have come before us by taking a look at five examples of great corporate videos that address their customers’ needs:
1. Dropbox – Clean and Simple
Dropbox is a service that allows you to save and share your files across multiple devices. This video is excellent because it dives right into what it is: “a place for all your stuff.” If anybody has been struggling with accessing or sharing files, they know that Dropbox is for them. The body of the video discusses features that address many common issues, such as being able to access files from multiple devices, sharing documents with people that don’t have a Dropbox account, and sharing large or specialty files.
What is Dropbox from Buck on Vimeo
2. The Hartford’s FleetAhead – Showing Another Perspective
FleetAhead combines technology with data, giving companies that manage delivery drivers the chance to perform advanced analytics on their fleet. What’s interesting about this video is that they address the need indirectly, by discussing the typical day of a delivery driver. How many sharp turns does he take? He many times does he accelerate quickly? How long does he spend at lunch? By the end, even if this wasn’t a clear business need of yours, you’re left wondering whether they can solve a need you just learned you had.
BSS | The Hartford – FleetAhead from Bruton Stroube Studios on Vimeo.
3. Slack – Tell a Story
Slack provides a way to centralize corporate communications in real-time. This video is effective because it discusses Slack from the perspective of a company. It opens with various employees talking about the problems they had with their current corporate communication protocol before talking about Slack’s features and how they were able to leverage them. By the end, the company is completely sold on Slack and the viewer is, too.
4. FreshBooks – Testimonials Are Always Powerful
FreshBooks provides another example of an extremely simple, yet effective, corporate video. Sarah simply begins by talking about exactly what her problems are – as a small business owner, she was completing finances out of Microsoft Excel and had no idea what she was doing and it cost her money. By switching to FreshBooks, she explains, she had exactly what she needed to track and invoice, and it was simple. Because the entire video is Sarah’s perspective, it’s easy to trust and follow. If anybody else is having the same problems Sarah is, they’ll be sure to take notice.
5. HubSpot – Laying It Out Directly
HubSpot doesn’t pull any punches. They start off by talking about the challenges today’s marketers face, such as the fact that people are tired of being marketed to, and that they’re finding innovative ways to get around it such as DVRs or ad blockers. After this brutal honesty, the video discusses how HubSpot believes marketers can tackle these challenges, and what they’re doing to help. Opening up so honestly grabs the viewer’s attention and makes HubSpot feel relatable despite being a marketing company.
It doesn’t matter what problems your customers are facing, videos are a great way to discuss exactly how you can solve them. For help getting started on your next corporate video, make sure to reach out to us here at Crews Control. We’ll help you find a great crew for your next video, now matter what it is or where you’re shooting. Simply click here for a free quote.
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