Whether you are the actual manufacturer or distributor of a product or an affiliate marketer for a product, you have to learn the power of video product reviews. You have to understand that people have a special softness or vulnerability for reviews. It’s understandable why people are more likely to give a review the benefit of the doubt.
Why? People trust reviews more than other types of text. If you read an essay, you know that the person who wrote the essay has an agenda. The whole point of an essay, after all, is to convince or persuade the reader to take a position that he or she may not have thought about before or may actually have been opposed to before.
That’s right. You may even have an opposite opinion before you read the essay but after reading it and looking at its argumentation as well as the facts that it presents, you may very well change your opinion. This is after all the whole point of essays. They are all about persuasion.
Reviews, on the other hand, are supposed to be objective.
Video product reviews are supposed to lay out a solid description of the product, its features, and the advantages and disadvantages of the different features the product brings to the table.
A well-written review is also supposed to list out the benefits that the product delivers. Accordingly, most people are not going to approach reviews with the mindset that the person who wrote it is going to try to convince them to buy the product being reviewed. The people have this impression that reviews by definition are supposed to be objective.
In fact, a lot of people even believe that video product reviews have their best interest in mind. Generally speaking, prior to the internet, this was the case. Seriously, if you read a movie review or a book review, nine times out of ten the reviewer was not interested in selling whatever book, movie or music he or she was reviewing.
Instead, the reviewer had your best interest in mind. Basically, the person was trying to answer the key questions of whether you should watch the movie, read the book, or listen to the music being reviewed. They’re trying to save you time. They’re definitely trying to save you effort and money. That’s how reviews traditionally functioned. Well with the rise of the Internet and review websites, this model has been turned on its head.
Most video product reviews are written in such a way to influence the reader to buy the item being reviewed or direct them to buy another item that the review is actually promoting. It’s very underhanded. It can be very manipulative and regardless of how you cut it, it’s very tricky. Gone are the days of objective reviews.
In fact, what we have today is a tremendous amount of conflict of interest. This is what’s going on. Because the interest of the person who came up with the review is going to be different from yours. Your interest is simple. You’re just looking for the very best product.
You’re looking for the right product that meets all your needs.
That’s all you’re looking for. That person who came up with the review, on the other hand, has one interest and one interest alone: to make money. They couldn’t care less whether you end up with the right product or not. In fact, in most cases, the very best product suggestion for you is not going to be the product that they will suggest.
Why? The right product for you probably doesn’t pay an affiliate fee or the commission that the product pays may be too low. Whatever the reason may be, you end up being pushed to another product. This is how conflicts of interest work. It is no surprise that consumers have started to distrust video reviews. They think that a lot of these reviews are essentially just self-serving pieces of advertising.
They take everything with a grain of salt. Who can blame them? This is the pushback marketers have been bringing on themselves for all this time. Now, does this mean that you shouldn’t create video product reviews? Absolutely not. But you have to come up with the right product review video. You have to come up with something that builds credibility and trust.
Remember what you’re up against. There a lot of scammers out there. There are a lot of manipulative salespeople out there. You do not want your brand contaminated by their practices. This is why your product review videos must stand head and shoulders above the typical product review material online.
How do you do this? How do you make sure that your product reviews get the right reception? Here’s what I do.
Be Clear on Your Target Audience’s Main Problem
What are the main benefits people are looking for from the product you are selling? I’m not talking about your specific product. I’m talking about the kind of product that you are selling. In your niche, what benefits do people seek? Now, this is not as obvious as you think. You may be thinking that you have a product, for example, that bakes bread.
So in your mind, the benefit is bread. Wrong. The benefit may be ease, time savings, convenience, and simplicity. Baking a loaf of bread from scratch is actually very complicated. There’s a lot of chemistry involved. Get the recipe wrong or get the sequence wrong and your loaf of bread may not be all that good. In fact, mess up badly enough and the loaf of bread you end up with might not even be fit for human consumption.
It’s complicated stuff. Now, when people are looking for a product that helps them bake bread, they’re probably looking for something that simplifies the process. They’re probably looking for something that makes the process fun, easy, and light. Those are the benefits that you should keep hammering on. That’s how you should talk in your review. So it’s really important to be clear on your target audience’s main problem and read this to deliver certain benefits.
Once you have these two pieces of information then you can craft together a product review video script that appeals to your audience members both in technical terms as well as in emotional terms. The technical stuff is easy. You’re basically telling them how to do stuff but the emotional aspect has to be there as well.
Make sure that people feel empowered when they watch your video. They feel that whatever insecurities or hang-ups they may have had or misapprehensions about the whole baking process have gone away because they watch your video. You’re trying to create an emotional state in the people watching your video.
Otherwise, you’re doing your job wrong. Seriously, you might end up complicating the process. And instead of feeling that it’s doable, they start to think that this is so complicated that they’d rather buy from somebody else. And guess what will happen. They probably won’t buy from you. Why? You reinforced their fears. You’re not building trust when you do that.
Get Straight to the Point by Reviewing Your Product
Like being clear about the problems and the benefits people are looking for you to solve, get straight to the review of your product. Basically tell them, okay this is what it does. This is the benefit that you get. Does it cost less? Is it faster? How much more convenient is it? What is it? So you have to think both in technical terms – in terms of what it actually does. Does it chop the onions finely or not? Does it turn what would otherwise require several steps of food preparation into just one step?
But in addition to the technical stuff, you should also talk about the bottom line in terms of human emotional benefit.
You can basically say, well you can get on with the rest of your life. You can free minutes or hours using this device. Remember people are always asking a very basic question whenever they’re trying to make a decision or they’re trying to compare different options.
They’re always asking themselves, what’s in it for me?
Your review must answer that question on several levels. It must answer it in a technical level which is: does the product do the job that you’re looking for. But it also must answer that question on an emotional level. It frees you up. You’re in control. You can do this. You can take ownership of the process.
Do you see how this works? So if you neglect the emotional side, you’re not doing good at a sales job. Seriously, you’re not giving them all the answers that they’re looking for. Because let’s face it if they’re just looking for technical information, they can get that anywhere. At the end of the day, most people want to be reassured. Most people would like to feel that they matter. Most people would like to feel appreciated. You have to hit these in your review.
Line Up Alternatives and Push Your Viewer to Make a Decision
When you’re producing video product reviews, solo product reviews are not going to cut it.
Okay, there I said it. This is one of the most closely held secrets in review video marketing. A lot of experienced marketers out there who make tens of thousands of dollars every single month do not want to find out about this.
They would like you to believe that you just need to crank out a video on one product and that video will do an astounding job converting the person watching your video. Obviously, that’s not true. You have to line up alternatives. Remember when people are making decisions they’re asking themselves, what is the best choice? But that question doesn’t stand alone. There’s actually a follow-up question to that. That question has a twin.
You know what that second question is. Compared to what.
That’s how the human mind works. You know that something is the best or is better when you compare it to something else. That’s why you have to line up alternatives and break down the benefits, the features, and everything else for each item that you’re comparing. But the comparison must push the viewer towards your product. That’s how you make a sale. That’s how you convert.
Some Key Video Product Reviews Best Practices to Keep in Mind
The best video product reviews are short. They get to the point. They’re personable and they highlight your brand. They also call the viewer to action. So make sure you keep all these best practices top of mind so you can come up with highly effective videos. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve come across videos that do an amazing job talking about the processes involved in the product.
I get this very light and positive feeling that I can tackle a problem after I buy it because I bought this product. But I didn’t end up buying a product because the marketer did not call me to action. He or she made me fall in love with the product enough that I remembered a product and the next time I remembered my problem.
So what do you think happened? That’s right. I bought it from somebody else. Don’t commit to this common mistake. Call the viewer to action. Always highlight your brand. When you highlight a brand, the viewer may not buy today. But at least you have converted them to your brand. Sooner or later they will trust your brand enough so they keep coming back to you again and again. That’s how you play the product review video marketing game.
Very Important: Remember To Promote Your Video
If you produce a solid video based on the parameters above, your video will have tremendous persuasive power. Here’s the problem: as awesome as your video may be, if no one sees it, it won’t do you much good. If it is virtually invisible, it won’t make you much money… if at all.
Make sure to promote your videos on social media, Quora, and other high traffic Internet platforms. Get the word out. In fact, you should make few videos at first while mastering your video product reviews distribution network.