Source: Deutsche Nachrichten
Ajman: When smartphones were fitted with cameras, everyone became a photographer. When social media emerged, everyone was given a platform. Now the next shift is on the horizon, and it concerns the place where customers prepare their decisions: the website.
For decades, the company website was a digital brochure consisting of text and photos, often supplemented with excerpts from platform reviews complete with star ratings. The internet is currently undergoing a fundamental transformation. AI-powered search engines now summarize answers themselves, and many users no longer click through at all. For the self-employed and entrepreneurs, this is more than just a technical footnote. It means a complete rethink.
The company website must fulfil a new role. “This is a necessity, but at the same time an incredibly great opportunity for B2B communication,” says Cornelius Durm, General Manager of IntroCam Authentic Recording. “The website can become a meeting place in its own right, somewhere between social media and a company brochure, brought to life by real people rather than mere promotional text.” The more AI there is online, the more valuable authentic video reviews become.
The website becomes a programme
“Our vision is that every business can turn its website into a mini film programme, featuring its own customers and its own team – including all those who have so far shied away from the spotlight,” said Durm.
Until now, this has been a question of budget. It no longer needs to be. In that respect, IntroCam is the solution that has come at just the right time.
Two hurdles so far: Budget and Record Tally
There are two reasons why most websites have had to manage without faces up to now.
The first is money. A traditional testimonial shoot involves a camera crew, scheduling, a location and video editing. For large corporations, this is a routine but costly process; for the local restaurant, the craft business or the event venue, however, spending several thousand euros on 30-second reviews is simply unaffordable.
It is widely accepted in the industry that video works extremely well on websites. Videos on landing pages act as business boosters (Eyeview study: up to 80 per cent more conversions).
With the new browser-based testimonial solution, this advantage will no longer be reserved solely for the big players. For a fraction of the cost, companies can have IntroCam invite their customers to take part in a video shoot. With a single click, customers can turn their laptop or mobile phone into a recording studio – online, privately, securely and from the comfort of their own home.
Why the red light loses its deterrent effect
This overcomes the second hurdle: the fear of the red light. Almost everyone is familiar with it: ‘In front of the camera? Me? I wouldn’t dare.’ Very few people are actually afraid of the camera itself. Everyone has a mobile phone and posts content in their private lives. In business, however, it’s different. Here, you need to feel confident. Here, your presentation must be confident. So what happens when the red light comes on and you can’t think of anything to say? That’s where a teleprompter guides you through the questions. Sitting alone in front of their own laptop, invited testimonials can now speak to the camera, repeating their recording until they feel confident and can speak convincingly, as if to a friend. Only then do they send their video review to the client by pressing the ‘Save’ button.
This opens up the camera to everyone who has avoided it until now: the customer who is enthusiastic but would never record a video; the master craftsman in the workshop; the chef behind the counter; the developer behind the product. They can all now introduce themselves with confidence, without any camera experience whatsoever. They speak naturally, without reading from a script. Anyone and everyone can take part. The media experts on the development team see the potential to use their own creativity to design their own little video snippet programme. The website becomes a meeting place, a mini TV programme offering authentic insights. This is likely to change how companies present themselves to the outside world in future.
Written reviews are a deciding factor, but nobody stands behind them
The Spiegel Research Centre at Northwestern University has measured the extent to which other people’s experiences influence our decisions: a product with at least five reviews is 270 per cent more likely to be purchased than one without any reviews at all. Yet the more important reviews become, the more often readers ask themselves who is actually behind them. An abbreviation, a star, a sentence with no author. Since 2022, companies in Germany have even been required to disclose whether and how they verify that reviews come from genuine customers.
A face, a voice, a personal experience, on the other hand, cannot be reduced to stars. We form an impression of a person in a fraction of a second (Willis & Todorov, 2006), and studies on purchasing behaviour show that video reviews influence decisions more strongly than written ones. With IntroCam , each person decides for themselves whether to display their name. This makes little difference to the outcome: a real person stands by their experience, and there is no better recommendation than that.
How it works
The client books the desired Testimonial Films package. They select their best customers, ideally giving them a quick ring beforehand, and enter their email addresses into IntroCam . The testimonial providers then receive an invitation containing a personalized link directly to their video recording, along with a few days’ notice. By selecting a template beforehand, the client has chosen a sequence of questions that enables the testimonial to be guided through their statement, both in terms of timing and content, whilst in front of the camera. They speak naturally and confidently, and can re-record the footage as many times as they like until they are satisfied with it. Once saved, the video is automatically sent to the client for download. The client can then embed it on their website; whether to include the testimonial candidate’s name or not was left entirely up to the candidate to decide beforehand.
Developed by television producers
The concept was devised by German television producers and media trainers, who have translated their expertise on how to come across effectively on camera into a browser-based application. A team of programmers in the Middle East and Pakistan worked on its development. IntroCam has been in exclusive use on the medical video platform medizzconnect® for almost a year. Now, the new video platform at www.intro.cam is live to anyone who has satisfied customers and interesting people they wish to showcase. IntroCam enables short, guided video recordings directly in the browser, for customer testimonials, team introductions and personal experience reports.
“We are delighted to now be able to make an application developed by film professionals available to an international market,” says Cornelius Durm, managing director of the company based in the United Arab Emirates. As an entrepreneur, he says it is particularly important to him that the service is offered in a straightforward, hands-on manner. “No subscription commitments, no hidden costs – one project, one price, that’s it.” Naturally, there are also practical package solutions available for web designers and agencies.