The value of personal testimonials for business has been known for decades. People are more likely to watch a short video rather than read a short paragraph. A new up and coming wave, driven by technology is taking us in the direction of Testimonial videos.
This is where you ask one of your customers, maybe a bride or mother of the bride, to speak in a short video letting people know their experience working with you. By talking about what they like about your services, they are endorsing your company to other people.
We have learned to trust these spoken endorsements, they remind us of recommendations by our family and friends.
Please take a moment to read the following article to learn more about video testimonials and learn how they could be beneficial to your business.
This is an excerpt of an article published on 11/18/11 by Rightlookcreative - to view full article click here
Learn to Make Your Own Testimonial Videos
1. Ask / Incentivize Customers
The first step in testimonial video production is getting your customers to talk about your business. Sometimes you can just ask customers if they would be willing to say what they like about your service. If customers are shy, offer some incentives like a product discount, or a piece of swag. If you have a storefront, don’t be afraid to ask customers courteously for a testimonial after they make a purchase. Keep in mind the best testimonials are usually from your regular customers. If no one wants to say anything nice about your business, it might be your product that has the problem.
2. Shoot It
Shooting can seem intimidating if you don’t produce videos regularly, but the most important part is capturing quality reactions from real customers. Don’t think your footage has to be Hollywood quality. Customers are more interested in what is said than image quality, and an unpolished look can even give a more genuine feel. If you don’t have the budget for a video camera, an iPhone or other smartphone works great for collecting raw footage and can be used to get quick shots when the video camera isn’t handy. Develop a standardized system for interviewing customers, including a predetermined list of questions that introduce the customer, describe their experience, and offer a recommendation to other customers. Ask enough questions so the subject has time to relax in front of the camera, and so you have enough material for about a minute of video after editing. We recommend somewhere around ten questions.
3. Edit It
Again, Hollywood isn’t the goal, but some simple edits can go a long way. Customers can get nervous in front of the camera and don’t always speak clearly, so edit out awkward pauses, leaving only the clearest stated recommendations and compliments. Your questions can either be left in as audio, or edited in as a plain text-based frame before the answer. Then, sandwich the edited raw footage between a branded intro and outro with a clear call to action in the last frame. If available, edit in a license free soundtrack to add a professional touch and keep viewers engaged.
4. Set Up a Testimonials Page
Once you have your videos edited, it’s important to consider how you present them to your customers. Having a well-designed and organized testimonials page on your website is a great way to show customers that you’re a trusted business. Sometimes the mere sight of a well laid out grid of video thumbnails, clicked or not, can be all it takes to show a customer that your product is worth pulling out the credit card. Make sure that all of your video thumbnails feature a friendly image of the customer being interviewed.
5. Promote Online
Once you have your videos edited and uploaded you can get to work telling the world how much customers love your business. Use every marketing outlet you have available to share, email, post, and link your new marketing tools. Upload your videos to Youtube, and be sure to optimize your video testimonials with your main keywords, and use different keyword variations with each video.
*Text-Based Testimonials
Though less effective, quoted text can also be an effective way to gain the trust of your customers. However, customers recognize how much easier it is to fake a text testimonial than a live video, so don’t expect the credibility gained to be on par with a video testimonial. If you do use text-based testimonials, make sure to include a photo of the customer who said it.
Your Most Versatile Marketing Tool
Once you have your testimonial videos filmed and edited, there’s no limit to how you can implement them in your marketing. The content can and should be used everywhere you can upload it, including social media, landing pages, emails and newsletters, and on any online business directories that include videos – especially Google Places. Testimonials videos are even a powerful marketing tool for over-the-phone sales. Rightlook.com salesmen find it much easier to close sales when they can link customers to a collection of genuine reactions of happy customers.
More Testimonials for More Trust
If you’re going to promote your product or service with testimonial videos, it’s probably a good idea to have more than just one. Even if your one customer says nothing but great things, a lone testimonial may inspire customers to wonder why you couldn’t find anyone else to vouch for you. A strong set of 5 or more testimonials should dispel any suspicions of staged reactions, and will even imply that there are many other happy customers that you just didn’t take the time to videotape.
The benefits of testimonial video production are vast, especially when you consider the limited amount of effort they require. If you haven’t implemented your own system for generating testimonials, we highly suggest you start soon. If you really aren’t sure how to start consider a video production service to help produce any number of testimonial videos with custom intro and outro with your logo and brand. Then they are yours to promote, assuring customers all over the world that your product or service is actually worth their hard-earned cash.
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