Creating a testimonial video that is actually effective
Testimonial videos are an increasingly popular form of video marketing, (we’ve previously covered the benefits of testimonial videos here). In fact, a majority of marketers stated that a testimonial video was the most effective video marketing tool they had. It’s a great way to engage prospects and ”sell without selling”, but here’s the thing. I recently stumbled across some testimonial videos, that were so bad. They were poorly executed and actually turned me off the business. Which is the complete opposite effect to the desired one! To stop that from ever happening again, we’ve given you 3 easily actionable tips, for when you decide to create a case study or customer testimonial video. This guide isn’t much about the technical stuff like what camera to record on etc, it’s about capturing the right content. Because let’s get one thing straight….
Whether your video is 10 seconds or 10 minutes, whether you’ve spent £10 or £10,000 on it, QUALITY CONTENT BEATS EVERYTHING.
This is the most important thing in this entire article to understand. There are good and bad videos across all budgets and formats, the most important thing you can focus on is quality content. Having quality content in most cases will trump length, picture quality and all of those other technical/marketing things. So get the content right first!
Tip 1: Relax
Get your clients relaxed. Not everyone is comfortable speaking on camera and warm your client up by asking a few easy questions. Initiate a conversation and once the conversation is flowing, then ease them into talking about you or your services. Clients giggling or looking nervous is not something you want to portray to prospects. So take the time to relax your client and help them have a conversation that is both natural and fluid. We have a handy blog post here to help you deal with stage fright!
Tip 2: Ask the right thing
There is almost an infinite amount of questions you can use to obtain great content from your client testimonials, so it’s utterly shocking to me when I hear some of the questions being used. Remember to reverse engineer your video. Figure out what you want the client to actually say, then ask a question that helps them get to that point. For example, if turnaround time is a key aspect of the business you want to push, then you could ask, ”How would you describe the turnaround time of your project?” That way, the client should say…The turnaround time of the project was…(hopefully great!). Reverse engineer your questions, do not leave it to chance! Another great tip to ask the important questions more than once but worded differently, this gives you flexibility when choosing answers.
Remember to prompt your client to answer in full sentences and facilitate this by asking open-ended questions. I have included a list of guide questions here because I’m nice like that.
- How would you describe….?
- What was your experience like with….?
- What were your first thoughts when….?
- What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of….?
- Why did you choose….?
- What would you say to someone who is looking for…..?
- What was your favourite part of….?
- What is the one thing that you appreciate most about….?
- What was your main concern about…. and how did….tackle that?
Tip 3: It’s not about you
Here’s some sobering truth. No one cares about you. Now we’ve got that out the way, we can look at what matters. What is in it for them! ‘Them’ being your target audience. A testimonial video which has a huge focus on the business owner/CEO/MD, talking about how genius their solutions are, really doesn’t bode well. That’s just a sales pitch. Let the video be about the pains your business solved and how well you executed those solutions. Also, what you actually do for a client might be completely different to what you thought you did.
Example
A great example would be an IFA. On paper, he helped his client save loads of money but to the client, the most valuable thing he did was save them loads of time, which meant they had an improved quality of life. The IFA would look silly trying to say that and so will you, but having it from the horse’s mouth provides you with massive amounts of credibility. Your client will no doubt have a message that will really resonate with prospects facing the same troubles, so keep the integrity of the video and either stay out of it or be a small part of it, only to help set the context. The point is, let the video be less about you and more about what the client gained from working with you. Yes, you are great but we want to hear the customer’s point of view.
So there you have it, 3 actionable tips to help you create an awesome testimonial video. If you found these tips helpful please feel free to share them with others so together, we can stop this plague of dreadful testimonial and case study videos! If you are thinking about getting some of your own testimonial videos produced, then drop us a line and we’ll arrange a coffee.
