A testimonial video is the perfect way to share your customers’ stories with the world. Testimonial videos give your prospects a glimpse into the honest opinion of someone like them and what they think of your business. If you think you’ve done a great job with a particular client, you may ask them to leave you a review on a site like Google or TripAdvisor. These kinds of testimonials are great for snippets of praise and are best used on shorter term projects. If you’ve been working with a client on a big project for several weeks or months, a testimonial video can provide a larger picture from start to finish.
Testimonial videos bring more authenticity to your reviews and allow prospects to a put a face to the experience of working with your company. Videos also give you the ability to show how your product or service met certain expectations and how it has impacted people's’ lives. Testimonial videos are also more engaging and work on a variety of marketing platforms. If you’re looking to create an effective testimonial video for your company, here are some components to keep in mind.
Natural Language
The key to a great testimonial video is finding the right client who is both excited about their experience with your company and comfortable sharing it on camera. If you have a client that you know you did an excellent job with but isn’t comfortable speaking on camera, you might want to consider going with someone else. It's all about getting their message may not get across to prospects in an honest way.
If your client is truly in love with your company, a script shouldn’t be needed. Encourage them to speak from their experience and their genuine opinion. You want your testimonial video to feel like your prospects are having a casual and informative conversation with your past clients about your product or service. Here are some prompt questions you can encourage your clients to think about as they prepare for the testimonial video.
- Why do you want to promote this product/service and/or recommend it?
- What situation or circumstance drew you to this product or service?
- Were there any specific people you worked with that made your experience special?
- How has this product or service impacted your life?
Focusing on the Benefits
The people who are going to be watching your testimonial video don’t care about the features of your product, the technology behind it, or even the price. They want to know what benefits your product or service can provide them. An effective testimonial video should cover the benefits that your company provided the client and the specific problems that your product or service solved. Instead of using phrases like “this product has great automation features,” try “this product really saved me a lot of time.”
Short and Engaging
Generally speaking, your testimonial video should be no longer than 3 minutes. Due to short attention spans, try to keep your video no more than a few minutes long. Go over the highlights of your client’s experience and encourage them to share the things that stood out the most to them about your company. To keep your video engaging, turn your client’s testimonial into a narrative. Have them talk about their journey from someone with a problem to someone with a solution. Another tip to make your video engaging is to not have the camera focused on your client’s head the entire time. Try including other visual aspects into the video such as different camera angles, text, b-rolls and shots of your product or service.
Call to Action
The goal with a testimonial video is to generate leads and new customers by sharing your current client’s positive experiences. It’s one thing for a prospective customer to watch your testimonial video, but it’s another to have the video end in a lead capture. It’s easy for prospects to watch your video, close the tab, and forget about your company even if they were impressed. In order to avoid this, include a call to action at the end of your video. A link to a lead capture form, an invitation to sign up for a newsletter, or an offer of a discount are all great options. This way your customer can immediately contact you if they’re interested, leading to higher conversion rates.
Effective testimonial videos are a great marketing tool to increase brand awareness and bring in new customers to your business. By focusing on things like natural language, benefits, engaging visuals, and call to actions, you can create a lead generating video that can be shared across all of your marketing platforms.
