Encouraging your customer base to provide testimonials in any form should be an integral part of your marketing strategy. According to a 2013 study from BrightLocal, almost 80% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. By putting a real person in front of a camera telling a real story, video has a sense of authenticity written testimonials cannot come near.
When well produced and marketed in the right way, video testimonials have the power to convince and convert real customers, whilst building your reputation at the same time. In this article, I want to look at how this is done and how to go about commissioning your first testimonial films.
The Power to Convince and Convert
As online review culture has developed, audiences ultimately want to receive information from people they can relate to and trust. Individual consumers and clients are third parties that have no specific affiliation or loyalty to the company and so their words are inherently more independent and by association, more unbiased. Articulating how a particular product or service enhanced their personal or business life can be highly educational, as well as convincing, and can assist customer service departments as much as it assists marketing and sales teams in securing new leads.
With an attention span of around 8 seconds, online audiences are all too quick to switch off in today’s busy digital marketplace. Presenting information in an engaging, relatable and distinctly human ways is therefore of huge importance. That’s why it’s not sufficient to simply turn up at your client’s offices to film a quick testimonial on your smartphone. Proper planning and careful consideration must go into a professional looking testimonial, with plenty of post production work needed to create a compelling film.
Five Top Techniques for Making a Video Testimonial
It is extremely important to note that not all video testimonials are made equal. There are a number of key things to keep in mind if you are to end up with a successful final product that will ensure your audience experiences an authentic glimpse into your brand and that you secure new leads and customers who are keen to interact with your business as a result.
1. Choose your testimonial clients wisely
Identifying clients who are comfortable talking in front of a camera is imperative. Not everyone is going to feel confident being filmed and talking on camera can be an awkward or uncomfortable experience for some people. Ensuring the filming environment is relaxing and non-threatening is important to ease any initial nerves. A lot of this also comes down to how well an interviewer can put their interviewee at ease, making them forget the camera and talk naturally as if it weren’t there. However, it will quickly become clear by body language and tone of voice whether someone’s personality is going to lend itself well to providing a successful testimonial or not.
2. Avoid scripts
Interviewees should always sound natural and authentic, which they simply aren’t going to do if you insist on using a script of any kind. The last thing you want is to have your clients memorise and recite carefully crafted lines. Regardless as to whether they just so happen to be a good actor, their testimonial will end up sounding like a carefully crafted marketing speech and not the candid conversation you want to see. Testimonials efficacy is directly related to how honest and authentic people regard them to be, so you will massively undermine all your authority by creating even the slightest sense that it is rehearsed in any way.
3. Visual engagement and cutaway footage
Creating a relaxed and authentic vibe is important, however you certainly don’t want to create something that can be interpreted as being overly blasé or in any way disconnected from your brand. Capturing attention from the opening few seconds of every video testimonial is essential. Disconnection and disinterest simply won’t keep people engaged and putting a talking head on film for 3 minutes without any break is going to drive even the most dedicated of interested parties to distraction.
4. Avoid over complicating things
Testimonials are not product demos and so it is imperative to remember that this is not the place to provide a detailed description of every feature of your product or service. Try to avoid overly detailed or technical language concerning features and functionality, and instead focus on the benefits. This will ensure that your testimonial doesn’t only feel authentic and believable, but gets straight to the kind of information people want to hear. Be wary of straying into ‘marketing speak’ though, as you will risk losing authenticity and in the worst case scenario, actually end up turning people off your company offering.
5. Ensure it receives the exposure it deserves
As there is no point in expending time and effort in putting together a video testimonial if you aren’t going to promote it, consulting with your marketing, web design and social media teams to identify the right channels to distribute your testimonial to ensure maximum exposure is advised.
Integrating video content into your website is an increasingly important aspect of SEO, with homepages and key landing pages both ideal locations to engage audiences and boost your conversion rates. Equally, uploading your video content to YouTube and sharing it across your social media platforms are other important distribution methods. This kind of targeted social media distribution can encourage your audience to go on to share your content with their own followers.
Using a Video Production Company
Audiences will always view video testimonials more favourably when they look polished and well produced. This is because professionalism goes hand in hand with the sense of trust and authenticity you are trying to create here.
With the post-production process being one of the key elements of professional video production, working with a film agency with a track record in video testimonials will give you a huge advantage over your competitors who choose to go it alone. Having a skilled film crew and skilled editors on board, will ensure that the final product includes memorable quotes and cutaway footage at the right times to keep audiences fully engaged and interested in the information with which they are being provided.
Professional video production companies not only understand how to utilise supporting footage and audio effectively but they are also adept at putting clients and customers at ease in an interview setting, capturing natural and ultimately more convincing responses.
Ian Palmer
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