No matter who you are, or what you do, when you’re looking to buy a new product, you want to ensure that you’re getting the very best. In such situations people tend to look out for other people who’ve used the product or service that they’re looking to buy. That's where customer testimonials come into play.
The word of mouth has always been one of the most effective tools of marketing for any business. People tend to trust the word of other people over that of the business - it’s human nature. Hearing someone who actually used the product speak positively about it is bound to convince you of the product’s effectiveness.
Video Testimonials take the power of customer testimonials a step further.
What Is A Video Testimonial?
A video testimonial is a video of a customer or an existing loyal client talking about how the product, brand or service has helped them solve an existing problem, recount positive experiences they had with the brand and further recommend the product to other consumers who are looking to make a decision. These testimonials often convey an emotional experience that the subjects felt when using the products and further helps the newer audience to kind of experience the products or services themselves before actually buying them.
Needless to day, video testimonials are perfect for use in the decision stage of the marketing funnel, where the prospect is deciding whether or not to go for the purchasing decision, and needs a little prodding in the right direction. With the emotional content and social proof that video testimonials offer, they are the perfect tools to convince the prospect to trust your brand and become a loyal customer for your business.
Why Video Testimonials Over Text Testimonials?
Sure you could have textual testimonials to convince your prospects, and they might even give you a decent turnover. But statistics show that when you use video testimonials, you get results that are way ahead of plain old textual testimonials. There are several reasons for this:
1. Video Is More Engaging And Convincing
Video content has proven time and time again to be the most engaging content format there is. Infact, 96% of consumers say they watch video content to learn more about a product or service.
Given just how effective textual testimonials are at convincing prospects of your product’s capabilities, you can begin to understand just how powerful testimonials in video form will be. Video content can effortlessly grab the attention of the viewer and show them visually just what your solution can do for them.
2. Videos Testimonials Are More Human
Watching an actual customer talk positively about a brand’s product or service and recount how the product solved their problems can be a powerful experience. Unlike textual content, video testimonials bring in real customers.
Seeing their faces as they speak emotionally about your solutions can leave a profound impression on the prospect and further convince them that your product is exactly what they are looking for.
3. Better Engagement Rates
The visitors on the website who view the video tend to stay on the website for a base average of 2 minutes more than those who don't view the videos. And actually, the more they stay, the more likely they are to have a sense of trust and authenticity in your brand.
Video testimonials are more powerful than textual content because of the sheer emotional value that they carry. Using them in your marketing strategy is going to help you further strengthen your sales funnel and improve conversion rates drastically.
How To Create Brilliant Video Testimonials
There are several ways that you can create a video testimonial, depending on your brand and the product you are talking about. If your brand is a more formal brand, having professionals talk about your product will be helpful. If you have a more casual, family oriented brand, having families speak about the benefits of your product will be a good idea. Regardless of what sort of testimonial you create, there are a couple things you do need to keep in mind before and during production.
1. Ensure You Have A Solid Story
Your testimonial needs to have a story that binds all the facts together because without a proper story, people tend to lose interest and attention. When I say you need to have a proper story in the video testimonial, I mean ensure you have a proper flow between sections in place to engage the audience in the right way. Structure your story so that it has a beginning (an introduction to the customers in the video), a middle (how they found your brand), and an end (how your product helped solve a problem, and what their lives are like now), to drive a stronger emotional value into the viewers.
2. Avoid Scripted Testimonials
When we talk about testimonials, the main agenda of it is to show the human side of the business. You need the testimonial to be genuine and authentic. You can’t do that if your customer is sitting in front of a screen and reading out their lines like robots. To keep things genuine, ask your customers to speak their heart out rather than have them learn a script and repeat lines on camera. Doing this will help you translate the emotional value of your product onto video and engage audiences more effectively.
3. Focus On The Product’s Benefits
Your potential audience doesn't care about the features of your product. They want to know how those features will benefit them. Your customer might want to talk about the features of the product. But it’s better to get them to talk about how those features helped them. This helps your video testimonial become more relatable to the audience and gets their doubts answered in a more effective manner.
4. Keep Your Video Short
It doesn’t matter how emotional or beautifully you’ve shot your testimonial. If your video is lengthy, viewers are not going to watch it. Don’t make your video too short either. You need to hit that sweet spot where you have enough time to get the emotional value of the testimonial across, without letting it get too lengthy.
5. Share Your Questions Before The Interview
In certain cases, if sudden questions are thrown up on people, either they might not be able to answer them properly or they can have a sense of awkwardness that will be visible in the video. So, it is always advisable to give your customers a list of the questions you will ask so that they know what to expect. This is not done with an intent to make your clients memorise the lines but to actually give them time to at least highlight the answers in their mind.
Here’s a couple of example questions that you can include in your list:
- What were the issues that were faced by your customers before they came across your product?
- How did they come to know about your product?
- What is that one feature of the product that attracted them the most?
- How did the product help them out with their problem?
- Would you customers recommend the product to others and why?
- Would they like to continue using the product in the future?
- They must have come across another brand that is selling a similar product so why your brand in particular?
7. Keep It Visually Appealing
Make sure that the video testimonial that you create is visually appealing so that the audience doesn’t easily lose the interest while looking at one. Try to use cameras from different angles while shooting the video and you can also incorporate a bit of zoom in and zoom outs. While creating the testimonial, use only the things that are relevant for the video. In certain cases it is not possible due to the budgetary constraints for people to use multiple cameras, in such cases especially for smaller businesses, you can ask your customers to film the videos themselves on their phones. (P.S: Do not hesitate to ask your customers for the video testimonials as most of them these days are regular users of apps like TikTok or Dubsmash.)
8. Keep It Simple
While creating a video testimonial try not to use any technical terms, jargons or complicated language altogether because by doing so the video might not sound genuine or authentic. Also, the audience that would be viewing your video are laymen and do not understand the technicalities or the technical terms associated with the product. Though you could consider including some data and statistics that shows the growth of your product and company over a certain period of time.
The Best Video Testimonial Platforms Today
While getting any sort of a video testimonial created, you need to be very well versed and accepted with the fact that you customers or your audience are pretty self centered and so in order to gain anything from them, you’ll have to offer them something that they can use for their own needs in return. And also, most of the time you need to serve them with a well laid and strategised testimonial plan that just needs to be answered that too with the software that assists them to do it well.
Some of these video creators are:
1. Boast
Boast helps you bridge the gap between testimonial collection and testimonial presentation. With well created web and mobile applications, it's easy for both, you and your customers to showcase your praise in order to build more credibility and close more sales.
Boast basically works in 3 simple steps:
1. You start by adding the collection form to your website. When you sign up with Boast, and you receive a code to copy which can be easily pasted to a page on your website. It basically allows your website visitors to submit the testimonials or other video content directly from your website.
2. Next, you're provided with an embed code that you can paste on the website to showcase the testimonials that you’ve received. This embedded code can be customized to your needs. Boast also allows video rating so that your best or favourite ones should show at the top.
3. After completion of the above 2 steps, you are all set to start collecting testimonials and send it out to future prospects.
The most popular and basic plan is priced around $41 per month.
2. Magnfi
Magnifi is basically a video marketing software tool that allows you to capture and create video testimonials in simple, quick and really cost effective ways. It doesn’t just allows you to record a video testimonial with a click of a link on your computer, tablet or smartphone but is also capable of directly uploading these videos to social media platforms like Facebook or YouTube.The videos that are created here can be customised with the built in library of music and logo options.
The pricing for Magnfi is offered at $37 per month and includes all these features.
3. VideoForm
VideoForm is again a marketing solution software that helps you engage in interactive conversations with customers along with easy to use templates for feedback from those customers itself. It allows you to upload your videos and create a library along with choice buttons for users.
VideoForm as a platform helps you to create human connections with your prospects and maintain them well.
VideoForm comes in with free as well as paid versions. The business version of it starts with $29 per month and goes up to $69 for the pro level.
In short, Video testimonials are a great way to increase the sales and improve the brand image of the company and now that you've gotten a complete gist of how you can improve or create amazing video testimonials, what are you even waiting for!? Just get on to it!!!
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