Potential buyers will always be skeptical about your product or service until you've satisfactorily convinced them. So while it's wise to perfect your marketing strategies and craft engaging brand awareness content, testimonials are the most effective way to build trust with new customers. Research shows that business websites that regularly use word of mouth from delighted customers have the potential of generating 62% more revenue from each of their customers on every visit. Although you can use written reviews, video testimonials are more engaging.
The Best Way to Create Video Testimonials That Convert
Potential customers will retain 95% of your marketing message if they view it on a video and only 10% if they read it on long blocks of plain text. Creating video testimonials can be challenging because they're more in-depth written product reviews. However, a well-written and professionally edited customer testimonial video that is spot on can dramatically increase the sales your business generates. You need your customers to genuinely and appealingly explain their experiences while interacting with your product and clearly describe its characteristics.
Regardless of your business model or size, 79% of prospective consumers will buy your product or service if they have a chance to watch a video testimonial to learn more about your business. A video testimonial that directly speaks to your potential customers' stress, pain points, and frustrations and consequently creates an emotional connection on how to solve those challenges will significantly boost your conversion rates. In this article, you'll learn how to get testimonials from satisfied customers, build an efficient workflow for producing the video testimonial, and the best practices for making video testimonials.
Characteristics of a High-Converting Testimonial Video
Highlights Clear Benefits
Your customer testimonial video should have highly measurable data that focuses on the benefit rather than features. Using vague statements such as "XYZ is a great product" or monologue descriptions of the features of a particular product is not being competitive enough.
Think about all aspects of your product, not just whether it is a great product or not. Don't we have other great products on the market already? How does your product find solutions to your prospects' pain points and emotions?
Feels Authentic
Although getting testimonials from happy customers who are perhaps very busy can be challenging, you shouldn't script fake reviews. If your customer testimonial video is not authentic, your entire video marketing campaign will disconnect. Nowadays, tech-savvy online shoppers are astute and cannot get easily cheated into believing video testimonials from non-existent customers. Research shows that 86% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding what brand they like to support. Since modern-day customers can easily see through scripted video testimonials, create genuine and authentic customer video testimonials at all times.
Tells a Strong Story
A good customer testimonial video can build and nurture trust with your audience. Emotions drive people. Therefore, you should ensure your customer testimonial video tells a strong story.
Your brand story should be able to grab your target audience's attention and forge a strong connection with your prospects. But, much as your goal is to convince potential customers to buy your product, you need to figure out the best way to gain their trust—a prerequisite to purchasing from your business.
Read how video can be used in the awareness stage: Read More
How to Use Video in Creating Converting Testimonials
Use High-Quality Equipment
While you don't have to invest in a piece of cinema-grade equipment to record a video testimonial, avoid using shaky video recorders. A high-end DSLR is an example of a good video camera for all your video marketing campaign productions. Alternatively, you can rent a high-quality video camera from A/V equipment suppliers or camera shops for your next video testimonial production project.
To cut down on the rental costs, consider recording as many video testimonials as possible over a week or a few days. Remember to use high-quality microphones and a stable tripod during the recordings, so you record clear voices and reduce ambient noise.
Prepare Adequately
Using a video to create a converting testimonial is not easy without a well-thought-out plan. Although some marketers may not agree with the idea of having a written down script because it can make the testimonial sound fake, it's good to have a plan beforehand. It would help if you found a balance between improvising and preparing. Your customer's personality and brand make the video testimonial effective.
Come up with a list of questions you'll ask your subject during the recording and share them a few days or hours before you record the customer's testimonial. You can structure the production into an interview layout and later edit it into a customer video testimonial format. To make the video testimonial sound natural, try to sound as conversational as possible by responding with follow-up questions rather than sticking to the script.
Focus on the Why
You don't have to bring out the features of your product in the video testimonial because your prospective customers can find that information on your site. The primary objective of your customer video testimonial is to show the success and social proof of your product by discussing how it helped solve your customer's pain points. This kind of video testimonial is what you should incorporate in your video marketing campaign because it can engagingly connect with real people looking for solutions to their real problems.
Ensure that the questions you ask can reach the emotions of your subject. For example: What prompted you to start looking for ways to solve this problem? What were some of the challenges you faced when running your business before trying our product? How has our product changed the way you do business?
However, it would be best if you tried to avoid questions that are likely to get you yes-or-no responses. Such questions will make it hard for you to develop interactive follow-ups. In addition, it's essential to resist the urge to interview all happy customers and upload their video testimonials on your site because some of them may hurt the video marketing campaign. Essentially, not every customer can tell a strong, captivating story beyond "we love this product."
Conclusion
Prospective customers need assurance that someone has used your product or service and is satisfied with the results. A customer video testimonial is a compelling type of digital marketing content across all fields of business. However, we at Beacons Point understand that creating effective digital marketing content is not easy. Check out our guide to video marketing strategy article for more tips if you're looking for ways to create emotional connections with your potential customers and convince them to buy your products through video testimonials.
