When it comes to creating video content for your business, one area that you shouldn’t ignore is the testimonial. Testimonial videos act as customer references for your company and are some of the most effective video marketing tools you can be using to engage and educate your prospective clients and customers.

Reasons You Should Use Testimonial Videos

Testimonial videos provide positive and highly-persuasive references to your company. The use of testimonial videos should not be dismissed for the following reasons:

• Your audience is more likely to watch a customer testimonial video than they are to read a customer testimonial. This is because 65 percent of your audience are visual learners, according to WebDAM.

• Video testimonials are a form of social proof. According to a study done by BrightLocal a few years ago, 79 percent of consumers trusted online reviews as much as they trusted personal recommendations. And testimonials are basically positive reviews of your company.

• Visitors who view videos in general are more likely to stay on your website for two minutes longer than those who don’t. This gives you more time to engage with the visitor and to capture them as a lead.

• Testimonial videos can be achieved with a tight budget. Of all the different types of video content, a testimonial video can be one of the simplest (and hence most affordable) to produce.

There are several ways to create testimonial videos, and depending on your business, brand image and the content at hand you could produce them in a DIY fashion or you may prefer to have professionals ensure they are of high quality.

DIY Testimonial Videos

If going the DIY route to create testimonial videos, you could potentially capture clients and customers on-camera in the following ways:

• Run a social media contest – Hold a contest in which you ask your followers to show a creative use of your product that you can use as a testimonial on social channels like YouTube, Instagram, Vine or Snapchat.

• Have a camera set up at an event – If you’re set up at a tradeshow or are holding a special event at your store, set a camera up and ask people to sit down in front of it to provide a testimonial on the spot.

• Mount a tablet in your store or office – Set up a tablet or camera where clients and customers can give a quick word about your business or products when they visit.

While these can be fun and simple ways of getting testimonials captured, you’ll likely find that these strategies can cause more trouble than they’re worth. People submitting DIY videos to you will likely hold their own phones or cameras in different directions, they may have poor lighting, messy surroundings, background noises, or are likely to have poor sound quality.

They may also be straight up boring or say nothing of value in their video! When you can’t control the entire look and quality of the video, you are subject to other people’s appearances and aesthetics reflecting upon your brand.

Professional Testimonial Videos

To help ensure the quality and effectiveness of your testimonial videos, it can be well worth the investment to work with experts who know exactly how to interview someone to get useful testimony from them, plus ensure that the interviewee and their surroundings look good and don’t distract from the message at hand.

This is important if you’re going to use the testimonial as a marketing tool to attract business partners, investors or new clients. The following are a few different types of customer testimonials that you can film in order to do this:

About the company

Capture customer testimonials that speak to your company as a whole. This provides insight into the company culture and the client experience. When filming a video like this, you’ll need to make sure your customer testimonials are filmed in a professional manner using high quality cameras and lighting.

About a product or service

Testimonial videos can also be about a specific product or service that you provide. Questions posed to the interviewee could hone in on a product or service they utilized, the problems it solved for them, and their overall experience.  This is something other prospective buyers will find great value in.

This behind the scenes footage shows to

A product or service demonstration

Testimonials are a great way to actually demonstrate your products or services as well. While your customers speak to their experience using a product or service, you could also film them using it. This additional B-roll gives viewers a deeper sense of understanding with regard to the process of utilizing your product or service.

A case study

Case studies are similar to testimonial videos but they add in a few additional layers t8hat outline the entire process and outcome of using your company, products or services.  In a case study, your client or customer can discuss the state of things before using your company, their experience during, as well as provide data or clear testimony of performance results.

Testimonial videos can be filmed in a number of ways and can be used in a number of ways to effectively promote the positive reputation of your business. A professional film production company will be able to assist you in determining the types of testimonial videos that will best fit your needs, and they will help create them in a way that makes your company shine!