VIDEO TESTIMONIAL: THE COMPLETE GUIDE
Collecting video testimonials is an essential lever for boosting your conversion rates, engagement and brand awareness… But you’ll also be able to unite your loyal customers, who’ll be happy to share their opinions on your products, to see that you’re putting their testimonials forward and taking them into account. This will strengthen your bond with them! And you’ll create a real community around your brand 👥
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How do recommendations influence purchasing decisions?
Let’s go back a few centuries. How did your ancestor, let’s say a merchant, make a name for himself? He took care of his customer relations and offered quality work. He was appreciated for his professionalism and friendliness. So his customers told their friends and family about his services, and recommended him. Simple, basic.
The oldest form of advertising in the world is the recommendation.
Word of mouth is the key to building a reputation and a network, and referrals are simply based on this age-old principle. But your credibility also depends on it!
A recommendation from a “real” person who has actually tested your product/service, and who isn’t paid to do so (hello influencers), is far more credible than a classic advertisement created by the brand, which has every interest in selling you its product.
A happy customer has nothing to sell, they just want to share a good experience, and do their peers a favor by recommending a product/service that helped them. Or by telling their friends and family about you. But beware: if he’s had a bad experience, he’ll make even more noise!
Because your customer is at the heart of your reputation, you need to make him an ambassador for your brand.
Why should video be your preferred medium?
An essential and increasingly popular content format, video is the number 1 medium on the Internet today. By 2022, videos will account for more than 82% of global traffic – that’s stratospheric. To reach a wide audience and keep up with current trends, it’s essential to integrate video into your marketing strategy.
The video format has never been so powerful. It manages to hold your prospect’s attention, with a much higher retention index than other formats. And even better! This format manages the feat of anchoring your message in people’s minds. Nearly 80% of Internet users remember a video after 30 days!
Whereas a LinkedIn post or blog article, however interesting it may be, will be read diagonally while standing up in the subway, concentrating on not falling over at each stop, and forgotten almost instantly. It’s the hard law of the attention jungle…
But why is video so powerful? Because you’re going to read, hear and see the information, making it easier for your brain to remember. This is not the case with an image or an article.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that video itself has a good influence on your company’s activity. A video placed on a landing page increases the conversion rate by 80%. So imagine if that video was a testimonial from a customer ambassador?
As you can see, when you combine the power of recommendation with the power of video… you get the power of recommendation in video!
But video testimonials are still a largely underestimated superpower ⚡ …
Why use video for customer testimonials?
Like you and me, your prospect would rather watch a short video than read a text. And theretention index I mentioned above proves it!
Since the health crisis, people are more than ever at the center of attention. And it must also be at the heart of your communications strategy. And yet, on the majority of websites, we continue to see written testimonials … that nobody reads!
If they’re there, that’s nice. If they’re not, we think it’s empty and move on. A bit like a Christmas tree in a shopping mall, really.
There are also websites that use photos from an image bank to illustrate customer testimonials. But between the testimonial of “Nicolas, 32 years old” and “image of a smiling man n°293“, you’re more likely to trust Nicolas, aren’t you? Well, that’s normal, because it’s the authenticity bias. The more a human looks like a real, authentic person, the more your prospect will believe him or her.
Humans should be at the heart of your strategy, yes. But real humans 😉. Put your customers, your team, your partners, etc. front and center. “We want the real thing!”
To convince your prospect and close the sale, you need social proof. But not just any social proof – you can’t just put up a picture of a nice-looking guy. Your prospects want the opinions of real people to back up your reputation.
The purpose of a video testimonial is to reassure, to provide social proof that what you’re advertising will actually happen! Unfortunately, written testimonials don’t have as much impact.
“We’re banging our ears with slippers”.
Between a text review and a video review, your prospect will be far more tempted by a video of a real person. Out of curiosity, to hear him speak, to know what he’s going to say, what words he’s going to use to describe his experience, what problems he had, how your company helped him, and so on.
Video testimonials have a greater impact thanks to the identification bias: your prospect is more likely to recognize himself in the authentic, unadorned speech of a peer, than in a written testimonial that could have been selected and modified by the company, etc.
How do you collect video testimonials?
Numerous external tools are available to collect customer reviews: verified reviews, trustpilot, google, etc. But this quickly became a fairground for fake reviews and/or negative reviews deleted by the company… Today, Internet users are much more distrustful, and rightly so. Video will provide the credibility that is sorely lacking in traditional customer reviews.
He explains several possibilities for collecting video testimonials from your customers:
- Collection platforms
To save you time, and money, there are several remote video capture platforms for businesses. They enable you to collect video testimonials from your customers, respond to them, analyze and exploit them.
To find out more, the online magazine Geek Flare has devoted a full article to the subject, with a selection of 9 platforms for automating the collection of video testimonials.
- Direct request
The more authentic the testimonial, the more it’s believed. By directly inviting your customers to share a video testimonial, you avoid the frills and get straight to the point. And the video’s minor imperfections and your customer’s stammering will show your prospect that the video is genuine and far from the “advertising = unreliable” box.
Unfortunately, while this method is highly effective, it’s far from simple. In fact, it’s sometimes difficult to convince a customer to film himself on facecam when he’s not used to it, and you run the risk of wasting time chasing after him…
- Professional video
For a more qualitative and professional result, adapted to SMEs and large BtoB companies, Solid Rusk recommends that you call on a videographer to survey your customers, franchisees, ambassadors, partners, etc.
Case study video produced for Everfruit Digital. The customer is Indiana Café.
Solid Rusk interviewed franchisees directly at a trade show for Franchise Directe. At the end of the day, the brand had a panel of several video testimonials to use on different communication channels: landing pages, sales pages, newsletters, social networks, etc.
For optimum results, do what Franchise Directe did and entrust the production of your video testimonials to Solid Rusk.
How can you make the most of your video testimonials?
“Show, don’t tell” is the motto of marketing professionals. In other words, “Don’t talk, prove it”.
By integrating video testimonials from your customers, you let your competitors promise the moon from the very first line of their sales page, while you prove what you’re saying.
You put your offer in the spotlight, while putting your customer in the spotlight, giving prospects the chance to project themselves right from the start by listening to your customers talk about your products. Don’t forget that your customers are the people best placed to promote your offer.
Here are a few ideas for making the most of your video testimonials:
- Integrate your video testimonial on your sales page.
“Proof Social is queen! If for years it was enough to place little pictograms of reassurance and a few logos of big companies. Today, your prospect wants more. Your satisfied customer is going to tell HIS story. Not just a logo or a fake review. And that’s where you’ll make the difference and considerably increase your conversion rate.
- Usevideo testimonials in your ads campaigns, as part of a growth marketing strategy to acquire new prospects, for example.
- Used as part of a multi-channel content strategy, these testimonials will give your prospects a better understanding of your business. In a linkedin post, a blog article, a newsletter, etc. To support a customer case study, for example: show value + demonstrate expertise + have the social proof to back up your words.
Collecting video testimonials and integrating them into your marketing strategy will boost your sales by considerably increasing your conversion rates, your social proof and your brand image. It’s a must for your future sales pages and advertising campaigns on social networks.
Case study video produced for Tut-Tut. The customer is Electro Depôt.
Solid Rusk Production is a video production agency based in the south of France. We are experts in video creation, photo shooting, sound design and graphic animation for professionals based in Cannes, Nice, Monaco, Menton and Avignon.
Article written by Emeline l Prête-moi ta plume
