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What is a testimonial video? What questions should I ask for a testimonial video? How long should a video testimonial be? What makes a good testimonial? This deep dive into Testimonial videos reveals the answers.

Testimonials are hugely important in starting to establish trust and expertise in your niche. They are what’s known as social proof, and they’re a critical part of backing up any claims you make elsewhere in your marketing output.

What’s the first thing you do when you’re thinking of buying a product? A huge majority of people before making that purchase decision will look at reviews. They’ll seek out social proof, double checking the trustworthiness of the claims about the products, and how the product has performed in real life.

Now let’s not get bogged down in a discussion about fake reviews and such like, because the point here is the principle. The fact that the majority of us will always look for social proof before making a purchase decision. That is why testimonials are so important for a business and also why gathering testimonials should be a key part of your post-job or post-delivery follow-up sequence. Written testimonials are definitely powerful, but video testimonials are more powerful still.

Tip 1 – Should be short and sweet, not long and rambling

They need to be quick 30 seconds to one minute soundbites really, ideally guided by a framework of questions that you could send to your clients. The idea with the questions is to give the testimonials some kind of structure, so you don’t get waffly answers that meander on for hours on end. You want to help your clients distill their experiences with you into headlines that will resonate with your potential clients who are discovering your business for the very first time.

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Tip 2 – Ask about things to do with your clients’ before state

What were they looking for at the point when they found you? This will tap into where your prospective clients are now. It will allow them to identify with your customers. “Oh, they were just like me.”

Then you want to ask your customers about their experience with you. How easy was it? How you solve the problem or pressing need that they had? At this point, you’re signposting to potential clients. Look, client A was in your position. They took the plunge, worked with us, and we worked out a way of helping them resolve their X, Y, Z problem.

By structuring the testimonials, you want to allow your past clients to create their own narrative about their journey with you. I know this all might sound a bit like marketing fluff, but people respond so much better to a story than they do to a short staccato bunch of regurgitated random facts or soundbites with no overall context.

So the testimonial story has three main parts.

  • The beginning is the before state we mentioned before where the client has an issue that they need to solve.
  • The second part is the search. So in the questions, you want to prompt your client to talk about how they went about finding the solution to their problem. How did they do it? What issues did they find? Did they buy from someone else and not get the desired result? All of these questions lead to the moment that they decided to use your business, product, or service.
  • Then, finally, you want to zero in on the effect that your product or service had on your client’s problem. What were the things that they expected? But also importantly what were the other resulting benefits for having gone with your product or service that they hadn’t foreseen benefiting from?

You want to get a sense of the added value your clients get from choosing you. With all of this, you want the performance to be genuine and natural. You don’t want to be schooled or scripted. These videos are all about creating connections between people who’ve had the benefit of working with you with those whom you could help, your potential customers.

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Tip 3 – Don’t script or over-prep

So don’t script it, the questions need to be answered in your client’s own words. Create a relaxed vibe around it. There’s no feeling of right or wrong. Really encourage your clients to have the confidence to tell their own story. You don’t want them to appear stilted or unnatural, which they’re likely to be if you’ve prepped and scripted things to within an inch of its life.

The power in video testimonials comes from being authentic and genuine, sharing and celebrating your real life customer successes, stories which will encourage people to engage with you and your business.

Final thoughts

So there you have it. I hope that gets your grey matter engaged, and ideas starting to sprout. And now you can take your video testimonial to the next level. Click here for more powerful video marketing that work for marketing any business to increase visibility and sales.

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