It’s exciting when people start noticing your business! All the hard work you’ve put into creating and promoting your company is beginning to pay off. Your website traffic is increasing, and more people are subscribing to your email newsletter and following your company’s page on social every day! Awesome!

But here’s the thing: You’re not seeing any extra sales from all that traffic.

Not so awesome.

The truth is getting people to pay attention to your business is only half the battle. When it comes to getting them to open their wallets, people need a little more than just some professional branding and an online presence.

They need to know that your products or services will be worth the cost.

One of the best ways to do this online is through customer testimonial videos. These valuable pieces of content are easy to create and useful to promote in many ways. Best of all, they are proven winners when it comes to converting visitors into customers!

Have we got your attention now? Good! Here’s a crash course on making awesome client testimonial videos!

A customer testimonial video is a short video clip featuring a client talking about his or her experience with a business. Usually, this experience will include details about the client’s problem, how the business solved the problem and the positive results that came from the solution.

Businesses often promote these videos on their website, social media channels, email newsletters and other digital marketing channels.

Think about some of the happiest and most satisfied customers you’ve had over the years. Where did that happiness come from? It was the result of a story that your business contributed to in their lives.

People love stories. That’s why we watch so many YouTube videos and shows on Netflix. We want to get lost in a good narrative that moves our emotions. Therefore, it’s not a stretch to say that no form of communication is more powerful at affecting and motivating people than stories.

Perhaps you’ve tried to tell a compelling story with your business. All successful companies do this. For example, McDonald’s tells the story of delicious and convenient food, and Nike tells the story of determination and victory.

But here’s the thing: the story you tell about your company will only go so far. People will be skeptical if they only ever hear you telling your story. After all, as the business owner, you’re a biased narrator.

To really open their eyes and convince them that the story you’re telling is true, they need to hear other people tell it. They need to witness how your story has manifested itself in the life of a real person just like them. And while reading their words on a page is nice, seeing them tell their story in a video is that much more compelling!

That brings us back to those happy customers we asked you to think of. They could become some of your best salespeople if other people could see them telling their stories. Creating and sharing customer testimonial videos is the best way to do this online!

And don’t just take our word for it because the numbers bear this out. According to Wyzowl, 9 out of 10 people trust what a customer says about a business more than a business itself. Furthermore, 77% of people who have watched customer testimonial videos say the video helped convince them to buy a product or service

Clearly, the biggest benefit of customer testimonial videos is the extra sales they can generate. That on its own is certainly more than enough of a reason to try them. But there are also many other benefits a client video can have for your business:

• Video testimonials build credibility and trust. After all, it’s hard to find a reason not to trust a company that has real people willing to get on camera and vouch for them!
• Inviting clients to make review videos can also increase brand advocacy. Documenting someone’s opinion of your business and sharing it with the world makes them feel valued and strengthens your relationship. That client will be more likely to recommend your business to other people as a result.
• Video content is easy to leverage for your business successfully. Once you have a client testimonial video, you can embed it on your landing pages, share it on social media, highlight it in your email campaigns and more! These videos have been shown to increase conversion rates for ads and landing pages and improve engagement on social media, among other awesome benefits!

We could talk about more benefits, but we think you get the point. So, let’s move on and look at what it takes to make an awesome customer testimonial video!

Naturally, the first step to making one of these videos is finding the right customer. This could be a longtime client with whom you have a strong relationship or a recent customer that seemed especially happy with their experience.

If no such customer is coming to mind, ask around at your business. There’s a good chance a client or two will come to mind for one of your employees or co-workers.

Of course, it never hurts to put out a general invitation to your customers. For example, you could send out an email to your mailing list asking if anyone would be interested in creating a video. But reaching out to a specific customer is much more likely to be effective.

Once you’ve found the right candidate, making the video is as simple as grabbing your smartphone and following these directions:

1. Find a space with good lighting and not much background sound.
2. Open your phone’s camera function.
3. Make sure it’s set to “Video Mode” instead of “Photo Mode”.
4. Hold the phone sideways for horizontal video. (If you have a hard time keeping your phone steady, consider investing in a phone tripod.)
5. Tap the screen where you want the lens to focus.
6. Make sure the customer is positioned neatly in the frame. (Pro Tip: It often looks better to position the person slightly to the right or left than directly in the center of the screen.)
7. Hit “Record” before the testimony starts, then “Stop” when it’s over.

And that’s it! Within a few minutes, you will have everything you need for a valuable piece of video content. Of course, you can always do multiple takes if it helps your customer feel comfortable. But once you’re done recording, your customer can be on his or her way, and you will be one step closer to winning more customers for your business!

But wait, what about the content of the video itself? What should a customer testimonial include? We’re glad you asked because that’s the crucial topic we’ll be tackling next.

As we mentioned above, your happy customers have amazing stories to tell. The thing is, they can sometimes have trouble putting their joy into words. That’s where you come in. Here are some ways you can help them figure out what to say.

You can set your customers up for success when recording testimonial videos by asking them questions to help them organize their stories. Here are some questions to ask them:

1. Who are you, and what do you do?
2. How long have you been using our business, and how did you discover it?
3. What problem were you looking to solve when you found us?
4. How have we helped you solve this problem?
5. Why would you recommend our service?

By answering these questions in this order, your customer will have a story to tell that will be perfect for a short video clip.

Of course, answering those questions off-camera is one thing, but camera-shy clients may have trouble remembering those answers once you hit record. There are ways to help with this as well.

One of the best ways is to write down prompts on cue cards to help them remember what they were going to say. These prompts don’t have to be an exact script that the client will read verbatim. In fact, it’s better if you don’t do this because it’s easy to tell when someone’s reading on video.

To avoid this, make these prompts brief phrases or sentences that will help jog the customer’s memory. This way, they can glance at those notes during recording. If you go this route, be sure to have someone hold the cue cards up as close to your phone as possible so that it won’t be obvious when they’re glancing away at them.

Another way to do this is to do the recording in a more informal interview style in which you ask the questions offscreen, and the client answers them. You could then edit your questions out before publishing the final video.

Don’t get stuck in thinking that the testimonial video only has to feature your customer talking. You could also invite them to show off your product or service in action.

For example, if you sell firewood, you could film the video outside and have the customer create a fire as they tell their story. Or, if you’re an orthodontist, you could have the client smile to show off their perfectly straight teeth.

Ultimately, don’t be afraid to get creative with these because viewers will appreciate the effort!

People want to hear customers’ stories. But they don’t want to hear their whole stories! Keep this in mind as you coach your customer through recording the testimonial.

You should shoot for making the video 2-3 minutes at most. Anything longer than that, and viewers will start to lose interest.

Having said that, don’t make 2-3 minutes a rigid rule. If your customer has more to say and what they are saying is compelling, keep it in! And if your customer is a man or woman of few words, let them be their authentic selves.

Remember, people on the internet love authenticity, and they can smell phoniness from a mile away. So, let your customers be themselves because it will get you the best results!

However, it’s also a good idea to dress up your testimonial video a little bit. You can do this by adding intro and outro slides to the video featuring your customer’s name and your business’s branding. You may also want to tighten up your video by editing out any filler words or quiet moments. Keep in mind that people online have short attention spans. So, anything you can do to tighten up the video is a good idea.

At Frontier Marketing, we use a simple online program called Animoto to edit our videos. Animoto makes it super easy to add text slides, trim clips and even include free background music on your videos. The program is free to everyone with plans for businesses starting at only $22/month.

Companies create customer testimonial videos all the time. So, if you’re looking for inspiration, we’d recommend searching for testimonial videos in your industry on YouTube.

At Frontier Marketing, we have helped clients in the Chicagoland region make testimonial videos. And they’ve come out pretty good if we do say so ourselves. Here’s a quick example of a testimonial from one of our favorite clients, Dr. Anthony Galante:

Have more questions about creating customer review videos? We have answers! Message us your questions on Facebook, and we’ll be happy to help.