Free guides and tutorials to help make you a better and more efficient content marketer on Facebook, Instagram, Google and LinkedIn

12 Tips on How to Create Amazing Video Testimonials

We asked 12 content experts for their tips on how to create amazing video testimonials:

  • Don’t Ask Too Soon
  • Conversational Testimonials Not Lectures
  • Include Searchable and Verifiable Clues
  • Consider Your Target Audience
  • Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Happy Story
  • Ask for What You Need
  • Keep It Real
  • Choose Enthusiastic and Cheery Customers
  • Shoot Landscape
  • No Scripts – People See Through that
  • It’s About How You Make People Feel, Not What You Did

Don’t Ask Too Soon

Video testimonials from customers are a great way to build trust with new customers. New customers have less trust for sales reps than they do for fellow customers. When asking for customers to participate in video testimonials it is important to ask at the right time. If you ask too soon it could scare them off so wait until your customer feels a sense of loyalty to your brand and has given positive feedback. If a customer has given positive feedback on multiple occasions, it is likely they would be willing to dive deeper on their thoughts through a video testimonial. This opportunity will allow you to engage with loyal customers and share valuable information with prospective customers looking to learn more about your company!
Jeffrey Pitrak, Transient Specialists

Conversational Testimonials Not Lectures

Conversational testimonials are more memorable than lectures and harder to pull off. Familiarize the customer with an outline, a roadmap that highlights the pain the customer was feeling, the value proposition you offered and the solution you provided. When you start recording, begin with fifteen minutes of general conversation about your relationship before you begin drilling down on the outline. Don’t turn off the camera until you’ve completed the entire testimonial. By the time you get to the crux of the testimonial, hopefully your customer has forgotten they’re being recorded and will give conversational, authentic, and relatable replies.

Joshua Chin, Chronos

Include Searchable and Verifiable Clues

Include at least one searchable evidence of quality reference in the video. Most people realize that creating a video promoting your business or product is not difficult, but creating a testimonial video with genuine verifiable evidence is difficult. This means that if you are creating testimonial videos for a service you provide, you must include at least one social profile per testimonial  so that prospective clients may verify the authenticity of the testimonials. Also, if you are offering something such as an online marketing course, ensure that the testimonial videos contain student websites and brands so that your potential clients can see genuine outcomes from actual students.

Hector Ruiz, BBQ Grill Academy

Consider Your Target Audience

Video testimonials are one of the most effective tools to use when you are trying to sell a product. There’s something about being able to see someone’s face and hear the voice that makes them more believable than a typed-up testimonial on a page somewhere. However, video testimonials don’t just magically happen. You will need to take some steps to get them and make sure they are good.

One of the most important things to consider when creating video testimonials is your target audience, and which demographic you’re trying to reach. You should know who you’re trying to market your business to and what will appeal to them before you create your video. You should be aware of the questions that your target audience will want to be answered. Those are the questions that need to be addressed in the video testimonial. The more specific you are, the better.

Neille Bonner, NEC

Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Happy Story

Ask your satisfied customers to tell a story. If you use a video testimonial in which a satisfied customer tells the world how much she adores your product, that’s great. However, if you use another video in which an equally happy customer tells the world about a problem she had before your product came into her life, her journey with your product and how much better she is now since using said product, which video do you think will inspire more people to buy?  Stories move us. Stories are impactful and stories sell.

Erin Banta, Pepper

Ask for What You Need

Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. When you’re creating a video testimonial, you need to let your subject know exactly what you need so you don’t waste their time or your company’s time. Direct your subject so they can know what you’re looking for and can make it authentically their own. At the end of the day, you know what you want, you know what you need and you have to make sure that you get it. Take the wheel when conducting a testimonial so that your company and your subject can succeed.

Tony Staehelin, Benable

Keep It Real

In my view, authenticity is key to creating good lightweight video testimonials. Typically, video testimonials are used as social proof and by ‘keeping them real’ they become more valuable. Encourage clients to film the testimonial on their phone leaving off filters and without editing. If you are a B2B, ask clients to film while walking through their business. This is particularly effective in a factory or production setting. Videos that resonate with your audience are more engaging and ultimately provide better results.

Matt Jackson, SEO Consultant

Choose Enthusiastic and Cheery Customers

When it’s a video, how the entire clip looks to the audience is even more important than what it’s trying to convey only through the script. So when creating a video testimonial, make sure you choose customers who are enthusiastic and happy speakers and love facing the camera. This way, it’ll be easier for viewers to buy every word they say because these customers are sure to come across as genuine. On the other hand, when the person in the video is nervous, they may look like they’re being forced to say good things about your brand on camera, and the entire message of the video will be lost on the audience.

Dillon Hammond, Achieve TMS East

Shoot Landscape

It’s a super basic tip, but it makes such a difference and so many videos miss it; ensure all your footage is shot in landscape, rather than portrait. We have collected simple video testimonials from clients, and since many of them shoot the footage on their phones, they’ll often shoot in portrait mode, as this is how most of us hold our phones most of the time. The problem is that video players (and most screens aside from phone screens) are landscape, and so videos shot in portrait mode end up with lots of dead space to the left and right of the shot, and the subject is much smaller. It also looks messy if different clips within a video switch between portrait and landscape, so it’s always worth briefing clients to shoot landscape to avoid your testimonial videos looking amateurish!

Saadia Hussain, Pearl Scan

No Scripts – People See Through that

It’s possible to give a customer a script of what to write in a testimonial and not get noticed. However, with video, it’s so easy to tell when a customer means what they say and are genuinely responding to a question versus being forced to regurgitate something the company wants. Instead of writing out what people should say, give the customer a few takes with an open-ended question. Tell them the questions in advance so they know what’s coming, but let them decide why they liked your brand and would recommend you. Oftentimes this is more relatable for future customers anyways.

Kelly Skelton, Backyard Assist

It’s About How You Make People Feel, Not What You Did

It was Maya Angelou who said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” When it comes to testimonial videos, this means getting your customers to focus on how they feel as a result of using your product or service. By highlighting a customer’s sentiment, you are identifying value beyond what speaks to your value prop. For example, if you are a B2B SaaS company, a customer could explain that, as a result of streamlining a workflow through the tools you provide, they’ve impressed their superiors, become more productive, and grown professionally. So it’s not just about what you did or provided, it’s about how it made them feel on a more personal level.

Jim Longo, Discuss

Thank you to Terkel for helping us source these amazing content pieces.

To create your own video testimonial sign up to Milk Video.