Nothing beats social proof when it comes to making that final buying decision.
Create video testimonials of your happiest clients, and they will sell your products for you.
In this guide, you’ll find all the tools and techniques to create compelling testimonial videos in a breeze.
Learn from great video testimonial examples and step up your marketing game!
Let me send you a PDF with the best questions that yield great answers and feedback – for compelling video testimonials. Click the button below and let me know where to send it:
Getting Started With Client Video Testimonials For Business
Customer Video Testimonials Examples & Ideas
Video Testimonials Questions & Preparation
Video Testimonials Tips & Best Practices
Client Testimonials Video in Marketing & Sales
From Testimonials To Demo & Sales Videos
People have learned to mistrust the vendor’s opinion – your own opinion – when talking about your product.
And of course, you’re quite biased, right? You’ve developed your own product.
This is why customer video testimonials are one of the best ways to get your message across and transmit the feeling of how your product will help your end customers get where they want.
Let’s dive in.
Maybe you’re already using testimonials. But the question is:
Are those working really hard for you?
It’s already hard to attract new people to visit your website and blog.
But that’s just half the deal.
You want them to take action: Sign up for your newsletter or trial. Fill out your contact form.
If they don’t, you can’t contact them. And ultimately, you can’t win them as customers.
Have a quick look at some very basic numbers:
Now that’s your true conversion rate!
So how do you gently nudge people to take action, without bragging about yourself or being salesy?
It’s easier than you think.
Just let someone else do the bragging, someone your visitors will trust: your clients!
Create video testimonials of your happiest clients.
It’s neither complicated nor time-consuming. What really counts is authenticity.
Watch my recent video testimonial that I quickly recorded at the end of a consulting workshop:
Video testimonials combine two powerful strategies:
What would you do with all those additional sign-ups and leads you could generate by having great video testimonials on your website?
Again: Don’t let people walk away from your website without taking action.
Let’s get some inspiration first – before we jump into the nitty-gritty of how you can make great video testimonials later in this guide.
The following three client testimonial videos are great examples of how you can let your clients sell your product or service for you.
Now have fun watching these great video testimonials!
And don’t feel intimidated by the production quality: What really counts is authenticity.
I’ll show you later in this guide how you can create great video testimonials – without becoming a hollywood director.
My all-time favorite video testimonial is from Groove – for several reasons:
Click the video below to start watching it:
The testimonial is so good that I made a complete break-down of it below in chapter 4 video testimonials & best practices.
I had been using this tool for a long time, when it was still called “dapulse” – remember it?
The guys at monday.com are doing a great job at simplifying their SaaS project management tool, actually making it fun to use.
Their videos transmit exactly that feeling, so you can tell that they have done their buyer persona research well, discovering that project management is a pain-in-the-butt for most people.
And they do a great job at not overwhelming the viewer with too many features by just focusing on the most important one: their task lists.
Click below to watch this great customer testimonial video:
If you want to take it up a notch, you can ask your clients to not only give you a classic interview-style tutorial, but to actually participate in a testimonial video.
At just 30 seconds long, the Square testimonial video is a great example of how you can appeal to your customers pain points and showcase your product as the solution:
In the next chapter, we’ll explore how you can get authentic and convincing answers from your clients when recording the actual video testimonial.
So how you get your client to give you the perfect testimonial?
A testimonial that will help you convert more of your trial users and prospects to happy paying customers?
This is where great interview questions come in.
But most importantly: Don’t try to write up a video testimonials script.
Why? You’ll kill one of the most important aspects of great testimonial videos: authenticity.
So instead of trying to force your client with video testimonials templates, just guide him with a set of clever questions.
And to make that even easier for you, I’ve created a cheatsheet with my best questions to ask to get great testimonials from your clients – go grab it below:
Send Me The Best Testimonial Questions
It’s important that you client feels comfortable and at ease during the interview.
And the more he or she feels like she’s obligated to say certain things, you loose authenticity.
Before I start interviewing a client, I ask him to repeat my question at the beginning of each answer.
This is how that turns out:
On the contrary, if you asked “What’s your favorite feature of [product/service]?” and your client does not repeat your question by directly replying “Task management. So helpful to…”, there is no context in the client’s answer.
The great advantage to that technique is that you can later put together the final video testimonial as you please, changing up the order of the answers to create a compelling flow or story.
And your prospects and future customers who will watch the testimonial video can follow along easily, because each segment is properly introduced – by your client himself.
You can see that technique at work when looking again at my own recent video testimonial:
So if you haven’t already, download the PDF with my favorite interview questions above – which will give you the perfect starting point for your testimonial interview.
Now that you’ve seen how powerful video testimonials are to convert your visitors and boost your business, let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of actually making a great testimonial video.
But I’m not gonna bore you with theoretical strategies and tactics.
Instead, we’ll break down my all-time favorite video testimonial from Groove step-by-step, so you’ll see how it works and how it turns out.
If you prefer reading, just continue below.
Or grab a nice fresh cup of coffee, lean back and watch my how-to video where I explain the 10 tips for a great client testimonial video:
To kick things off, here’s the complete script of the video testimonial:
“Hello, my name is Nick Gray, and I’m the founder and CEO of Museum Hack.
I used to not like museums, and somebody brought me there and it unlocked this curiosity for art and history that I never knew that I had.
We started Museum Hack to change the way that museum tours are given. That includes not just the public tours here in New York City, but also private tours and corporate events.
We use Groove to help us answer all of our customer support emails.
It’s enabled us to grow our team, grow our support staff, and very easily stay on top of all communications.
I think what our customers like about Groove is they don’t even know we’re using this really robust backend system.
We’re able to still be a small business and present this unified happy front of customer service with fast answers.
Everybody loves it.”
Pretty cool, right?
That video testimonial is from one of my favorite cloud or SaaS companies: Groove.
Groove offers helpdesk software, similar to Zendesk and Freshdesk.
But Groove specifically targets small and medium sized businesses and offers a very easy solution: easy to set up, easy to use.
And one more thing: Groove actually uses that client testimonial not only throughout their website, they even use it as a hero video up front.
And this is what really showcases the power of video testimonials.
But now let’s jump into the 10 tips that will help you make great video testimonials.
What you’ve just seen in the Groove video testimonial lasts 59 seconds, to be precise.
Nobody wants to listen to videos where people keep rambling on or telling lengthy stories about themselves.
Try to be as short and sweet as possible.
Your clients will thank you.
And if you keep it under two minutes, statistics say 70% of people who click the play button will watch that video to the very end – so that you can really get your message across.
This might sound obvious, but as a founders, managing directors or product owners, we are in love with our own products.
We love talking about the new features we’ve implemented.
We love talking about ourselves, our own company, our own product.
But your customers will care about one thing, and one thing only:
What’s in it for them.
And this is why from the very beginning, when you make the concept for your video testimonial, try to walk in the shoes of your clients:
And then, again, make it about the client you showcase in your testimonial video:
Let him introduce himself so that your end customers can get a feeling of what that client is doing.
And then let him talk about your product and its benefits for him.
That’s probably the most important tip of all.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, it’s always about what your client thinks is in it for him.
And the ideal case is if you can offer a transformation, like:
“Before using your product, he had to spend hours writing or setting up documents and with your product, he can do that in 10 minutes.”
Showing a transformation answers the following questions, what will ultimately lead to creating trust and nudging your trial users to jump on board and become a happy, paying customer:
Always try walking in the shoes of your customers and think:
What is in it for them?
It’s about a similar transformation, when shifting the focus from features to benefits:
Your product or software offers features.
The big question is: What benefits result from those for your clients?
As I mentioned earlier, we all love talking about the features, all those magnificent things our own products can do.
But actually your client does not care at all about those features, right?
So the question is: How can you transform and translate your features to tangible benefits that will change your customers lives and make it better?
It’s easier than you think if you know how to do it – which is why I’ve written an entire blog post about it – go check it out here.
If you really want to make a message stick, storytelling is one of the best ways.
People will always remember stories. It gives them an anchor.
And telling a story, especially when talking about a client video testimonial, is actually much easier than you might think.
Let’s come back to the Groove video testimonial that you’ve just seen.
The client does that perfectly at the very beginning.
“Hello, my name is Nick Gray, and I’m the founder and CEO of Museum Hack.
I used to not like museums, and somebody brought me there and it unlocked this curiosity.”
The magic words are “I used to not like museums, and somebody brought me there and it unlocked this curiosity.”.
That’s a transformation, by the way. And it’s also great storytelling.
When you create your video testimonial, ideally pick a client that’s super happy with your product, but also has a story to tell with a compelling message.
So again, when transitioning to your client talking about your product, he might be telling a story comparing before and after:
How his life was before using your product, how it was after.
If we take a closer look at the actual script of the Groove video testimonial, we’ll see that there are a lot of emotion-evoking words in there:
“We like using the product.”
“It presents that happy face of customer service.”
“Everybody loves it.”
The last sentence, used as a punch line at the very end of the client testimonial video, is an especially clever one, because it not only incorporates emotion, but it also, with the “everybody loves it”, it incorporates that your clients love it.
Their end customers love it. Everybody loves it, right?
So don’t be afraid to use emotion-evoking words, transmitting the emotion that you want to attach to your product.
Now it’s about the basic questions: what, who, how and why.
So that your client, when watching the video testimonial, understands what your company and your product is all about.
The Groove script does it very beautifully:
“It helps us answer all those client support emails.”
That’s a very basic description of what it does. Or at the very end:
“We’re able to still be a small business and present this unified happy front of customer service with fast answers.”
This automatically conveys the for whom question: Groove is for small businesses.
So try answering all the important W questions so that you don’t miss out on that opportunity.
When we look back at the video testimonial, you see that the client who was interviewed is not talking directly into the camera.
As the client is talking about the product, he wouldn’t be facing the camera – the future viewer – like in a marketing video, like in a sales speech, right?
This is why you use interview style, which means:
Your client is talking at a 20 degree angle to a “virtual” interviewer who’s sitting next to the camera.
This feels far more authentic when covering an external voice.
B-roll is nothing else than additional footage that helps you showcase what your client does and how it relates to your product or service.
It helps you show your product and convey emotions.
This Groove video testimonial does that really beautiful:
And they even save time by using B-roll footage that their clients supplied.
So if you pick a client who’s already doing video marketing, just ask him if he’ll share some of his footage with you.
This makes your video much lighter, much more interesting to follow along and conveys more emotion.
That’s the only part where the Groove video testimonial falls short.
I don’t know why they decided not to put a clear call-to-action at the end. Maybe it’s because they are using it as a hero video on their homepage as well.
What I would suggest is that at the very end, you give one clear and concise call-to-action – the next step you want the viewer of the client video testimonial to take, like:
“Sign up for your free trial and experience how our product can make your life so much easier!”
And don’t be afraid to use the imperative:
“Sign up now and experience first-hand how our product can make your life better!”
What you’ve now seen in the video testimonial above is that in the densest amount of time, Groove showcases who the client is, they convey a lot of emotion and then connect that positive emotion with the product that is being showcased.
But how can you make the most of your video tutorials once you’ve got them ready?
The good news is that client video testimonials can be used throughout the sales funnel – to attract new leads and sign-ups and then convert them to happy paying customers.
Let’s explore how you can benefit and speed up your sales with testimonial videos:
At the beginning of the buyer’s journey, your future clients are experiencing pains and challenges – but they don’t know yet about you or your products.
They are googling to find people who have been experiencing similar pains and challenges to find out how these have solved the problems.
Detailed video testimonials with a clear focus on a specific industry and their challenges are ideal to connect with these clients.
Basically, the testimonial video showcases a client that people can identify with – who is suffering from similar pains.
To achieve that, publish your video testimonials and YouTube and do some keyword research and SEO to get them in front of exactly that audience.
You could also publish longer, case-study-like testimonials in industry forums and groups.
Further down the buyer’s journey, people have clearly defined their problem and are actively looking for solutions.
There’s no better way to showcase your product as in the context of a real-life customers with his pains and challenges.
Now you can showcase your video testimonials on website and landing pages, where they do the explaining and bragging for you.
At the end of their buyer’s journey, your future customers are about to make their decision: Your product or any of your competitors’?
As statistics show, social proof is one of the strongest motivators to nudge people and convince them of your product or service.
Embed parts of your video testimonials in your sales videos. Put testimonial videos on your sales pages.
Include video testimonials in your email, both in automated email series and campaigns and in 1:1 sales emails.
Congratulations!
You’ve made it to the end of this definitive guide, so you’re serious about attracting more leads and sign-ups with testimonial videos.
In today’s world with short attention spans and just too much to do, video is the best way to get your message across and stand out from the crowd.
Testimonial videos are a great starting point. But video has many different shapes, each with its own super-powers:
So if you’re ready to step up your video game, check out the brand-new online course “Make Videos That Sell”:
After taking this fun and actionable online course, you and your sales & support team will be able to make compelling videos in a breeze.
Videos that will attract new leads and sign-ups, convert them to customers and help with support and onboarding so they won’t churn away.
