Tips for producing effective testimonial videos

Videos have proven to be a powerful medium through which people share experiences.  People have an innate desire to speak their minds and pour their hearts out, as they know it will have a profound impact on the audience due to its engaging factor. Anyone watching a video spontaneously engages with it, which opens them up to absorb the content in a very impactful way.

Making your testimonial video impactful means spreading a message across a set of audience. A message that could prompt that audience to take actions benefitting your business… Even if they just spread the message around. So that means the message should be crafted in a way that tells the audience something they don’t know, but are keen on finding out. Something that amazes them, and intuitively tells them that they have found the answer they were looking for… A story!

A story that engrosses them, fascinates them and hooks them in.  But as far as story-telling is concerned, presentation is all.  A technically strong video is destined to engross audiences just for the sake of engaging with a viewer-friendly experience, even if the story lacks what they are looking for.

So, here are some tips that could help you enhance your storytelling process and presentation quality;

Storytelling:

1. Prepare: Get everything written down on paper. From the questions, you’re planning to ask to the rough outline of the interview process. This allows you to put things into perspective and work on achieving a flow that tells the story in the most impactful way.

2. Pain-points/grievances- When asking about your client’s challenges, always make sure to ask them to mention details about their problems. As they mention more about their problems, it creates a broad context for the viewers to absorb the story and makes it relatable to a versatile audience segment. 

3. Ask for specifics- Specificity allows you to create some powerful touch-points for a specific target audience.  When things get specific, a viewer from that specific audience group feels extremely comfortable watching the video, as the story starts getting closer to their life.

4. Keep it simple- Always plan for a simple flow for the interview.  This enables you to progress as smoothly as possible and allows you to explore new topics and create ad-hoc questions on the go.  

5. Keep it connected- Your client has a lot to say. But he or she will not try to make it easier for the viewer to understand. It’s your job to keep things/ideas connected and maintain a logical progression of the interaction. Keep a check of what your client says about crucial things like the problems he/she faced and the challenges faced with other products. Then prompt them to give an answer pertaining to those points. This way, you are making the whole conversation more holistic and easier for the viewer to understand.

Presentation/Technical aspects

1. Location set-up:  Once you lockdown on the location, have your team run some tests for the lighting as it can be very crucial to capturing the entire interaction. Also, make a plan for how you want to set-up the seating arrangement. This can be very important in terms of making the video engaging and viewer-friendly. 

2. Sound Equipment: Your message is only as effective as the clarity with which it is heard. Use professional microphones for recording the sound. Clean and clear sound is bound to prompt audiences and make them feel the emotions that are  being described by your client.

3. Multiple Perspectives: Your aim is not just to capture a voice and a visual… You are crafting a story. Each and every emotion counts for something. You are creating an experience for the viewers, giving them different perspectives to look at the story. And that is only achievable when you have captured every bit of the interaction from multiple point-of-views.  Add versatility to your camera placements and get the best shots of every segment of the interaction. 

4. Lighting: When you’re recording your client speak, you are capturing his mannerisms, his body language, his expressions… And you want to capture that perfectly. Creating the right lighting is key here. Use a location where there is a good amount of natural lighting. That way, you don’t have to work on establishing an environment as there already is one.

5. Camera gear: You want to transform your interaction into an experience for the viewers. The only way to do this, is to experiment with different camera angles and shots. Investing in camera equipment like gimbals and image stabilizers, can be really beneficial to capturing those perfect shots and key moments of the interaction.

These tips will definitely help you produce a testimonial video that works for you. But the more you learn and implement, the more you’ll explore about doing things innovatively and making the video even more interesting for the viewers to watch. The key is to do things in the best way possible, even if it takes a little more than your budget to do so. Afterall, the testimonial video is going to be your strongest marketing asset ever.