How To Use Testimonial Videos To Win Sales And Build Brand Trust

Video testimonials are one of the most powerful tools in marketing. They’re so convincing; 77% of people who watch one say it directly impacts their purchase decision.

But what are they? A testimonial video is a short video of a client or customer praising your company. Testimonial videos are used by every kind of business, usually as the final piece of content before the sale. In other words, a testimonial video is a deal closer.

We know because Viddyoze has helped countless companies create epic customer testimonial videos. We’ve even used them ourselves and witnessed the results first-hand.

This blog will show you how to use customer testimonial video to improve sales and grow your business. Plus, we’ll give you many ideas for marketing videos that you can create for your brand.

Social Proof Inspires Consumer Confidence

Social proof is the concept that people follow the actions of others. It’s one of the major reasons review sites such as TripAdvisor and TrustPilot have become so important – consumers want reassurance from an impartial voice.

Customer testimonial videos provide social proof in abundance. Having brand advocates vouch for your products sends a strong message, prompting more people to buy.

Testimonials are a vital piece of content in the video lead generation process. Once you have a lead in your marketing funnel, you should prompt them to watch your video testimonials immediately so that they can understand that your product is a smart purchase.

Highlight Your USPs And Advantages Over Competitors

What’s better than a video explaining your product’s USPs? A video of a happy customer explaining your USPs, that’s what.

This ties in with the previous point but gives you an idea of how to market your product or service through a customer testimonial video.

By asking leading questions, you can ensure your video testimonial achieves what you want it to. Here are a few ideas:

• What do you love most about this product?
• How did this product solve your problems?
• What do you think this product offers that competitors don’t?

Remember, the ultimate goal of your testimonial videos is to alleviate potential concerns customers may have about your products.

Customer Testimonials Humanize Your Brand

A human face is always a winner when it comes to marketing. Not only does it humanize your brand, but it also helps you build trust and a sense of authenticity.

You see, 42% of people like testimonial videos because they show real customers with real success stories. This human element is then associated with your brand by default.

Interview-style customer testimonial videos that use a natural person are popular because they tend to work.

Testimonials Improve Your Website’s SEO And Conversion Rate

Good SEO isn’t just about keywords; quality content counts, too – especially when it comes to Google.

To measure the quality of your content, Google uses the acronym E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) as a ranking factor in its search algorithm.

The most important aspect of this is “trust,” which, as we’ve already mentioned, testimonial video helps build.

Even if your pages do well for the other three metrics, untrustworthiness will leave your content languishing where no one is likely to find it. The more customer testimonial video you create, the more trustworthy you become to search engines.

Learn cro video strategies to get more sales and higher ROI from your website in this breakdown from CRO and SEO expert John Butterworth.

Video Content Gets More Social Media Engagement Than All Other Content Formats

Creative customer testimonial videos are great to share on social media. These honest opinions have more authenticity than an image with a quote or a standard post relaying positive feedback from happy customers.

In general, social media videos perform better than any other kind of content when it comes to multi-content social platforms. Organic or paid, you’re likely to get better engagement with a video.

Video generates more engagement, and the people who watch are more likely to retain your marketing messaging.

Animated Testimonials

Animated video tutorials use images, animations, illustrations, and dynamic graphics to tell a story to your customers.

Benefits Of Animated Testimonials

• There’s less pressure on your customers as they don’t have to appear on the screen.
• Animated marketing videos make explaining a non-physical product or service, such as software, more accessible.
• By using the right video testimonial software tools, animated testimonials can be created easier, produced faster, and cheaper than other types of video content.

Customer Interview Video

Customer interview videos are when real customers tell their success stories. Typically, you use a classic interview style, where the customer/s faces the camera and answers questions on video.

Benefits Of Customer Interview Testimonials

• A customer interview video proves that real people are buying your product.
• Using real people creates an emotional connection and helps builds authenticity.
• The customer can explain clearly how your product helped them overcome a problem that other potential customers are likely experiencing.

Customer Demonstration Video

A customer demo video is a product demo where the customer gives a live-action demonstration of how your product or service works.

Benefits Of Customer Demonstration Videos

• It helps build authenticity.
• It doubles up as a product demo which you can use at other stages in your marketing campaign.
• The viewer sees your product in action, which can help eliminate doubts about ease of use pre-purchase.

Expert Or Celebrity Endorsements Video

An expert or celebrity endorsement is similar to a customer interview, the key difference being that an interviewee is a person of note.

If you are using an expert or celebrity, there are a few things you need to consider to meet the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) regulations:

1. To be considered an expert, a person must be qualified (either by education or proven expertise) to talk about your subject, e.g., an orthodontist is qualified to talk about braces, but a heart surgeon is not.
2. A celebrity can endorse anything, even without them having ties to your field/product/niche. However, if you’re paying a celebrity, you must point this out within your video content.

Benefits Of Celebrity Endorsement Videos

• A well-respected figure gives you social proof on steroids.
• Celebrities or influencers already have an existing audience that you can tap into.

UGC And Unboxing Videos

User-generated content video (UGC video) is any video content that your customers or followers make. One example is an unboxing video, where a customer opens your product and tries it out for the first time.

Benefits Of UGC Videos

• Consumers will much more trust reviews from people without affiliation with your business.
• UCG provides free content and free organic reach on social media.

Product Challenges

A product challenge is a marketing campaign asking people to try your product or service on video. Usually, product challenges are conducted with strangers.

Pepsi nailed this concept with a blind taste test challenge. In the campaign, they asked random people on the street to taste Coca-Cola, and Pepsi blindfolded and then asked which beverage they preferred. On average, more people preferred Pepsi.

While it’s not considered a customer interview, a product challenge still works like a customer testimonial video – however, they’re shorter with a more direct product review.

Benefits Of Product Challenge Videos

• They build authenticity because it involves real people;
• Because they’re fun and memorable, product challenge videos are likelier to go viral.

Customer Survey Respondents

Get in touch with your existing customers about their experiences with your product. You can do this via email or social media using an online survey.

Once all the responses are in, contact the best customers and ask them to feature in your testimonial video.

Approach New Customers

New customers make for great testimonials. They’re still on a high from the purchase, and their enjoyment is at its peak.

Set up an automated email to contact all new customers within a month of purchase. That way, you’ll always have a stream of willing testimonial participants to choose from.

Social Media Reviews

Find your most prominent social media brand ambassadors across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

These are the people who regularly react to your posts or engage with your brand in your groups. Reach out to them and ask for a video testimonial.

Build A Rapport And Make Your Interviewee Feel Relaxed

The best interview subjects are relaxed and comfortable. The interview recording will likely be their first experience in front of a camera in a corporate setting, so put participants at ease by clearly explaining the process.

Having a few practices to give your subject a chance to get used to the camera and loosen up is also a good idea. Ideally, you want a person’s natural energy to shine through.

Send The Interviewee Your Questions In Advance

Following the last point, you can relax your interviewee by sending over your questions in advance. That way, they know what to expect and will have time to think about their answers.

Not only will this give the interviewee more confidence, but it’s likely that the quality of their answers will be better, too.

Record With Multiple Cameras

A two-camera set-up helps make marketing video production for your testimonial more engaging and dynamic.

The way to do this is simple. Set up two cameras (one at 6 o’clock and one at 4) and film the same interview from two angles. When editing, you can switch between angles which helps to keep viewers engaged.

Establish The Customer’s Expertise With Your Product

You’ve got your interviewee, but why should the viewer care? You must establish the customer’s story to make other people buy in to get a good reaction.

Ask why they bought the product, how it helped them, and how often they use it, and finish by establishing how your product has improved their daily lives.

Frame Common Customer Objections As Questions

The people watching your video testimonial are very close to making a purchase – the job of the video is to eliminate any last doubts they might have.

To do this, list common customer objections or complaints about your brand or product, then phrase these as questions for the interviewee.

For example, if your brand has a poor reputation for customer service, you could ask a question like the following:

“How has the customer service at [brand] helped you?”

Ask For Specific Facts And Statistics

Stats stand out and stay with customers longer than generic statements. If you can, ask your interviewee to provide figures that show success.

For example, “We increased sales using Viddyoze by 421%” might be something we’d include in a testimonial video.

Pro tip: crooked numbers stand out more than round ones. For example, 59.12% is more memorable than 60%.

The best customer testimonials tell a story. A strong narrative not only improves your chance of making a sale but it makes your brand more memorable: it boosts conversion rates by up to 30% (Search Engine Watch), and viewers are 22x more likely to recall your message if it’s presented in a story (Harvard).

Here are a few tips to help you incorporate storytelling into a customer testimonial video.

The Hero’s Journey

The Hero’s Journey is a simple framework marketers have used to tell stories for decades. To keep things simple, we’ve broken the concept down into 3 points:

• The customer is the hero, not your brand – they must always be the focus of your messaging.
• The journey is how your product improves the customer’s life.
• Use your video to show “before” the product when the customer is in disarray and “after” when the problem is solved.

Three-Act Video Testimonials

The three-act structure is the perfect way to showcase your hero’s journey. Again, it’s a tried-and-tested framework marketers have been used in their product video marketing for ages.

In its most basic form, it works like this:

1. Act One: highlight the problem and customer pain points
2. Act Two: offer the solution (your product)
3. Act Three: prompt your viewer to take action (buy the product)

Read this blog for a more detailed explanation of how to execute the three-act structure to utilize video storytelling in marketing videos.

How To Create Effective Testimonial Videos

Producing a compelling customer testimonial video can be easy. You can easily create a great story around your brand or products using the above frameworks. The next step is to make the content itself.

Viddyoze has built an online tool that allows you to make an epic customer testimonial video without having to shoot footage, organize interviewees or spend hours editing video footage.

We’ve created thousands of top-quality templates that you can use to create video testimonials, generate social proof and convert more customers.

But don’t just take our word for it; you can sign up right now FOR FREE.

For a limited time only, Viddyoze is running a 7-day free trial. That means you can sign up and create all of the testimonial videos you need, and if you cancel before the trial ends, you won’t be charged a thing.

Follow this link to redeem your free trial.

Below is an example of a testimonial video you can create using Viddyoze.

We’ve talked a lot about the different types of video testimonials; now it’s time to look at how the big brands do it. Check out these three epic testimonial video examples for some inspiration.

Google Pixel 7 with Magic Eraser | Michael Dapaah

A short, snappy tutorial with actor Michael Dapaah is one of the best testimonial video examples containing a celebrity. The ad focuses on one specific feature of the phone. The real-life example of the phone in action is a nice touch.

Web Agency Stories | Wix Website Security

One of the most original testimonial video examples we’ve seen in recent years, this testimonial video seamlessly combines animation with face-to-face interviews to great effect. Wix’s video is a creative way to keep things engaging; the animations bring the customer’s story to life.

Skechers x Snoop Dogg Big Game Commercial

Sketcher and Snoop Dogg combine to deliver a celebrity endorsement testimonial. This video is more of an advert than a client testimonial, but it works because of Snoop Dogg’s star power.

Customer Testimonial Videos Are Perfect BoFu Ad Content

Bottom-of-the-funnel (BoFu) content is the kind of content you serve when you’re looking to close the deal – and video testimonials are the ultimate BoFu content.

Like online reviews, these video ads help persuade customers to purchase – they eliminate lingering fears.

For a step-by-step guide on how to create a YouTube marketing funnel for your business, read this post.

Add Testimonial Videos To Your Product Landing Pages

Place testimonial content on your product landing pages alongside product videos and descriptions.

Not only does this add social proof to your website, but it also keeps people on your website for longer by giving them all the relevant information a customer needs in one place – a critical factor in closing a sale.

Learn how the best websites with video are using video to improve their SEO, sales conversions, and bounce rate in this analysis from 2023.

Dominate Youtube Search For ‘Review’ Keywords Related To Your Brand

As the second biggest search engine in the world, YouTube is worth putting some effort into when it comes to SEO.

After all, 90% of customers say they’ve found a new product through the platform. Most people search for the following keywords:

• [brand] reviews
• [product] reviews

Optimizing your videos with the right keywords gives you the best chance of generating more views on YouTube.

For more detailed advice on how to get started with video SEO, check out Viddyoze’s expert guide.

Encourage UGC Testimonials For Free Social Media Dominance

Start the hashtag and encourage your followers to create video reviews and post them on social media. The content is free and helps build trust and credibility while getting your brand into newsfeeds outside of your network.

If you want to supercharge your campaign, consider offering an incentive to the best review. While you’ll have to fork out for the prize, you’ll still spend much less on the overall campaign. It’s a win-win.

Partner With Influencers In Your Niche

Partnering with an influencer allows you to tap into an existing audience. Like the above point, it also builds trust and credibility.

This kind of content works like a celebrity endorsement, where the influencer creates a review and posts it to their following. Chances are you already know of an influencer who works in your niche. If you don’t, try BuzzSumo.

Final Thoughts On Video Testimonials

A good video testimonial can elevate your marketing; this kind of video content adds a personal touch to your output, helping you get more sales.

After reading this guide, you’ve seen how they work and how you can use them to improve your brand. The next step is to start making them for yourself.

Level up your video content with Viddyoze. Learn more about our marketing video maker now.