Are you getting good traffic to your website but limited enquiries? Add video testimonials to your home page and watch your leads soar.
In 2009 I wrote the copy for a new client’s business website. Two weeks after uploading the copy, she provided this positive feedback: “I can’t keep with the enquiries!”
Was it purely the copywriting that increased conversions? Well, persuasive copy helped a lot, but it wasn’t the only factor.
Did she get a fancy new website design? Nope.
So, what made such a big difference?
Video testimonials.
You see when I initially assessed her website I saw a handful of video testimonials tucked away on a back page. I immediately advised her to move them to her Home page, which is where they are to this very day – still converting readers into customers seven years later!
To me, video testimonials are one of the most powerful conversion tools. They’re featured on many websites, and in fact, they’re one of the first things you see on my own home page. Video testimonials should make a dazzling appearance on yours too.
Why are video testimonials so powerful?
Authenticity.
It’s relatively easy to write a fake testimonial, even though it’s frightfully illegal and usually glaringly obvious. It’s not as easy to fake a video testimonial. They’re real. They’re raw. They’re persuasive. They provide what’s known as social proof, which is basically a fancy term for the act of building trust by showing potential customers how much existing customers love your products and/or services. This proof provides reassurance and excitement, which encourages people to buy.
How to get video testimonials from busy or reluctant clients
1. When asking for video testimonials, point out the benefits to your client.
Providing a testimonial can be beneficial for the testimonial giver, especially in business to business situations. Perhaps the video promotes the client’s services to a new and expansive audience? Maybe a link back to their site will be useful?
2. Provide advice on how to create the video testimonial
If you have in-person meetings with clients, it’s easy to take video footage of your client’s testimonial on your phone and then upload it to your website. But what happens if, like me, your clients are national and international, and you don’t have face to face meetings. In this situation, it’s important to provide guidance.
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There are many ways to ask clients to provide video testimonials. In my case, I ask clients to record themselves on their phone or computer and then upload the file straight to Dropbox. Dropbox is a file sharing site and the basic account is absolutely free.
Alternatively, simply Google ‘video testimonial apps’ or ‘video testimonial software’ and check out the many tools to help you easily get video testimonials from your clients.
3. Provide pointers about what they can say
People may be talkative and friendly, but put them in front of a camera and they can look like Johnny Depp talking about biodiversity.
- Depending on the client’s personality, you can do any of the following:
- Tell them to simply speak from the heart.
- Point out an email featuring their positive feedback, and ask them to echo the same points.
- Ask them to finish this sentence: “The reason I’d recommend name from business name for service/product is because …”
- Ask them for a case-study type approach, covering: their problem, the solution and the outcome.
4. Remove pressure about the length of the testimonial
One of the video testimonials on my home page is just 22 seconds long. It’s perfect. It doesn’t need to be one second longer because my client says everything he needs to say. I tell my clients their video testimonials can be any length, which releases a lot of performance anxiety.
Video testimonials are powerful and persuasive. Put them on your website and watch your enquiries soar.
Do you have video testimonials on your website? If not, what other trust-building strategies do you use?