In 2016 I was sent on an assignment for the company I was working for. My job was to get a video testimonial. The client in question had been sick for many years. She had been to the ER; multiple times per week. She wasn’t able to work or contribute to her family business. She had started to take the product my company made and she had made a pretty great recovery.
This is all I knew about her and this is all the company knew about her. They sent me to northern California to meet her at her small family business. I filmed her there doing desk work. I captured her sorting files, taking phone calls and interacting with her family. It showed she was better than she used to be but it wasn’t impressive. As far as I knew though…that was all there was to the story.
Making the testimonial matter
I knew the testimonial I was going to film was not going to dazzle, so I started asking deeper questions. I had been making video testimonials for this company for several years. I knew what to do.
Once I started digging I found out that what we had been told was the tiniest part of her story. I learned that she owned a horse ranch where they bred and raised horses for competition. “Would you like to go see the ranch?” She asked. “Yes I absolutely would.
We drove about 20 miles out of town through absolutely stunning landscapes to her ranch property which was also beautiful. For the next couple of hours I filmed her working with horses, walking around the corrals, and generally doing a lot of physical work after putting in a full day at her family business.
This was a testimonial that dazzled. I don’t know if she was keeping the horse ranch a secret, or if she just didn’t realize how impactful it would be for people to see it. Either way I was able to uncover this transformative piece of her story and make an amazing video testimonial.
The video was so compelling in fact that the company sent me back a year later for a followup and to gather more footage.
What goes into making great video testimonials?
Getting a great testimonial is not about showing up and asking a few company provided questions. A good testimonial interviewer knows:
- The right kinds of questions to ask
- How to build trust and rapport so a subject will feel comfortable sharing their full story
- The right way to phrase questions to avoid confusion
- When to pull back on a question
- When to push a subject to say more
- How to guide a subject to give the best possible version of their answer.
If your business needs video testimonials we’d love to help create compelling pieces that will help people take action.
