In this part we’re looking at video testimonials.

Video testimonials are like written testimonials on steroids.

Much more than text, video testimonials can capture your customer’s emotions and feelings about your products.

You’ll (probably!) have far fewer video than text testimonials.

And that’s absolutely fine - their potency more than makes up for it.

Asking for video testimonials is very similar to asking for text testimonials.

The main barrier is that (most) people hate being on video!

We need to i) assuage their fear of shooting a video and ii) make it as technically simple as possible for them.

Basically we have to remove barriers to make everything easy.

Any remaining fricton will be enough for them to think “I’ll do it later”.

Here’s our prompt for an outreach message:

Act as my marketing assistant

I want to request a testimonial from a recent purchaser

Their name is [name]

The product they purchased was [product name]

and the product is: [Description of the product including benefits]

Please write a request email asking them to provide a video testimonial

Prompt the questions:

Who are you?
Why did you start using the product
What do you like most about the product

Explain that it would be a personal favour and extremely helpful if they are able to provide a testimonial. 

Explain that they just need to shoot a video on their phone and not to worry about quality. We're most interested in what they have to say, not the video quality. 

Keep it to 300 words max. Don't overdo the language, keep it simple.

This will generate a basic testimonial request, adapted for video.

Here’s the most relevant section :

This will work with some people but ideally we need to make this even easier. Two methods we can use here:

• incentive

• simple record tool

First up, additional incentive. Video testimonials are worth a fortune to your business because they’ll help you convert more.

Incentivising video testimonials is a high ROI investment - basically find something valuable that you can give them for free in exchange for a testimonial. The more valuable the better - you’ll get a higher submission rate.

In your messaging position it as a “thank you gift” rather than a straight up bribe! 😂

Second, make the recording even easier. Everyone can record something on their phone but there are still barriers - they have to then email it to you. Reducing the number of steps is important.

Personally I use Senja for this - it has a built in video collection tool that captures from the customer’s camera and uploads straight to you. Here’s what it looks like:

And you can see a live version of the widget here: https://senja.io/p/steins-gate

Very slick.

Again the name of the game here is to make the process as easy as humanly possible for our customers by removing any possible resistance.

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Premium Prompt - Conversion to Text

Once we have a video testimonial we can also convert it to a text testimonial.

This allows us to double dip and have it in multiple formats.

To do this we need to quickly transcribe the audio to text.

If the testimonial is a few seconds long then go ahead and do this manually.

Otherwise, there are multiple AI tools that allow you to transcribe quickly.

On phone I personally use the Captions app. I can upload a video, generate a transcript. and then download the transcript.

One challenge is that transcriptions are often quite verbose - so to turn it into a tighter written testimonial use this prompt:

Act as a marketing manager

Below you'll find the text of a transcribed testimonial

It's in natural spoken language and I want to convert it into a more concise written testimonial

Review the testimonial and extract the more positive, descriptive, emotional aspects of the testimonial to create a truncated version - maximum 4 sentences. 

Do not change any language - this is a quote and must remain accurate. Retain the order of words within sentences, do not create new sentences.

[copy paste testimonial transcript]

Here’s an example transcription:

We put this through the prompt above and get this output:

The prompt extracts the best lines and condenses into a short punchy (but still accurate!) written testimonial.

Use this as well as the video version. We’ll talk about how to deploy testimonials in a later Part.

Pulling it together

We’ve covered the two main types of testimonials - written and video.

In the next Part we’ll cover some more strategies to incentivise and increase the number of testimonials you get. Then we’ll wrap up by looking at how best to use your testimonials to generate more sales.

Here’s a reminder of what we’re covering this week:

• Part 1: Collecting text testimonials

• Part 2: Capturing stories with video testimonials

• Part 3: Strategies to incentivise

• Part 4: Social proof goes social media

• Part 5: Supercharge your website