Every business has at least one satisfied customer, or they’re not going to be in business very long. Many businesses utilize written testimonials and case studies to build credibility, but those stories really come to life when they are presented as videos. Turning your customers’ stories into compelling videos is a specialty here at Davideo Company.

Here’s how we help our clients produce great customer testimonial videos!

1. Pick The People

The objective of a customer testimonial video is to get your customers to relate how you helped them resolve an issue or achieve a goal. We’ll help you choose one or more clients whose specific experiences will illustrate the benefits of being your customer.

2. Pick the Place

If we are interviewing one customer, we can do that at your office or theirs. We just need a quiet room with enough space to set up our equipment. We will usually check out the location in advance and if the space doesn’t offer an appropriate natural background, or you want it to look like the interview was recorded elsewhere, we will plan to set up a green screen so that we can insert whatever background we want later. If you have a particular space at your office that you’d like to use as the background, but it is too noisy or too small for us to shoot in, we will take an image of that empty room and use the image to replace the green screen, so that it looks like the interview was recorded in the space you had in mind!

If you have decided to have us capture stories from multiple clients on the same day, which is the most economical approach, we can set up at your location, at a convenient hotel, or even at our studio, and schedule each of your customers to come in half an hour apart, so that they’re not sitting around waiting to be interviewed.

3. Prepare For The Interviews

We will send your chosen customers wardrobe and makeup guidelines, so that they look their best on camera, and we will help you prepare questions for each customer. We usually don’t share the specific questions with your customers until we sit down for the interview, so that they don’t sound like they have memorized the “perfect” answers!

4. The Day Of The Shoot

The most compelling stories are captured when the customer is comfortable, so we keep the setup simple so they can focus on the conversation and not on the equipment around them. A few lights, a microphone, and one camera on a tripod. We set up the chairs so that your client is looking at the interviewer and not directly into the camera.

This is how the interview will appear from the viewer’s perspective:

   

   

   

   

We record all our customer testimonial videos in 4K. Because 4K video is about 4 times the resolution of regular HD video, we can record the entire interview as a wide shot, but still have the option to show closeups of the guest when we are editing. This allows us to achieve a multi-camera look with just the one camera, and also allows us to cover up edit points by changing the focal length from one shot to another.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

After the interview, we like to shoot what video producers call “B-roll”. B-roll is extra footage that can be used to cover up edits and make the video more visually interesting by illustrating some of the points mentioned by the customer. We’ll typically capture footage of your customer using your product or service or interacting with you or your staff.

If the interview location does not lend itself to capturing such footage, we can also make use of relevant still images of the products or services being discussed.

5. Post Production

The raw footage is transferred to our edit system, the interviewer’s questions are removed, and we send you a link to view your customer’s comments with time code. We can also send you a written transcript.

Using the transcript and time coded raw footage, we will work with you to choose the best clips and assemble them into a sequence that is both concise and compelling. We will eliminate most of the “um’s” and “ah’s”, shorten the long pauses, and make the customer sound as smooth and natural as possible. If the interview yields a lot of strong content, we will usually recommend turning it into more than one testimonial so that the video doesn’t run too long. Once you’re happy with the way the video sounds, we will add in the B-roll to cover up any edits and add visual variety.

After you have reviewed the final edit, we suggest that you run it by the customer to make sure they are comfortable with how they appear.

6. Delivery: Shoot It Once And Share It Everywhere

We deliver all our testimonial videos as standard HD mp4 files. These files can be uploaded to any video hosting or social media site like YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. If you need a specific file size or format for a different use, just give us the specifications you need, and we’ll get you that file.

We can also help with getting your video uploaded and shared on social media, your website, or through email. We can send you a thumbnail image to use in the email as a link to your video. According to V12, using a thumbnail image instead of a plain text link can greatly boost click-thru rates. Just be sure that your link takes the viewer to the video embedded on your website, not as it appears on your YouTube channel!

If you’re interested in learning more about how using testimonial videos can help your company, contact us at (508) 877-0065 or fill out the form below.

   

   

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