Video Testimonials: What, why and how

With global eCommerce sales expected to reach a whopping $4.8 trillion by next year, we all have a lot to gain. But we also have to make sure that our store, marketing funnel, and product is up to par so we don’t fall behind in this competitive climate.

Posted 4 years ago by Aleksandra Cugalj

Even once a potential customer reaches your website, there are still quite a few obstacles that stand between a visit to your website and the final purchase; one of the most significant being the issue of trust. Lack of consumer trust is a major pitfall for many online stores, but with some thought and effort, it’s not impossible to overcome.

There are a number of tried and true methods to inspire trust once a customer reaches your online store. You can improve the user experience, include trust badges, promise a money-back guarantee, increase transparency, and more.

But the method that we’ll cover in this article is the ultimate stamp of approval: Video Testimonials.

Video testimonials on your home page, specific product pages or even on your socials can go a long way in pushing your user down the funnel and straight to the ‘purchase’ button. Here’s why!

Why testimonials?

While it’s not possible for customers to experience, try on, touch or smell a product before spending their hard-earned money on an online purchase, they turn to the next best thing: Testimonials and product reviews.

Consumers want to hear about the real-life experience of other like-minded customers. Is the quality as good as you claim? Do your sizes run small? Are you responsive to complaints? Do you deliver on time? Positive reviews that cover these concerns have the power to influence buying decisions and ultimately boost your sales.

The bottom line is 61% of customers look for online reviews before making a purchase decision, and therefore, essential to the success of every eCommerce site.

Why videos?

A video testimonial includes two of the highest-performing forms of marketing – video content and customer feedback. While customer testimonials are great and strongly encouraged, customer testimonial videos take the impact up a notch. If you don’t believe us, here are the
stats:

• Videos keep users on your website longer and also keep them more engaged. The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video (Forbes).
• Secondly, viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text (Invisa.com).
• Bonus: Video drives a 157% increase in organic traffic from SERPs (Brightcove).

With video as the highest-performing form of digital marketing content, combining it with positive reviews from real-life customers is just the thing to breach the trust barrier between you and potential customers. And, of course, while not the most transparent practice, creating your own video testimonials allows you to cherry-pick the very best reviews and highlight them.

Pro-tip for Shopify store owners: You can now make free product videos and video testimonials for your product pages, storefront, and social media channels with the Free Promo Video Making App.

Best Practices

In the hopes that we successfully convinced you how important it is to integrate video testimonials into your online store, let’s show you how to make it as effective as possible. 

And remember – the nature of customer testimonials and reviews doesn’t always allow us to control the outcome. However, by choosing carefully and driving the customer with the right questions, we can get pretty close to what we want. 

Choose relatable customers

Whether you are picking the good testimonials from the written reviews on your site or actively seeking out satisfied customers, remember that the consumers want to hear from other like-minded consumers. So consider who your ideal buyer persona is and choose someone similar so that their testimonial will resonate with as many potential customers as possible.

Describe the benefits

It’s important to go into specifics. Rather than the generic, “this product is awesome” kind of statement, try to get your customers to go into detail about what exactly they liked about the product or service. Did it fit exactly right? Was your customer service good? Was it exactly as described on your website? For inspiration, take a look at your most popular FaQs. Video testimonials are an extremely effective way to address common concerns that often have online customers hesitating. 

Don’t make it too salesy

The reason that testimonials are so effective is that they are authentic and believable. They don’t come from the business that stands to gain from the customer’s purchase. If you push the testimonials into a salesy direction that makes the video look too staged, you will lose your customers’ trust, not only making it unhelpful but, in fact, detrimental to the purchasing funnel.

Highlight your unique selling proposition

Another concern that consumers have is whether they can find a better/cheaper product elsewhere. If it’s possible, highlight any testimonial that compares your product or service to something similar to it. Is it better than anything else they’ve used? Have they been on the lookout for this exact product for a while? Is it more affordable? Showcase the benefits that make your product better and more unique. 

Keep it short

 Like any type of video, it’s important to keep it short. While testimonials can be longer than your average marketing video (2 min), don’t overdo it. Considering the shrinking attention spans, cut out any superfluous information that the customer includes and stick must-have moments and recommendations so you don’t lose viewers along the way.

Any business can do it

Video creation used to be a pipe-dream for small businesses with a limited marketing budget, but today it’s easier and more affordable than ever. These are some different approaches that each require different resources: 

Quote video testimonials – If you’re looking for something quick, yet effective, this is the option for you. Here you can plug written reviews over as an overlay on one of your product videos. You can easily do it with DIY video platforms and Shopify apps like Promo.com. 

User-generated video testimonials – This is probably the most authentic option. Share videos created by customers using your product, unboxing it, trying it on and more. To encourage these kinds of videos, you can hold a contest or give away on your social media channels. 

Self-shot video testimonials – This option is usually suited for larger businesses and while it is the most costly and time-consuming, it has many benefits. You can select the customers you feel are the most relevant, steer them toward the product benefits you want to highlight, and produce a highly-customized professional video to share with your audience.

Getting started

Social proof is a powerful decision-making factor in the buyer funnel and has the potential to give your customers that final push to conversion. Now that you know what a video testimonial is, why you need it, and how you should create it, there’s nothing to stop you from using it to boost your business.