Category Archives: testimonials

7 Steps To YouTube Success

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Four years ago, I wrote my free e-book “7 Steps To YouTube Success”. It’s been requested thousands of times. Now, there’s a new, updated version. YouTube is evolving and changing. Annotations are gone. The YouTube speech-to-text engine is improved. There’s more competition for views.

If you’re using YouTube to host videos for your business, you’ll want to read this compact, information-packed e-book. The seven steps are easy to follow, and includes tips that most businesses who use YouTube never do. That means you can be one step ahead of your competition. Did I mention the book is free? To get your copy, just click here: SEND ME THE E-BOOK Actually, I’ll send you TWO free books. The second one is called “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Customer Testimonials’, and tells you exactly how to produce your own customer testimonials from your raving fans.

This is part of our tenth anniversary celebration. There’s lots more to come, so be sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel, or Follow me on Facebook.

–That’s a wrap.

I’VE STOPPED PRODUCING TESTIMONIALS

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It happened again: A client came to me with the idea of producing a series of customer testimonials. Another video producer had already shot one testimonial with one of his best customers. I watched it.

The testimonial – let’s pretend it was for Fred’s Lawn Service – shares the time when Fred summed up his service in one sentence.

“That’s when I knew that he understood me,” the testimonial says.

With that one sentence, Fred won over a new customer. It’s a golden, pivotal moment, and one that every prospect should hear. So what’s wrong? – That moment occurred more than three-fourths of the way thru the video!

It’s a three minute video, so statistics show that most of the viewers have already stopped watching. It’s called Burying The Lead.

Many video producers don’t take the time to find those golden moments. They shoot the footage, maybe make a few linear edits and they’re done.

Testimonial videos can be one of the most powerful things that you can invest in. But if the message doesn’t get thru, it’s not going to bring you more customers. That’s why I’ve stopped producing them.

I produce YES-timonials.
There’s lots of things that go into making a YES-timonial. The most important one is knowing the stories and the phrases that trigger the buying impulse in prospects. My experience in broadcasting, working with every imaginable category of business, along with nine years of producing successful business videos, is why I can make that claim.

Want to know more about video YES-timonials? Let me send you my FREE e-book. Then, let’s have a conversation about your business.

–that’s a wrap.

Customer Testimonials Become Yes-timonials With Video

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Many websites have testimonials. If someone is in the service industry, or one of the trades, it’s simple to take a couple of lines off of a comment card and post it. Many of those choose only to identify the customer by first name and last initial. Then the question becomes: Is that testimonial compelling enough to close a sale? I can tell you from experience it is not.

Your customers have a story to tell about their relationship with you. That story should not only show the connection, but it should have emotion and together, those factors can help prospects form a deeper connection with your brand. You can turn those ordinary customer testimonials into YES-timonials with a well-produced video. Each video must have three things: 1. Credibility, 2. Relatability, 3. Full Disclosure.

The word Incredible actually means Not Credible. I’ve written before about the service where you can get actors to rave about your product or service on video. Their acting is over-the-top, and they’re too polished. How can that be at all credible? Trust and believability is established within a few seconds of listening to someone. If they are credible, you’ll want to keep listening.

The customer must be relatable. They should be in the same demographic as the target customer, and they must look and talk the same as well. There is one testimonial I see a lot with a couple of women from Wisconsin raving about a certain website. Their stats show that they do very well in the Midwest, but their customer base is almost non-existent in Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas and Texas.

There must be full disclosure. Did you know that many products give out samples to professional reviewers? They must report it if that is the case. Some do not. Full disclosure also extends to the customer’s name. They can’t be listed as “Bill R.” And that also means they must sign a waiver and agree to have their name listed under their testimonial

I recently produced a series of video YES-timonials for someone who advises folks on retirement goals. We had one from a CPA who described how he went from a skeptic to a raving fan. We produced another one targeted at Millennials. The messages are compelling and make you want to find out more.

Videos are six times more likely to be shared than a photo. And Forbes says 64% of customers are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video about it.
If you’d like to learn more about making video YES-timonials, ask for my e-book and learn the good, the bad, and the awkward of having to do it yourself.

–that’s a wrap.