Video ads can definitely be effective in bringing new customers to your business. However, what's even more effective are word-of-mouth recommendations. Customer testimonial videos, when well-made, can feel like word-of-mouth recommendations to prospective customers.

But what do you need to do to ensure that customer testimonial video content is well-made? To find out the answers to this question, read on. In this article, we'll take you through the best practices to keep in mind for creating video testimonials that transform prospects into customers.

1. Make the videos crisp and concise

Before smartphones became the norm, testimonial videos tended to be elaborate affairs. However, these days, almost everyone owns a smartphone, and in general, people's attention spans have taken a beating. So, elaborate customer testimonial videos simply won't work. What you need to do is to make your video testimonials crisp, concise, and to the point.

So, when writing scripts for your video testimonials, try and write them for 1-minute videos. Doing this will go a long way towards ensuring that the video testimonials are engaging and also effective at conveying the core message to your target audience. After all, you've got to consider the fact that the majority of digital content is consumed across mobile devices.

2. Bring authenticity to the fore

Sure, you can hire an actor and write a story for your customer testimonial video. However, instead of 'faking it', why don't you try roping in a real customer for the video? Of course, a real customer won't probably boast the acting talent that a professional actor will. However, in terms of appearing and feeling authentic, there's no way that an actor can match up to a real customer.

It's important to remember that there should be a difference between customer testimonial videos and TV commercials. When a prospective customer watches a customer testimonial video, the prospective customer would want to know about the first-hand experience of the customer in terms of using your product and/or services.

3. Write scripts but don't make your videos feel too scripted

Scripts are vital for customer testimonial videos - there's no doubt about it. However, just because scripts are important doesn't mean that the customer testimonial videos should feel scripted. Instead, customer testimonial videos should have organic touches to them. If they don't, they'll fail to carry the 'word-of-mouth recommendation' feeling.

For video testimonials, the aim of writing a script is different from what it is for a conventional TV commercial. The script is only meant to serve as a guide. However, it shouldn't dictate what customers should and shouldn't say. In fact, when preparing scripts for video testimonials, the customers to be featured in the videos should be consulted. Ultimately, it's their opinions about your products and/or services that you want to highlight, right?

4. Highlight true value propositions

Highlighting true value propositions should be one of your primary goals when creating video testimonials. To do it, you need to think like a prospective customer who's interested in your brand but hasn't purchased anything from it yet. Think of the most pertinent questions that your prospective customers are likely to ask and list them.

Once you've listed down all the questions of your prospective customers, sit down with your existing customers and get to know their experiences in detail. You'll find that their experiences will have answers to all the questions you listed, and these answers are the true value propositions. Quite simply, including them in your customer testimonial videos can go a long way toward motivating prospective customers to buy from you.

5. Treat the customers like your brand ambassadors

In customer video testimonials, it's the customers who are essentially representing your brand. So, it's essential that you put in the effort to make them look good in the videos. If a customer is recording the video remotely, i.e., without you being there to supervise, you could send the customer a make-up kit and/or a ring light to help.

Hiring a video production company would be better in this regard as the company will ensure that the customers look their best before filming them. It's also important to make the customer feel comfortable. If you fail to do this, the end result will most likely be something that nobody would want to watch. For instance, if you're filming a customer who's not really feeling comfortable, you might end up with a video where the customer is struggling to speak smoothly.

6. Once a video testimonial is ready, share it wisely

So, you've created a video testimonial - that's great! But now, you've got to share it, and on the sharing front, you've got to make the right moves to ensure that your target audience sees it.

In terms of video testimonial sharing, we recommend doing the following to ensure maximum reach:

• Make different versions of the video for your business's social media pages. For instance, the aspect ratios of Facebook videos are different from those of Instagram Stories posts.

• Embed video testimonials on your official website. Ideally, your official website should have a separate 'Testimonials' page where prospective customers can access all types of testimonial content.

• Share the video testimonials with leads on email marketing campaigns.

• Repurpose content from the video testimonials for blogs, e-books, and case studies.

So, these are the 6 best practices you need to keep in mind before filming a customer testimonial video. If you want top-notch video testimonials for increasing your customer base, do consider getting in touch with Melty Cone - a video marketing firm based in NYC.