Why?  Because it’s all too easy to let testimonials fall through the cracks.  Especially if no one is specifically assigned the responsibility for them.

In most companies, if individual marketing managers want testimonials, they have to get them themselves.  And with everything else on their plates, they just don’t have the time, money, or resources to even attempt the job, much less do it right.  So they avoid testimonial-driven creative altogether.  Which is a shame, because testimonials can boost response 30% or more.

The solution?  Consider appointing one person in your marketing department to manage the process of getting testimonials – and be the point person everyone in your organization contacts when they need testimonials.

Put this task in their job description, and include testimonial-related objectives in their annual goals.   For instance:

• Conduct an annual testimonial drive, to be completed by DATE.
• Film and edit 12-16 high-quality customer testimonial videos for TV, PR and web use.
• Secure signed testimonial releases.  Keep an up-to-date repository of signed releases, with photos of each candidate, and dates of the shoot.
• Using a service like The Transcription Company (Burbank, CA), have the full testimonial interviews transcribed — with time code — for quick reference.  (NOTE:  This will speed up the testimonial video editing process and save you money.)
• From the transcriptions, develop a “best testimonial quotes” document, arranged by topic, for use in direct mail and other print media. Distribute to the marketing and PR team.

 
Your testimonial point person will need to have a budget adequate to cover the task – and may need to enlist outside help.  But by making testimonial recruitment a written, quantifiable goal, you’ll be assuring yourself the steady stream of customer testimonials you need to boost sales.  It will get done.  (And oh yes, senior management – and your peers in other departments – will thank you!)

In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about what The Testimonial Wrangler can do to help, click here.  Or email me at Marla@TestimonialWrangler.com.

To find your product’s true believers, you need to start with a list of promising candidates: customers who – at least on paper– seem happy with your product.

You’re also going to need a list of well-thought out screening criteria and you’re going to need to apply those criteria through a disciplined process.

But before you do all that, you’re going to need to decide on the media to employ for your testimonial drive.

For that, you have a number of choices. One obvious method is to do an email blast to customers who live in or near the city where you’re planning to shoot your testimonial videos. In the email you simply state that you’re looking for satisfied customers who might be interested in giving an on-camera testimonial for use in advertising. Virtually overnight — and with little-to-no time and effort spent on your part — dozens of high quality testimonial candidates land in your inbox.

If only it were that easy.

Unfortunately, you’re likely to come up short if the only thing you do is an email blast.

Why? Email response rates are typically low and the commitment level from those who do respond is often low as well. Often many customers will quickly respond with a one or two-sentence reply that they are interested and then simply not reply to follow-up emails asking for more information and a photo.

Another reason: Unless you have a large production budget, you’ll likely want to limit your testimonial recruiting to candidates who live in or near the city where you’ll be shooting, so you don’t have to fly anyone in. Even if you’re shooting in a major metropolitan area, like Los Angeles or New York, your customer base in those areas is still finite.

What to do?

One of my favorite techniques is to get a list of customers who live in the shoot zone and put half a dozen or more testimonial wranglers on the phone to call into the list with what appears (to the customer) to be a brief customer satisfaction questionnaire.

As with a real customer satisfaction survey, the questions are designed to gauge the customer’s level of satisfaction — and range of experience — with the product. For example:

• How long have you been using the product?
• Why did you initially buy the product? Any other reason?
• On a scale of one to 10, how satisfied are you with the product? Why do you say that?
• Has this product made a difference in your life? If so, how?
• What do you like best about the product? Why?
• What product features do you use most often?
• Do you think this product is better than competitive products? Why?
• Is there anything you don’t like about the product? Why?
• Who should use this product? Why?

 
One of the advantages of calling into your customer base – vs. emailing — is that you can identify a lot of testimonial candidates very quickly. Using this technique, I’m often able to identify seventy-five to a hundred high quality testimonial candidates – in the shoot zone — in as little as two weeks.

Another advantage? During the call, your testimonial wranglers can hear each customer tell their story first-hand — in their own words and with their own voice. They can gauge their level of enthusiasm and get a sense of their energy level. Keep in mind that you’re not looking for run-of-the-mill happy customers. You’re looking for “true believers”. People who will give powerful, persuasive testimonials that will be worth the time and expense to film, then share with hundreds of thousands – or millions — of other potential customers via TV, the web or other media.

Note that the wranglers do not make testimonial “picks” at the time the calls are made. All they are trying to do at this stage is identify potential testimonial candidates and collect information.

It’s worth noting that the testimonial wranglers do not mention anything about appearing in a testimonial video until after they’ve asked the survey questions. That’s because what they’re looking for are genuine fans of the product, not someone who just wants to be on TV.

We’ll be sharing additional video testimonial tips and techniques in upcoming posts. One theme that you’ll notice throughout is integrity. Customers can spot a testiphonial a mile away. So you need to build integrity into every step of the process, beginning with the recruiting and screening stages and all the way through the shooting and editing of your testimonial videos.

Finding true believers definitely requires a carefully thought-out process and extra work. But it also results in extra quality. The kind of quality that leads to truly awesome testimonials – and the increased response rates you’re looking for.

If all of this sounds like a lot to take on… well, it can be. Which is why many infomercial producers – experts in how to use testimonial videos to boost response – usually don’t do it in-house, even when budgets are tight. Instead, they hire “testimonial wranglers”.

The name grows out of a Hollywood tradition that started with horse wranglers used in westerns. The word “wrangler” was then attached to people who had anything to do with controlling animals for a shoot. For various feature and TV commercial productions there have been bug wranglers, bee wranglers, bird wranglers — and even baby wranglers who are actually trained child care experts or RNs.

The title “testimonial wrangler” sounds like somebody who wrestles consumers to the ground and hog-ties them. But what the testimonial wrangler really does it take care of the onerous details that might otherwise have you hog-tied. Which is what my company, The Testimonial Wrangler, is all about.

A lot is at stake, both in terms of your marketing results and your company’s image.  So you need to be very selective about what kind of people will be representing you.  And that means you need lots of choices. Because the more choices you have, the more likely you are to get the kind of awesome testimonials – and increased sales — you’re looking for.

As I mentioned in a previous post, nobody knows more about how to identify great testimonial candidates – and produce great testimonial videos — than infomercial producers and the “testimonial wranglers” they employ.  Frankly, it’s a type of expertise they’ve had to develop.  Why?   They know that to win on TV they need to leverage every advantage available to them.  That means testimonials.  Lots of them.

So how do they get so many great testimonials and from so many different people?

Simple:  In advance of the shoot, they conduct a “testimonial drive”.  And that’s precisely what you’ll need to do if you want to produce your own powerful, persuasive testimonial videos.  Not sure how to conduct a testimonial drive?

In a nutshell, conducting a testimonial drive is a lot like casting talent for TV commercials.  First, you need to identify a number of candidates for consideration.  Then, through a number of carefully planned and executed steps, you narrow down the list.  And finally, you select only the very best to invite to the shoot.

There are a number of different types of testimonial drives, and we’ll be covering them all in future blog posts.  Click here to find out more about how my company, The Testimonial Wrangler, can help.

You monitor their experience and results, and at the end of the trial, invite them to the shoot.  While this type of testimonial is an obvious choice if you’re launching a new product and don’t yet have customers, it’s also a technique used extensively by companies that have customers — and lots of them.

The reason?  “New users” inject a special kind of energy and enthusiasm into testimonial videos because they’ve only just recently “discovered” your product. They’ve either found a solution to a problem they thought was unsolvable — or they’ve discovered that your product is vastly superior to whatever they were using before.  Either way, they are thrilled to have found your product — and eager to spread the news!

Yet the “new user” testimonials I’ve described above are only one way to use “non-customers” in your testimonial videos.  Here are a few others…

• Establish instant credibility with ‘moment of discovery’ testimonials. There’s nothing quite as persuasive as watching an ordinary consumer discover the benefits of your product while the camera rolls. In one case, we stopped consumers in a mall and led them to an area where an exercise machine had been set up. With the cameras rolling, the recruits were asked to try out the machine. They volunteered comments like, “Wow! I can feel the burn already” and “Gee, this is fun!”  (We’ll discuss the techniques for producing this type of testimonial video in an upcoming blog.)

• Many years ago, the late David Ogilvy suggested that print ads would work better if copywriters “flagged” their target audience with headlines that began with phrases like, “Attention Small Business Owners” or “Got Athlete’s Foot?” In television you can use a more elaborate and involving “flag” by getting ordinary people (who may or may not use your product) to talk about a problem they have that your product happens to solve. For example, an advertiser might put up a sign in a mall that says, “Talk to us about your back pain.” People come to an area you’ve designated and talk about what hurts, where it hurts and how much they suffer, creating a compelling opening that will have other likely customers thinking to themselves, “That’s exactly the kind of pain I have!”  Voila! You’ve got a transfixed audience of precisely the people you want to reach with your new product.

• ‘Challenge’ testimonials use customers to make side-by-side comparisons that show your product’s superiority. Perhaps the most famous “challenge” campaign wasn’t a direct response spot at all. “The Pepsi Challenge” of the 1980s got consumers to compare Coke and Pepsi, with Pepsi coming up the winner. This type of testimonial video can be very powerful, but for some reason, it’s vastly underutilized in advertising, particularly Direct Response TV (DRTV).

 
When looking for ways to boost response for your business, it pays to consider the many ways to use customer and non-customer testimonials. But there are more ways to use “real people” to boost sales. I’ll be covering that topic in my next post.

So why not give testimonials a try? It’s a proven fact that testimonials can lift response by 30% or more. And given the many ways your organization can use them, they truly are a “best buy” for your marketing dollar.

In my first blog post I shared with you how I spent years avoiding testimonials, even though I knew they worked.  I wanted to use testimonials. I just didn’t have the time – or know how – to get them.  If that sounds like you, you might want to consider a turn-key solution like The Testimonial Wrangler.

Your existing customers are the most obvious pool of potential spokespeople for your company, brand or product. They’re people who use and adore what you sell, and whose enthusiasm for your product will add emotional energy to your testimonial videos.  There are two broad categories of customer testimonials.

• Sound-bite testimonials involve getting customers in front of the camera for a short while to say a few positive things about your product. When done properly, these testimonials create a sense of great spontaneity and give you short, believable sound bites of people discussing their experiences with your product. This creates what we call the “Wow Factor.”  When a TurboTax user says “I thought Free Edition was fantastic!” or an AARP member enthusiastically proclaims “I love discounts!” you think to yourself, “Wow, these people really do love the product!”

• In-depth testimonials also involve your customers talking about what your product has done for them. However, in-depth testimonials require a lengthy interview (often an hour or more) during which you explore many facets of the way your customers have experienced your product and its benefits. Because you can obtain a great deal of useful language and information this way, in-depth testimonials are pretty much a requirement when you’re producing a 30-minute infomercial (or even a laptop presentation for your sales team).

 
In a previous blog post (July 25, 2011) I talked about how I rediscovered the power of testimonials when I was asked to do a 30-minute infomercial for Trendwest Resorts, a timeshare developer.

We needed not only great material but lots of it. So I didn’t just plant these folks in front of the camera for a few minutes until I got a nice sound bite or two. Instead I interviewed many people, in depth. I had a 30-minute show to fill, and I needed to get everything they could give me, every word, every enthusiastic endorsement, every supporting “reason why.”

We spent the time to conduct in-depth testimonial interviews — and we were blown away by the richness and breadth of what the “true believers” had to say. This produced an extra dividend, because the managers who ran Trendwest got a lot more than great testimonials. They also gained powerful and useful insights about how people were actually using their timeshares to enjoy better vacations. Let me give you an example or two…

Prior to the testimonial video shoot, we thought that the vast majority of timeshare owners were just using the kitchens to make coffee and a simple breakfast. What we learned instead was that the kitchen produced treasured vacation opportunities for many of the timeshare owners. Men who love to fish on vacation loved the fact that they could bring their fresh catch back to the time share unit and not only be able to wrap it and store it in the fridge, but also enjoy their fresh-caught fish for dinner. Some of the women talked about how they loved to cook, but didn’t have enough time in their everyday lives to make the kinds of special meals they wanted to make for their families. Their idea of a great vacation was to have hubby and the kids go off jet-skiing for the day (or whatever) while they shopped for fresh, local produce and then made a meal to remember. Other families just appreciated the fact that they could save precious vacation dollars by not having to eat every meal out.We got literally hundreds of insights like these – information for management to use in future sales materials.
 
You know, many of us work for companies that spend big money on market research. The research company does the field research and writes up a report, usually including a few verbatims. As a result, we think we know what customers like about our products and how they use them. But if you really want to know what customers think, nothing – I mean nothing – beats in-depth customer interviews. Because you not only get the information that you as a marketer or product developer need to do your job, but you get it straight from the horse’s mouth. And you have a copy of it – which means you can share your customer testimonial videos throughout your organization – with Customer Service, Public Relations, Human Resources, Engineering, Investors and others. And how often does anyone in any large organization actually get to see customers talking about what they love about their product? Hardly ever!

Of course, when you shoot in-depth testimonial videos, you also get a lot of great sound-bite testimonials for use in short-form DRTV, radio and other media. So even though they cost a bit more to produce, in-depth testimonial video shoots deliver the best value simply because of the range and amount of testimonial content they generate. To see examples of customer testimonials, click here.

One caveat: In-depth testimonials involve conducting a Testimonial Drive, with a thoughtfully designed recruiting and screening process. We’ll discuss the techniques for conducting various types of Testimonial Drives in an upcoming blog. Be sure to stop by. In the meantime, you might want to check out the services The Testimonial Wrangler offers.

But well-done testimonial videos can do a whole lot more than add credibility to your advertising claims.   You can also use them to…

Grab the viewer’s attention. So much so, in fact, that many infomercials open with a dozen or more testimonials.  Viewers hear satisfied customers talking about their experiences even before the on-camera spokesperson or voice-over announcer establishes what the program is all about.  And it works like gangbusters!  People are drawn in because they love to hear other people’s success secrets. If someone out there has the solution to a problem they’re facing, they don’t want to miss out on it.

Target your message. Testimonial videos help viewers get comfortable with your product by giving them an opportunity to see someone just like them discussing its merits. Dating services, for instance, used to be a difficult sell because of the perception that they were “just for losers.”  But that perception is now a thing of the past, thanks to all those wonderful spots from eHarmony and Match.com.  The spots feature intelligent, attractive, likeable, real people talking enthusiastically about their experiences.  Viewers instantly warm to the idea of a dating website because they relate to those people.  In a nutshell, customer testimonial videos not only answer the question, “What can this product do for me?” but also, “What type of person uses this product?”

Connect emotionally with your audience. When you see a timeshare owner hug his wife and say, “It was the best investment I ever made in my family because of all the things we’ve done together — and all the memories we have,” you get a comfortable feeling about the company that made all those great vacations possible.  When a TurboTax user enthusiastically says, “I got a lot of cash, and that’s because of TurboTax!” you listen…and start thinking, “Maybe it could do that for me, too.”

No doubt about it.  Testimonial videos really work. Which is why every infomercial is crammed full of them.

The truth is, customer testimonial videos provide one of the best returns on your marketing dollar.  In addition to using them in commercials and infomercials, you can use them on your website, in video press releases, sales meetings, laptop presentations, stockholder meetings, partner pitches, new employee orientation…and more.  You can also have the video testimonials transcribed – and use the print testimonials in direct mail and other media.  The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

“So why doesn’t everybody use customer testimonial videos?” you might ask.  Quite frankly, the answer is that getting great customer testimonial videos takes time, money and commitment.  And that there are secrets to the process that not everybody knows.

Over the next few weeks and months this blog will give you the know-how you need to conduct your own “testimonial drive” and tap into the power of testimonials.   You might also want to check out how The Testimonial Wrangler can help.

So what makes the difference between an unconvincing testimonial and a powerful one? In a nutshell, great testimonials generally have the following characteristics in common…

1.) They are real. Don’t try to substitute actors for actual customers. They look and sound too perfect. Employees and friends don’t work either. Viewers can spot a “testiphonial” a mile away. What you need are real customers expressing their honest thoughts and opinions about your product.

2.) They sound natural. Your testimonial videos shouldn’t sound scripted or rehearsed. So resist the urge to feed your customers specific lines during the shoot. A great testimonial sounds like it came from a customer, not a writer. When editing, don’t limit yourself to only using sound bites that are flawless. A few “uhs” and “ums” actually add to a testimonial’s believability.

3.) They convey passion. Ever see a commercial in which positive words came out of a customer’s mouth – but they just weren’t believable or convincing? When identifying testimonial candidates, you need to keep in mind that you’re dealing with real people, not actors. Sometimes customers with great stories to tell will freeze up in front of a camera. Or they just won’t have the energy level – or ability to express themselves — that you’re looking for. Let’s face it, some customers – and their stories — just make for better TV than others. Identify them in advance, so your shoot day is as productive as possible.

4.) They provide specifics. Don’t let customers say your product is the greatest thing since sliced bread and leave it at that. Have them tell you why. And make sure you give them enough time to do it. Allow at least 30 minutes per person – more if your subject is complex. And encourage testimonial providers to include lots of detail, as this will give you the greatest depth and breadth of material to work with, as well as increasing your chances of getting them to relax on camera.

5.) Include attributions. To further enhance credibility, include at least part of the testimonial providers’ names whenever possible – plus other relevant information, such as what state they live in, or how long they’ve been using your product.

6.) They reflect diversity. Does your product have special appeal to women? Is it used by people of different ages? Or by people in different areas of the country – with varying income and education levels? Or by people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds? If your product or service appeals to a broad demographic, your customer video testimonials should reflect that.

7.) They are visual. When you hire employees, you want to see them, not just talk to them over the phone. And it’s the same when shooting testimonial videos aimed at viewers who are thinking about “hiring” your product. They want to see the people who are recommending it. To be able to look them in the eye and check out their body language, their gestures, and their appearance. That’s why it’s so important to use customer testimonial videos whenever possible – and to use customer photographs when you can’t.

8.) They’re from people viewers can relate to. When you air a spot containing video testimonials, you’re inviting viewers to “join the club” of satisfied users of your product. So the “current members” you introduce them to should be people they’ll like and trust and find they have something in common with. For this reason, it’s essential to choose testimonial providers who are believable, attractive, articulate, and appealing. The kind of “winners” you’d want in your own club!

9.) They demonstrate your product’s features and benefits. An attractive young woman is talking about how pleased she is with her exercise equipment. As a professional athlete, she used to do 2,000 sit-ups a day. Now, she gets a better work-out…in less time. Very impressive, you think. But what really cements her story in your mind is when you see her perfect abs in action, on the exercise equipment, then slamming a volley ball over the net. Now you haven’t just made a claim; you’ve proven it! Whenever budget permits, shoot b-roll footage of customers using your product, and intercut it with their testimonial footage. It will not only lend additional credibility – it will also add energy and visual interest to the finished testimonial video.

Remember that Trendwest Resorts infomercial I mentioned in my last blog post? We put a lot of work up front in identifying the “true believers” and we got some absolutely amazing testimonials. But what really put the testimonial videos over the top was the vacation footage we intercut with those testimonials. You see, after the stage shoot, we sent a small, documentary-style film crew on vacation with several of our “star” testimonial families. The result? In the finished infomercial, we were not only able to show the families speaking to camera about the resort amenities. We could actually show them enjoying the amenities! In a future blog post, I’ll be talking more about using b-roll to add energy and visual interest to customer testimonial videos. In the meantime, if you’d like to see examples of customer testimonials with b-roll, click here.

I knew I should be using testimonials – but I didn’t have the time to go out and get them. And to tell you the truth I wasn’t sure how to go about it. So instead I spent a career (and a small fortune) testing copy, offers, formats, you name it – everything but testimonials, which can be the most powerful response building tool of them all.

The moment of truth came when I found myself running an agency that specialized in Direct Response TV (DRTV).  One of my clients, a timeshare developer called Trendwest Resorts, hired us to produce a 30-minute infomercial.  The script called for testimonials – 20 to 25 of them. And they had to be good. Which meant the customers had to be more than run-of-the-mill happy customers — They had to be “true believers” in the Trendwest product.

Finding them wasn’t fast and it wasn’t free.  But it was a wise investment. First off, the time and money used to recruit the testimonial subjects — and screen them — was only a tiny fraction of the overall infomercial budget. Yet it proved to be powerful insurance that the infomercial would have considerable impact and would resonate with the people who saw it. You can get an idea of that impact by clicking here.

Many of the methods I’ve developed for producing awesome customer testimonial videos grew out of that first production for Trendwest.  Some of the methods might surprise you.  I’ll be talking about some in an upcoming post.  In the meantime, if you’re looking for help with recruiting or shooting customer testimonials, you might want to see what The Testimonial Wrangler has to offer.