Testimonials are one of the strongest marketing tools your company must deploy, especially in direct-to-consumer marketing. If we have one piece of advice, it is to incorporate testimonials, especially video testimonials, into your marketing.
We were very fortunate recently to partner with VaynerMentors, a consulting offering from The Sasha Group, a VaynerX company. They are a team of growth practitioners from Gary Vaynerchuk’s leadership circle that focuses on building growth for small-to-mid-sized businesses.
Script to Screen partnered with The Sasha Group to create a testimonial reel featuring one of the company’s earliest success stories, Young Nails. Young Nails is a beauty company that rapidly grew its revenue due to the help of VaynerMentors.
Prior to working with The Sasha Group, Young Nails was a family business on the edge of financial ruin. Now, they have expanded their product offerings, shifted to direct-to-consumer sales and built an entirely new content creation team.
Clearly, this was information that The Sasha Group wanted to be able to share with the world. Young Nails attributes VaynerMentors’ consultancy as the reason they were able to escape from being a struggling company to becoming a contender in the beauty business. They attribute their remarkable success to these marketing and communications geniuses that understand how to market services and products.
We at Script to Screen were thrilled to help The Sasha Group spread the word of their success with a video testimonial. Video testimonials are our lifeblood. They are a marketing tactic we have been perfecting over the 35 years the company has been in business. We know they work because we have seen how they’ve worked for client after client after client.
Script to Screen talks a lot these days about the Review Economy. The lifeblood of sales, in our opinion, is the review. If your product is reviewed poorly on Amazon, or Yelp, or anywhere else, your sales are probably paying the price. Conversely, if your reviews are strong, there is a good likelihood that your company enjoys a position at the very top of the search results page for your category.
The importance of the top listing on sites like Amazon has gotten so critical, companies have risked de-listing from Amazon by creating fake reviews for their products. There are companies that used to be top sellers on Amazon, that are now completely removed from the platform. They were offering people gift cards to leave reviews for their products, against the online retail giant’s terms and services.
Obviously, purchasing fake reviews is a deceptive thing to do. While it may temporarily create an illusion that your company’s product delivers something it doesn’t, ultimately it will breed distrust for your company. It is a short-term, unethical tactic that can only work if your company is a “fly by night.”
Generally, fake reviews have a certain smell to them. There are even websites devoted to analyzing a product’s reviews and determining which ones are fake. Much like purchasing fake likes on a social media site, creating fake reviews will only lead to bad things for your company. They may feel impressive right now, but they will hurt your ability to sell in the future.
So, say you are entering the marketplace with a new product or service. You have a small, but loyal, customer base, but you desperately need to scale. Because you have heard about Amazon’s de-listings, you understand you need to build sentiment about your product the proper way. How do you do it?
The answer, of course, is with video testimonials. That is probably pretty obvious, given they are what this article is about. But what can a video testimonial do for you that a written review cannot?
The first major difference is your prospective customers do not have to read a video review. If you have made it down this far in this article, clearly you are a reader and that is incredible. But many, many people are not. This is at least in part why social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok have become so overwhelmingly popular – people do not have to read the accompanying text to feel like they are taking part in consuming content.
The same thing goes for testimonials. If you give most people an option that will allow them to avoid having to read, they will take it in a heartbeat. The thing about marketing, you must give people the information they want in a way they want to consume it.
The second difference is authenticity. There is no sales tool in the world quite like hearing someone, in their own words, passionately talking about a product or service they have used. Your very best salesperson does not have a spiel even a fraction as powerful as an enthusiastic customer. An honest testimonial is nearly impossible to beat and written words alone do not carry the same conviction that a video testimonial can.
Go back and listen to Habib Solo talk about his experience with The Sasha Group in the video at the top of the page. You believe him. He is not a paid spokesperson. It does not sound like he is a shill. He is an enthusiastic client who is satisfied with what he was sold.
It helps that we are good at listening and editing to bring the most out of a testimonial. Yes, good production values and best practices help, but the key to a good testimonial is just getting their honest opinion recorded on video.
You are on board with the testimonial strategy. How do you get them?
The best and easiest way is to have a production company experienced in generating video testimonials like Script to Screen. But let us say your company is not at the point where it can outsource the procuring and recording of its testimonials just yet. How can you get them yourself?
Sometimes, it is as simple as contacting your customers and asking them to pick up their phones and record one. There is a huge difference between going through your email list and asking past customers to give an honest review and promising them $15 for posting something on Amazon. Making a plea of, “If you send us a review, we will consider posting it on our website!” is completely ethical. As you feature authentic testimonials, more will follow. You are giving people a way to feel even better about that purchase they already liked. You are establishing a deeper link between them and your company.
In summation, your testimonials might not look as polished and perfect as the Young Nails video for VaynerMentors, but what matters is that they exist. Embrace the Review Economy and scale your business the right way.
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