How to Effortlessly Get Video Testimonials

Okay, so you have an excellent service or you are promoting an item that folks totally love, how to get them to give you a testimonial, a video testimonial at that?

So, this first method is so absolutely innovative that it will immediately blow your mind. Are you ready? All right, here it comes… ASK! Yep, that's right, just ask and you will be astonished how many customers say, yes. That's the good news.

Here's the bad news: even though people's intentions are great and they actually want to help you, they will blather on forever regarding you and the product… NOT GOOD. So what is the solution? Very simple, give them an outline. Do not give them their lines, just an outline of 3 or four items to cover and ask them to do their best to keep it to 5 sentences or less.

It might be something like this:

Point 1. The problem: I was looking for a solution to my widget problem when I saw Kim's video.

Point 2. What did I Promise: He promised his product would resolve my widget troubles.

Point 3. Why/did you Trust me: I knew I could trust him because he looked like Brad Pitt, Robert Redford and Sean Connery all rolled into one magnificent guy, plus he sounded similar to James Earl Jones to boot. What not to trust!? (Oh, Choke me with a stick. :-)

Point 4. The resolution: This product does all Kim said it would do and more.

Point 5. You can't go wrong purchasing from Kim.

(Personally, I intend to make Point 3. Mandatory. At 63 I could do with all the assistance I can get to dig up a date. :-)

Okay back to real life. Do not be afraid to ask people to dress in their Sunday go-to-meetin' best to do your video testimonial. Let them know, once on the World-wide-web ... it's on the Web forever.

Now, this may be a slight too much, however you never know, ask them to give you the equivalent of a model release form.

A simple Google search for: "model release form template" will yield several first-rate templates that you can reword to suit the occasion.

An additional thing to think of is that not everyone is comfortable on camera. But that does not mean that you can't do a video testimonial with them. Simply ask them for their very best photograph (a headshot) and ask them to record their testimonial on a digital recorder or even your answering machine.

A substitute to this is, for you to record a short interview over the phone (Skype, GoogleTalk or AIM) with them and ask them the 5 things I mentioned previously in this article. Then, in your video editing software like Movie Maker just put the customer's photo where the video would have gone and add the audio interview.

Note: This is almost certainly the greatest way to get a testimonial because you can keep them on track.

If you are uncertain how to do that, a search on YouTube will doubtless yield several hundred video editing tutorials.

The long and the short of it is, video testimonials work. Don't be shy, ask for the testimonial. Keep it brief and to the point. Oh yeah, reward them with a deep price cut off their next acquisition with you and after that, ask for a new testimonial.