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A Step-by-Step Guide to Recording a Customer Testimonial Video

There’s no denying that video content is taking over for the simple reason that today’s fast-paced world prefers video content over other types. It can also increase sales, conversions, and many other marketing & sales KPIs. Moreover, algorithms on Google and social media like it. Therefore, having a well-defined video marketing strategy that is efficient to execute is essential for it to be successful. An important segment of video marketing strategy are insightful customer testimonial videos, which can be the turning point of its success. To have satisfied customers building social proof via testimonial videos that spread the trustworthiness of your company to the leads is invaluable.

Today, we will share a detailed guide on how to record a perfect customer testimonial video that brings measurable results, and here are some good video testimonial examples.

1. Prepare the interviewee

After you’ve got a customer willing to record a testimonial, it is important to have them prepared in advance. That’s why it is ideal to arrange a pre-recording meeting to get to know the person and familiarize them with the filming. A pre-recording meeting will also allow you to build rapport and you’ll get to know what the interviewee is/isn’t comfortable talking about.

Furthermore, it will give you information on how to design the interview questions, tailored to the customer’s personality. This is important because it gives the most organic and insightful testimonial videos.

Additional tips for this stage:

Send the interviewee some questions you consider important to answer, discussion bullets, or brainstorming points. These will allow them to think of everything they can talk about and how to express themselves.
Send the interviewee a video tutorial another video testimonial your company uses as a good example

Before the recording, do a rehearsal

2. Prepare the interview questions

With gathered insights from the previous step, now is the time to craft the interview questions. You should already know how you want the testimonial to look like and have a script that follows the testimonial’s key objectives.

You should focus on open-ended questions, and here’s how to construct them:

Ask the interviewee about the time before they were using your product/service. Let them describe their pain-points, challenges, and related emotions.
Question how your solution helped them solve their pain points and how it was working with you, from both their professional and personal perspective.
Ask about their satisfaction after using your solution and what’s changed for the better in their lives/businesses.

Ask whether they would use your services/products again or recommend your company to their professional and personal circles.
Invite them to add anything extra they wish to say.

Finally, do not use scripted questions because they can hinge spontaneity of the testimonial. Your questions should also be designed to answer “the whys” behind the customer’s story. For example — “Why did you decide to sign up for our service at that time?”

3. Choosing and testing the equipment

When choosing the equipment you should consider a high-quality one with additional perks (if possible) for video and audio recording. You should also consider using a 2-camera setup for the best versatility of recording.

To create a fully professional recording make sure to have:

First-class cameras — for example, DSLR solutions
Support stabilization for the camera like tripods or GorillaPods
Properly positioned Lighting — studio or portable solutions

Color calibration target
Color checkers
Additional equipment like teleprompters — if the interviewee needs it, lens-cleaning, etc

High-quality microphone — it depends on the filming environment and there are many types for each like omnidirectional, cardioid, shotgun, or lavalier microphones (lav mic)

First, start by choosing the ideal setting depending on the type of testimonial (brand, product, or service) you are making. You can choose your/interviewee’s workplace, a place where the interviewee feels relaxed or inspired, or even a professional studio.

The next part is properly placing the lighting and testing it from multiple angles. The goal is to have the interviewee’s face clearly visible and the colors in the video that appear natural. Also, try to harness natural light as much as possible and record your testimonial at its peak, at mid-day.

Make sure to test and double-check all the gear the day before recording.

4. Recording and post-production

In general, you should define which recording techniques you will use and gauge how they can contribute to the quality of the customer testimonial. For best results stick with long-sided interviews which will instill professionalism and high-levels of immersion in the viewers. You’ll need patience and possibly some iterations to get the recording right.

Speaking of immersion, filming B roll is a great way to make the testimonial video more appealing and add context. You can tune up your testimonial in many ways during post-production or even hire experts to do it. It is also smart to include other visual elements like overlays, text, or graphics to contribute to the overall quality. Finally, adding opening and closing sequences and CTAs or branding is what wraps up the testimonial.

You will have minutes of raw footage at your disposal, but your finished testimonial will be significantly shorter, depending on your marketing channels.

Final Words

This guide covers the advice mostly for B2B companies who want to record highly-professional, but also organic B2B video testimonials. Depending on the type of your business and customers, you can tone up & down the way you’ll record video testimonials. Your testimonials should transfer the context of your company along with building social proof.

Lastly, it is also essential that you follow-up on the testimonial’s success. Make sure to analyze changes in your business’ KPIs that are directly related to the metrics of your published testimonials. Depending on the insights you acquire you can change or further adjust the way you record video testimonials to better fit your business objectives.

Sam Shepler is the founder and CEO of Testimonial Hero. 150+ B2B revenue teams at Google, UiPath, Medallia, InsightSquared, and many others use Testimonial Hero to easily create customer videos that engage prospects, reduce friction in the sales cycle, and drive more revenue faster.