The Secret to GREAT Testimonials

If you’re trying to figure out how to ask for (and receive) great testimonials for your business, you’re not alone. I wanted to know how to do this, so I spoke to my friend Brighton West, a testimonial expert, to get the top 3 tips on how to get great testimonials.

Find out how Brighton West has solved the nightmare scenario when it comes to video testimonials. [NOTE: Brighton West offers a personalized video testimonial interview and production service. Book a call with Brighton.]

The Secret to GREAT Testimonials

1. BE EXCEPTIONAL

First, don’t be average, he says.

“If you’re a mediocre business,” Brighton says, “make the business better before you start asking your clients to say great things about you.”

Dane Golden: And Brighton, you actually have a testimonial service yourself, right? What’s it called?

Brighton West: So my website is Brighton West Video, and I provide video testimonials for businesses, mostly service-based businesses. So it is just $699 for 3, count them, 3, testimonials from different clients. 

2. REACH OUT IN A PERSONALIZED WAY

Don’t just send a big spam email out to all of your clients. And don’t just say “Hey, can you go on and give me a testimonial on LinkedIn or Google?”

Instead, send them a personalized email or call them and say:

“Would you mind leaving a testimonial for me?” and explain how to give the testimonial. 

This way, it’s specific. It’s not just all of your customers being asked to do something and not being reminded of why your business exceeded their expectations, and of why your business was exceptional. Remind them of that. 

3. MAKE IT SUPER-EASY FOR YOUR CLIENTS

If you want great testimonials, you’ve got to make it super-easy by reminding them about the specific results that they achieved with your help.

It’s unreasonable to expect your customers will just go out and do this on their own. 

So you probably don’t want to just write an email to all your customers together, asking them all to do a testimonial. Instead, if you want your customers to review you on LinkedIn or Google or Yelp, you need to go to those platforms and get the link. It’s not that difficult to go on LinkedIn, for instance, and ask for a review. LinkedIn makes it easy for you to just send them a direct link to how to give you a recommendation.

Overall, the best way is to make it a one-click solution for your customers.

THE FOUR DIFFERENT WAYS TO DO VIDEO TESTIMONIALS

If you want to do video testimonials, you should consider what way you want to do it. There are four ways. They are:

1. THE “DO-IT-YOURSELF VIDEO TESTIMONIAL

The first type of video testimonial is the one where you do it yourself.

But the problem is that most people never end up asking their clients for testimonials, and then the clients never end up doing it. They want to, but they don’t know the words to use to get started. They usually try to do it with Zoom, but this results in a lower-quality result. Brighton uses a better custom software for testimonials.

And it takes a lot of time to work with your client to try to get the right clips out of them, and get the information that you need to put in the video. And then you have to do a good edit if you want anyone to watch it.

So the do-it-yourself is a big investment of time and work.

2. HIRE A PROFESSIONAL VIDEOGRAPHER

The second kind of video testimonial is when you hire a professional videographer.

This is the traditional route to go. You hire a professional videographer with a studio, then you set aside some time to bring your clients in, you block out your schedule, and probably pay your marketing team to be there, too. It’s a significant, work and expense for everyone involved.

Sadly, these videos don’t seem very authentic because there’s just too much stress involved.

3. SUBSCRIBE TO A SOFTWARE OPTION

You can also get video testimonials by using a software-based solution. This is a testimonial app or website where you pay about $50 per month. 

With a software-based testimonial, you send a link to your clients and they record it on their own using the app. But often people pay for this service and forget they even have it, or don’t even use it.

Also, it doesn’t make your clients very comfortable because it’s not very personalized. And older users are less likely to use it.

Also, the clients aren’t very comfortable. It’s not a very personalized solution. And they don’t do it unless they’re, you know, in their teens or maybe their early twenties and they end up with not a very good product because someone’s not working with your client to get them to say the things that they need to say to convince your next ideal client.

4. A PERSONALIZED VIDEO TESTIMONIAL SERVICE

There are a couple of personalized video testimonial services. They tend to be larger businesses and tend to be expensive. However Brighton West runs a one-person personalized video testimonial service that offers a similar service. He’s a sole proprietor who works out of his home, so keeps things personal and simple for the clients in the testimonial process.

About one client, Brighton says that:

“They keep coming back and buying more 3-packs because they want to have very specific examples. They already have a few on their website. But they want to have very specific senior people, junior people, people who are black, people who are white, men, women… They want to have a lot of options that they then use. What they do is they send those [testimonials out to customers]… So when someone is going through the process of being sold to, they will take that video to say, ‘Hey, this person is most like the person I’m talking to,’ and receive the results that are exactly like the person that I’m selling to… And they found that to be super helpful in their sales process… So people want to see women on a website, they want to see men, they want to see different things. So make sure you’ve got a little bit of diversity in your testimonials.”

BRIGHTON WEST TESTIMONIALS

Brighton provides a video testimonial interview and production service for mostly service-based businesses. It costs just $699 for 3 testimonials from different clients. While professional video testimonials commonly cost $1000 per video or more, Brighton says that he can provide them at this price because he has refined his process over time to make it seamless for the customer.

“I help businesses get professional and authentic client video testimonials with very little effort on the part of the business or the part of their customers and clients,” he said.

Find out how Brighton West has solved the nightmare scenario when it comes to video testimonials. [NOTE: Brighton West offers a personalized video testimonial interview and production service. Book a call with Brighton.]