Align video testimonials with the sales process
The thing to remember about video testimonials is that content must be aligned and shaped to where you are in the sales process and where your customer is in the buying cycle. Most sales processes have 3 stages; find – win – keep. CLICK ON THE SLIDE BELOW.
Look at where your customer is in the buying cycle
The diagram below shows the process that a customer would follow when buying a product or service. The buying cycle is different from the sales process in that it has an external focus on the customer rather than a focus on internal sales activities.
You will see that FIND in the sales process equates to Awareness and Interest in the buying cycle; WIN equates to Trial and Buy; KEEP equates to the Loyalty stage in the buying cycle.
It is important to consider both these processes when deciding on the content, style and key marketing message that the video testimonial or case study must convey.
It's about resolving customer objections
We know very well that in any sales process, there are bound to be customer objections. Skilled sales professionals will know their prospects well enough to understand what those objections are and how to counter them.
But what few do is actually use testimonials and case studies for objection handling. They are a powerful and trusted source of information that can be used to address customer objections to buy.
For example
Let's say that Jim Brodie is a sales professional from Greek Holidays Ltd. He is about to clinch a deal with an HR Director of a large publishing company to hold a 300 person sales conference in a large hotel. Jim has addressed most objections of price, time and quality but one remains. It is about the risk of poor service at the conference centre hotel.
Jim has addressed this before in the proposal but he needs to emphasise it more right now. He decides to show a very short video testimonial on an iPad. The one and a half minute video is short and to the point and shows a hotel guest speaking about their positive experience at the hotel.
There are some important guidelines for producing a testimonial for use in this sales situation. It should not look over produced and it should not look like a DIY job. The video should convey challenges that were overcome as well as highlighting all the positives.