Almost nine out of ten consumers trust online reviews and testimonials as much as personal recommendations from friends and family. Testimonials help establish credibility and build much-needed social proof. 

Video testimonials, in particular, are particularly effective. While a text testimonial helps build trust, a video testimonial is much more personal and easier to relate to. Here are six advantages of using testimonial videos for your brand. 

1. They Establish Authority and Industry Leadership

Testimonials help establish your authority in the industry. They’re powerful because they provide social proof. They show that others are satisfied with their results – and that you have the expertise and dedication to give customers what they need. 

Social proof helps relieve the doubts that consumers have when they first come across a new brand. If they’ve never heard of you before, how can they look up to you as an authority? When others praise you, they give new customers a reason to look up to you. 

Video testimonials on your website are great, but if you really want to establish authority and industry leadership, you should get them published on other platforms as well. 

For example, you might run a campaign to get Twitter users to post short video testimonials on their Twitter feeds. You can then retweet and highlight the best ones in exchange for a prize, like a $250 off coupon. 

Having people post video testimonials on their own profiles will do wonders for establishing yourself as an authority. 

2. They Build Trust

Video testimonials also build trust. They show people that working with you will bring them the results and solutions they are looking for. Consumers rely on video testimonials and input from third parties to determine whether they can trust a brand or not. 

While any type of review and testimonial can build trust, testimonial videos go a lot further. That’s because they allow for more intimate and personal connections. 

In a video testimonial, the viewer can see the speaker’s facial expressions and hand movements. They can pick up on cues, like their tone of voice, that indicate just how satisfied the speaker was with your service and that they are speaking from the heart. 

If the speaker in a testimonial video relates a personal story, that’s even better. Personal stories will help viewers click with the speaker and identify with them and their issues. They will imagine themselves in the shoes of the speaker, paying for your products and enjoying the same benefits. 

Although consumers trust text testimonials, there is always that nagging doubt in the back of their minds that the review might be fake. A review on Google My Business, for example, often offers no information about the reviewer. 

Sometimes, there is a profile picture and evidence that the reviewer has left reviews for other businesses, strengthening trust. For the most part, though, reviews on Google are generally anonymous. While Google fights fake reviews, plenty do slip through the cracks. 

A video testimonial, on the other hand, shows that there is a real person behind the screen. The more video testimonials, the better. It’s not a bot or someone from inside your company leaving multiple reviews under different aliases. 

Personal stories and body language can help confirm authenticity to the viewer. If you can get the person leaving the testimonial to introduce themselves, that’s even better – it adds yet another element of trust. 

3. They Strengthen Your Relationship With Clients

Video testimonials also help strengthen your relationship with clients. They allow you to retain existing clients and get more repeat customers. People who bought from you a while back may be wondering whether it’s worth buying from you again. Whatever their hesitancy stems from, a video testimonial can reaffirm the benefits of purchasing your products or services. 

That’s why it’s so important to have current video testimonials. A video testimonial from a few years ago is better than no testimonial at all. However, publishing new and fresh video testimonials shows that you have a steady stream of satisfied clients and that the quality of your services has only improved. 

Testimonial videos help create brand loyalty. You can even combine them with a loyalty campaign or incentivize existing customers to create video testimonials by offering entries into a raffle for a special prize. 

Above all, video testimonials allow you to create longer-lasting, personal relationships with new and existing clients. They take trust to a whole new level. 

4. They Add Emotion to Your Brand and Story

Video testimonials do what text testimonials can’t – bring emotion into your brand and story. Did you know that 93% of communication is non-verbal? Fifty-five percent is visual, and 38% is vocal. 

In other words, words or text can only encapsulate 7% of human communication. The remaining 93% of the message is lost. 

Testimonial videos allow you to bring that 93% back. They allow you to show a different side of your company – a caring, respectful, and emotional side. In the testimonial, the speaker can talk about how your products or services affected them and improved their life. They can express emotions like gratitude, happiness, satisfaction, contentment, and joy. 

Associating your business with these positive emotions will lead to more sales and conversions. You need a brand story that people can identify with, and video testimonials help add feeling to your story so that people can identify with it. 

People often base their purchasing decisions based on how they feel at any given moment. If a video testimonial can make someone feel hopeful or happy, they will be more inclined to purchase your product. There’s a reason so many people go on to buy products after watching positive video testimonials – that’s because they feel good about spending money. 

5. They Can Be Part of Your Marketing Campaign

Testimonial videos can also play an essential role in your marketing campaigns. Did you know that two out of three consumers are more likely to buy something or pay for a service after watching a video demonstrating how it has helped someone like them? 

There are many ways to incorporate video testimonials into your advertising campaigns. It’s best if you can advertise on a video-based platform like YouTube. YouTube allows you to display short ads before videos. 

Open your testimonial ad with a “hook” that captures the user’s attention. This hook needs to speak directly to the viewer – for example, you might have the speaker say something like, “One year ago, I faced this-and-this problem.” That would resonate with a viewer who faces a similar problem and has been seeking a solution. 

The reason you want to open with a hook that immediately captures the viewer’s attention is that many YouTube ads are skippable after a few seconds. You only have those few seconds to make an excellent first impression and capture the viewer’s attention before they press the skip button and go on to watch the video they originally intended to. 

Instagram and Facebook are two other platforms where video testimonials make for great ads. You can have video testimonials appear in users’ Facebook feeds, Instagram feeds, or Instagram story feeds. 

One of the traditional disadvantages of advertising on social media is that people go on those platforms to see updates from people they know, especially close friends and family members. As a brand, elbowing your way into the newsfeed and trying to catch users’ attention can be tricky. 

Video testimonials help you overcome that obstacle because they are so personal in nature. Even though the viewer doesn’t know the speaker in the video testimonial, it’s still a real human talking from their heart as opposed to a brand. 

Finally, you can place video ads on other websites using ad networks. It’s best to test out different platforms and see where you get the best results. You’ll get better results with better targeting. Facebook is great for that, as it has incredible targeting tools that really let you drill down and address your primary target audience. 

6. They Help Improve Exposure

Finally, video testimonials help improve exposure. People are more likely to share a video testimonial on social media than a promotional post. That’s especially true if the message resonates with the viewer, and they feel like it would resonate with their friends as well. 

Publishing video testimonials on multiple platforms is key to increasing exposure. Set up profiles on different social media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Upload video testimonials to all of them. 

Video testimonials can also help you drive backlinks. People may link to a video testimonial you published on your website, for example, when reviewing your products or services. 

Final Thoughts

Video testimonials help add emotion to your brand story, draw people in with visual communication, and create personal connections with viewers. They build trust and increase sales. 

If you are not yet incorporating video testimonials into your campaigns, now is the time to start. Find customers who can help you create genuine video testimonials in which they speak their true feelings and talk positively about your brand.