The Importance of Customer Testimonials | Tour Guide Content Strategy
Do you want to build more validation, social proof and credibility for your business?
Start using customer testimonials.
In this article, I cover the levels of customer testimonials (you can start with just a quote!), why they’re superior to a promo video, my tour guide strategy, and how to pick the best subjects for your video.
If you’re ready to start using video for marketing, consider starting with a customer testimonial. While you entertain potential customers with a story, they’ll learn all about your business, form a connection, and internalize your message.
The Value of Customer Testimonials
Suppose you need a handyman to fix something on your house. If you don’t already know one, you’ll likely ask your friends for a recommendation. If they don’t know anyone, you might see if your neighborhood has a list of trusted partners. If that doesn't work, you’ll go online and start reading reviews.
Each step involves looking for an endorsement from someone.
Why is that so important?
Their recommendation provides validation, credibility and social proof. That’s what a great customer testimonial brings to your business.
And when you craft a testimonial in video format, you get the holy grail: entertainment. If you execute them well with a story format, they’re actually fun to watch (i.e. potential customers actually want to consume your marketing materials).
Before I get into the story format, let’s walk through the level of customer testimonials. Each one is useful for your business and serves a unique purpose.
Level 1 - Quote: Gather direct quotes from happy customers endorsing your company and place them on your website. Make sure you are regularly getting these quotes. After every positive engagement, ask you customers how they benefited from your organization. If you don’t currently need more quotes on your website, keep them in a file so you can use them later in any of your marketing campaigns. Even short quotes help build up credibility for your brand. Check out the homepage of my website for how I’m using these.
Level 2 - Customer-recorded Video: Ask your customer to record a testimonial on a cell phone or webcam. It doesn't matter if the video quality looks bad – it’s actually totally acceptable. That aesthetic shows it’s authentic and lets the viewer know this person took the time to record this from their own device. And that actually means something. It's almost like our modern day handwritten note.
Level 3 - Story-Driven Testimonial: Tell the story of your customer through professionally crafted film. There are several helpful frameworks to help you write the story including: Problem-Agitation-Solution (PAS), StoryBrand SB7, and my own 5-step framework. But ultimately, all customer testimonials use essentially the same framework. You have a person who has a problem and needs a solution. They find your company or product and it solves that problem for them. Not only do they experience the benefits of that solution, it adds value beyond just solving the problem. They're in a significantly better place now and want the viewer to also consider this company or product.
Customer Testimonial vs Company Promo Video
So, suppose you are getting ready to add video to your marketing. What kind of video should you make? Many organizations may jump to creating a quick promo or overview, but allow me to show you why that’s not the best idea.
A company promo video is like a video brochure. It's the company-approved, corporate-lingo infused video that just lists a bunch of stuff about the company. Or perhaps there’s some lame animated story where they literally animate the customer journey. People make these because they assume they’re low risk, get the point across, and think people like watching them.
But guess what.
No one shares that stuff.
I’ve never thought, “Oh my gosh, this Coca-Cola promo video is amazing! I’ve got to text that out to all my friends ASAP.”
I’ve also never had anyone share a promo video with me that blew their socks off. They’re really just not all that shareable.
But what do they share? Personal stories about a human being. When someone watches another person overcome serious obstacles, they’re moved and want to share that incredible story. They almost can’t stop themselves from sharing it. That’s why a human-driven story will perform far better on organic reach than any company promo you could ever create.
That’s why I often advise companies to do a customer testimonial story. Not only is the organic reach superior, but it creates emotional engagement. People will watch the whole thing because they’re pulled into the story and want to find out what happens.
And while they’re enraptured in your customer’s awesome story, they start to also learn about your company and the benefits of its product or service. You’re getting your message across and the viewer internalizes it because it’s a story.
By using this format, the customer testimonial can basically take the place of your organization's promo video. If you think about everything that must be covered in a testimonial (person with a problem, needs a solution, solved by your company, significant value gained), what else do you possibly need to do in your company overview? Why would you place all the information in a non-engaging video, when you could use a story?
If you have information that belongs in a brochure, then place it in one that allows the reader to scan through it. Don’t stick it in a video that’s painful to sit through. Instead, use a customer testimonial to show the genuine value your company brings to the marketplace.
With a customer testimonial, you hook someone with a story and show them all the benefits of working with you. The video provides credibility and social proof, and builds brand equity. You establish trust and initiate a relationship. After watching it, your customer feels inspired and excited about the transformation that awaits because they see themselves in that customer's shoes.
Qualities of a Good Customer Testimonial
What kind of customer story should you pick for your testimonial?
I tend to shy away from trying to only tell the biggest and the best stories. I know it sounds amazing to share about the big wins, but if they’re abnormal from what your company normally produces, you’ve got a unicorn. Unicorns are exciting and awesome, and you can certainly still use them, but think about what they might portray to a potential customer. They’ll think that the unicorn-level success is normal. They’ll be disappointed when they don’t achieve the same results.
Instead of highlighting the unicorn, focus on demonstrating the consistent value you’re adding on a daily basis. Find the people who’ve been loyal to your organization for years and have tons of stories to tell about the ways you’ve taken care of them. Make sure your testimonial communicates the expected level of value you regularly provide to set correct expectations.
Your testimonial will communicate these three things: what you do, the value you add, and who you work with. That’s why you need to showcase the kind of customers you want to continue to sell to. Your video will attract customers who are similar to whoever you feature in it.
When someone watches your video, they’ll see themselves in it. They identify with the main character and see themselves as that character (i.e. narrative identification). Therefore, you want to provide a mirror to your potential customers so it attracts more of your ideal customers. So put someone on camera that you want to continue to work with.
What if your company pivoted and you have a new offering or new market sector? That’d be a great time to create a customer testimonial that reflects that line of work that you're doing or that new market as soon as you can.
Does your company currently have different target markets? Consider making a customer testimonial specific for each one.
Tour Guide Content Strategy
Have you had a memorable tour guide before? When I was on my honeymoon, I didn’t plan out what we would do ahead of time. Instead, once we arrived, I went to the concierge desk and asked for help planning some excursions. The “Jeep Tour” was highly recommended and described as “a very nice ride.” This was good news for me. My wife is not very adventurous and would be perfectly content to sit on the beach all day with a book, so I needed some low impact activities.
Well, it was anything but that.
As soon as we got on Marlon’s Jeep, he slammed on the gas, sending my wife’s visor tumbling down the road. We met up with several other Jeeps for the tour. We quickly learned we were in the “crazy Jeep” and everyone else was on the “nice ride.” As Marlon careened over the dunes, our bloodcurdling screams and terrified faces provided constant entertainment to the other Jeep’s. We both held on for dear life, regretted signing the waiver, and laughed and screamed at the same time.
Safe to say that we’ll never forget Marlon or his Jeep tour. But his approach to the tour is what made it unique. We could have even gone on the same route the next day with another driver and had a completely different experience. Different tour guides can provide unique experiences even when they’re essentially covering the same terrain or information.
Think about how you could apply this tour guide concept to your customer testimonial. Once you’ve mapped out your customer journey, it’s basically the same thing over and over. You solve similar problems and achieve similar results.
So what’s unique?
Each individual. Every customer is a different person and will provide a unique tour. They have their own quirks and tendencies which all come out in your testimonial. It transforms what could become boring into something interesting. Instead of telling the same story over and over, you have a new perspective each time.
Another example: Marvel Films. They are using the same underlying story framework for each film, but each one feels unique because it’s told from the perspective of a different character. Marvel isn’t worried about using the same framework each time. People actually don’t get tired of hearing the same story over and over…and they’re making billions of dollars.
To use the tour guide strategy, start with defining the underlying story framework. Once you’ve got your customer journey down and know how you add value, then just start telling it on repeat with different voices. Don’t worry about it being the same framework each time.
As a professional storyteller, I believe in Booker’s seven basic plots: we tell the same stories over and over (and everyone actually likes this). By using a different customer in each testimonial you’re simply giving it a different flavor each time. You get the opportunity to focus on what makes each person unique; that’s what people will keep watching.
Tour Guide Strategy for GateCity Church
I recently employed the tour guide strategy for some films I created for my church, GateCity. They do things quite differently than most churches. When I first visited and heard they have a 24/7 prayer room, I assumed that meant there was a little room where you light a candle and pray quietly. Wrong! There is a musician or band on the stage playing praise and worship music every minute of every day, including overnight and holidays. And they’ve kept this going for 16 years! It’s very unique, but also confusing to newcomers since it’s atypical for a church to do this. I wanted to help tell their story and explain practically what was going on.
The first video I created featured my friend Dean in the prayer room. Now while it is Dean telling his story, he’s essentially a tour guide for the prayer room. He leads you through different places in the prayer room and helps you understand why it exists. So, instead of making a promo video that explained the background of the prayer room, what happens, and how you can participate, I used Dean’s story to hit all those points. Now that information is more engaging and memorable due to the human connection.
Then I made a follow-up video about the night watch. It’s a story about Melanie who does prayer and worship from midnight to 6am. You get to look into her life, but you also learn about the night shift, what happens there, and its purpose.
You can use the tour guide strategy in your business to highlight different capabilities or products or services. For GateCity that meant first focusing on the prayer room, then highlighting the night watch. Now I’m considering making a video about a song that one of the musicians has written, but the message would also be sharing what it’s like to be part of the worship band. So, if someone was interested in joining the worship team, they’d have a deeper understanding of what they do.
Customer testimonials are always popping up. After you’ve told enough of them, you can essentially roll the footage together and create a brand film. Since you’ll have touched on every aspect of your organization, you’ll have the material to make a successful one (and it’s a heck of a lot more engaging than a brochure video).
If you really feel like you still need that normal brochure video, it can still work in tandem with these stories. Essentially, the stories are more of a top of funnel content because they're way more entertaining, and the brochure video is at the bottom of the funnel. If someone is super interested and committed to the company because of the customer testimonial, they're going to invest themselves in a less engaging piece of content in order to learn more.
Conclusion
If you’re ready to start adding some customer testimonials for you marketing, look for a customer with these characteristics:
Loyal
Has had a normal experience, but loves it
Represents your ideal customer
Already a brand advocate
Basically, a normal happy customer
By featuring a human instead of the boring video brochure, you’ll create an emotionally engaging story that performs significantly better on organic reach. People will want to share it with their friends. And because of that, your investment is going to do more work for you just naturally because you’ll get that organic share.