8 Tips for Shooting a Customer Testimonial Video that Your Audience will Trust

When Shooting a Customer Testimonial video, your ability to create a sense of authenticity that your audience can sense, and believe, is key to your success. How you deliver your message, including how your share the testimonial of your target audience, can directly influence the success or failure of your customer testimonial. A great shoot, will result in a video that your audience will immediately trust, but a bad shoot can leave your audience heading for the competition.

At Beverly Boy Productions, we’ve filmed hundreds of customer testimonial videos for our clients over the more than two decades that our team has been actively working the corporate film industry. Not only do we consider ourselves professionals, but we truly believe we know what it takes to produce a top quality customer testimonial that’s going to drive the interest of the target audience while generating trust in the brand. That’s why we’ve come up with some tips that we use, which we believe will help anyone that is considering customer testimonials for their business.

1. Prepare Questions in Advance of the Shoot

While you certainly don’t want your audience to feel like the testimonial was rehearsed,  you also don’t want your customer feeling like they have been put on the spot with your questions. Therefore, it’s best to prepare questions in advance of the shoot, and to provide them to your customer but you should also use judgement in asking additional, guiding questions, through the testimonial interview in order to create a more authentic tone.

2. Choose an Interviewer that Has a History of Great Interview Skills

If you’re Shooting a Customer Testimonial video yourself, and you’ve never done an interview before, you might want to hire someone that has. In fact, not only should you hire a professional interviewer, but you should hire someone with a history of excellent storytelling and interviewing. This way, the interviewer will properly guide the subject down the trajectory that will represent the story that you wan to share with your audience.

3. Make Sure Your Subject is Comfortable on Camera

You’ll want to make sure you choose an interview subject ahead of Shooting a Customer Testimonial video so that you have time to do a test run to be sure that you’ve chosen a subject that is prepared to be in front of the lens. An interview that includes a subject that is camera-shy will almost certainly come out looking amateur and, although it could be trustworthy, it probably won’t be very fun to watch.

4. Choose The Ideal Shoot Location

Shooting a Customer Testimonial video that has a poor background, too much going on in the area, or an otherwise poor film location can ruin the vibe. Make sure that you’ve chosen the shoot location based on:

• The story or details that you expect to be shared in the interview.
• The setting of the location and how it applies to your brand.
• How quiet and easy to film in the location is.

5. Set the Scene Accordingly

You might not thing that Shooting a Customer Testimonial video is going to require you to set a scene, but it will! Not only do you need to be sure that your lighting is set so that it captures the true emotion of your subject, but you also must make sure that the subject’s face is clearly visible and their voice can be heard well.

6. Do Not Overlook the Importance of Audio

Great audio will make or break your testimonial video. If there is too much background noise or interference, you’re going to distract your audience from what your customer has to share about your business. If the interview answers are hard to hear, or your subject isn’t loud enough on camera, your audience is going to lose interest in the message.

7. Keep the Camera Rolling

When Shooting a Customer Testimonial video, you need to keep the camera rolling after each question so that you can capture any unintended footage that may include sparked conversations or additional details that could otherwise be missed if you were to stop shooting. If your customer doesn’t realize that the camera will be stopping and going, they’ll feel less pressure and you’ll capture more genuine answers and interactions which is what you need in order to create a video your audience will trust.

8. Shoot Plenty of B-Roll Footage

After you know what your subject has discussed in the interview, it’s time to film b-roll to support the customer’s testimonial. Capture plenty of b-roll footage that is supporting visually of the answers and testimony that your customer provided, that you’re your post-production team can incorporate it into your final cut.

Following these tips for Shooting a Customer Testimonial video that your audience will trust will help you to establish a solid working foundation for your production process. For more on producing testimonial videos, or for help producing expert crafted testimonials of your own, give Beverly Boy Productions a call.