Your Best Salesperson Is A Happy Customer. Right Now They Are Not In The Room.
Video testimonials and case study films that do the convincing before you ever get on a call. Three ways to do it, from a two day turnaround to a full case study film shot on location.
Everybody Agrees Testimonials Work. Almost Nobody Gets Round To Making Them.
Ask any business owner whether customer proof helps them sell and the answer is yes, obviously. Ask them when they last filmed one and the answer changes.
It is never the thing that gets refused. It is the thing that gets moved. It sits on the list under the website update and the new brochure, and it stays there, because there is always something more urgent and because asking a client to be filmed feels like a favour nobody wants to call in.
So the proof stays where it is. In an email somebody sent you eighteen months ago. In a nice comment at the end of a project. In a client's head, where no prospect will ever see it.
The version of this we see most often
- !You have brilliant clients who would happily say something and have never been asked
- !Your case studies are written, buried on the site, and nobody reads them
- !You send proposals that make claims a prospect has to take on trust
- !New prospects ask can you show us something similar and you scramble for examples
- !You have testimonials as text on your website that could have been written by anybody
- !Every sales conversation starts by convincing them you are credible, from scratch
None of this is a marketing problem. It is a proof problem, and it is costing you deals you never hear about.
A Prospect Will Not Believe You. They Will Believe Them.
There is a limit to how much a buyer will take from you directly. You are the one selling, so everything you say gets a discount applied to it. That is not cynicism, it is just how buying works.
A customer saying the same thing carries none of that weight. When somebody in the same position as your prospect, with the same worries, says we were nervous about the cost and here is what actually happened, the argument is over. You did not make the claim. They did.
Written testimonials do not do this. A quote with a name under it could have been written by your marketing person, and everybody knows it. A face, a voice, a real office in the background and somebody who is clearly not reading a script is a different thing entirely.
That is the whole point. Video is the only version of proof that cannot be faked easily enough to be doubted.
Three Ways To Get It Done
Not every customer story needs the same treatment, and not every budget stretches to a film crew. So there are three ways in. Most clients end up using more than one.
The Fast Testimonial
- Your customer records from wherever they are. No crew, no travel, no diary wrangling
- We send them a link, run the recording, and handle the questions so they are not left staring at their own face
- Colour corrected, audio cleaned, branded and subtitled, delivered wide and vertical
- Best for a run of proof built quickly, or customers geographically nowhere near you
The Professional Testimonial
- We come to your customer. Proper camera, proper lighting, proper sound
- Someone sat opposite them making it feel like a conversation rather than an interrogation
- Filmed at their premises so the setting says something too. The background is proof in itself
- Best for flagship customers whose name carries weight and whose story deserves to look like it matters
The Case Study Film
- Your customer tells the story, but we film everything else too, the product being made, the team, the site
- The detail that proves the work actually happened
- Cut together with music and pace so it plays like a short film rather than a talking head
- Best for sales conversations with real money attached — tenders, board level buyers, anywhere a prospect needs to see the work
Not Sure Which You Need
The honest answer for most businesses is a mix. Two or three case study films for the accounts you want more of, a handful of professional testimonials for your best names, and a steady run of fast testimonials to keep proof building without it becoming a project every time.
If you want it worked out properly rather than guessed at, that is what the Content Strategy Session is for. We look at how your customers buy, what they need to believe before they will commit, and which proof does that job at which point.
Most Testimonial Videos Are Bad. Here Is Why Ours Are Not.
The reason testimonial videos usually feel uncomfortable has nothing to do with cameras. It is that nobody prepared the questions, so the customer gets asked so, what did you think, panics, and gives you thirty seconds of they were great, really pleased.
We build the questions around the objections your prospects actually raise. Price. Timescales. Whether you would cope with something going wrong. Then we ask them in a way that gets a real answer rather than a polite one.
We also make it easy on your customer. They are not asked to prepare anything, learn anything or perform. We are never in the room longer than we said we would be. Nobody is left feeling they did you an enormous favour, which matters, because you have to keep working with these people afterwards.
One Recording. Used Everywhere.
- ✓On the website, where a visitor decides in seconds whether you are credible
- ✓Inside proposals, so your claims arrive with proof attached
- ✓Sent to a prospect after a first meeting, while they are still deciding
- ✓On LinkedIn, where the people who are not ready yet are still watching
- ✓In email follow up, when a deal has gone quiet
- ✓In tender and framework submissions, where most competitors send text
- ✓Behind paid ads, where proof outperforms promises every time
If You Need These Regularly, Do Not Buy Them One At A Time
Proof works best when it keeps arriving. One testimonial helps. Twelve, across different customers with different worries and different reasons for choosing you, makes you very hard to compete with.
If that is the position you want to be in, our monthly retainer is the better way to buy it. Testimonial and case study filming sits inside the retainer alongside the rest of your content, planned in advance, filmed on a regular rhythm and delivered every month without anyone having to raise a purchase order each time.
It also works out considerably cheaper per video than booking each one as a separate job, and it means somebody is chasing the customer stories rather than waiting for you to remember.
This Is For You If
- ✓You sell something considered, where buyers take time and want reassurance
- ✓You have happy customers you have never asked
- ✓Your sales process involves proving credibility before anything else can happen
- ✓You are competing against bigger names and need to close the trust gap
- ✓You tender, pitch or present, and want to send something your competitors will not
- ✓You already have written case studies doing nothing on your website
Worth knowing before you book
None of this needs a big production. It needs a plan for who to ask, questions that get a real answer, and a system for using what you get once you have it. That is exactly what we bring.
How It Works
We work out who to ask
We go through your customer list together and pick the stories that answer the objections you hear most. Not just the ones who like you. The ones whose situation matches the buyers you want more of.
We handle the ask
We give you the wording to approach them with, and we deal with the scheduling directly so it does not become another job on your plate.
We record
Remotely for the fast option. On location for the professional testimonial and the case study film. Either way, we run the questions.
You get the content back
Edited, branded, subtitled and supplied in the formats you need, with the shorter cuts included so one recording gives you months of use.
Investment
Three ways to buy, priced by what each one involves.
Per video. Recorded remotely, with you in two working days.
Filmed on location at your customer's premises, main cut plus social edits included.
Full shoot with b-roll, main film and social edits.
Questions
Will our customers actually agree to this?
Far more readily than most people expect. Being asked to talk about a project that went well is flattering, not an imposition. The ones who say no usually say no to a filming day, which is exactly why the fast option exists.
What if they say something we do not want to use?
Nothing goes out without your sign off. We edit, you review, and if a section does not work it does not appear.
Our client is in Cornwall and we are not?
Then use the fast testimonial. Distance stops being a factor entirely and the result still looks like it was made properly.
How long does it take on the customer's side?
Twenty to thirty minutes for a remote recording. Around an hour on site for a professional testimonial. Half a day for a full case study film, most of which is us filming the work rather than them being on camera.
Can we film more than one customer in a day?
Yes, and it is the most cost effective way to do it if your customers are reasonably close together. Tell us who and where and we will plan the run.
We already have written case studies. Is this not the same thing?
Same information, completely different weight. A written case study asks a prospect to trust the words. A film shows them the person saying them.
The Proof Already Exists. It Is Just Not On Camera Yet.
You have done the work. The customers are happy. Somebody, right now, would say something about your business that would win you your next contract, and they will never be asked.
That is the only thing standing between you and a proper bank of proof. Not budget, not time, not whether it works. Just the asking.
