New services make creating and posting testimonial videos a snap for customers.

Business leaders who are convinced that there are few things more powerful than a customer testimonial on video are in luck.
Scores of service providers have cropped up that virtually automate the entire process of creating a video testimonial library—including invitation, collection, editing, hosting, and posting to all the social media networks that matter to your business.
Those testimonials also feed into the overall hunger for endorsement video on the web—a genre of promotion known as “social proof,” according to Isaiah Shelton, senior content strategist at Lemonlight, a video marketing services provider.
And the promotional genre is also yet another indicator of the wild popularity of video in the digital world right now.
The report, “The State of Video Marketing 2023” from Wizowl, for example, found that 91% of video marketers used video as a marketing tool in 2023. Moreover, 46% of marketers used testimonial videos as part of that mix. And 96% said video has helped customers and potential customers get a better idea of what the company was selling.
Fortunately, when it comes to video testimonial services, generally all that’s required from your customer is a smartphone and a story to tell. From there, most of these services walk your customer through the video testimonial creation process, including suggestions on what they might want to post on your behalf. Plus, the services also streamline the process for getting the video testimonial filed, approved by your company, and then published across the web in all the places your business does its digital promotion.
As most businesses realize, potential customers assign great value to testimonial videos from real shoppers that pull no punches when it comes to sharing actual experience with a product or service. Those potential customers would much rather see a testimonial from a satisfied customer—production warts and all—than a slickly produced, professional production that in the end, is little more than clever huckstering. And those potential customers are much more likely to buy from your business once they’ve been reassured—by real customers—that your brand is one that can be trusted.
Nikola Bojkov, CEO of EmbedSocial, a social media marketing services provider, said, “Nothing is more powerful than a real customer testimonial video recorded with their own words without any pressure.
“Video testimonials provide visual proof of customer satisfaction, where prospective customers can see and hear the satisfaction and happiness in the existing customers’ expressions and tones,” added Bojkov.
Lisa Harroy, creator partnerships lead at Riverside, a customer video testimonials service provider, agreed, adding, “Video testimonials are an authentic, engaging way to show prospective customers how your satisfied customers feel about your brand.”
Moreover, given that there’s intense competition among video testimonial service providers right now, you’ll find most of these services have tried—in every conceivable way—to make the video testimonial creation and submission process for your customers as effortless as possible.
Many of the services, for example, can be integrated into your e-commerce software or platform, so that securing new testimonial videos is as easy as posting an invitation to submit on your website, sending an after-purchase email asking for a video testimonial, or providing a link for your customer to click on after check-out.
Indeed, some services even enable you to offer a QR code that your customer can scan with a smartphone, which automatically triggers activation of the video testimonial creation-and-filing service.
Most solutions also provide a release form your customers can sign, which gives your company the freedom to use their video testimonial anywhere—including on your website, social media properties, or advertising—in perpetuity. And most services offer prompts to your customers that provide ideas on what they can talk about in their video—including a list of questions they can answer as they make their testimonial.
The good news here is if you’re stuck on how to put together suggestions for your customers for the testimonial videos you’d like, some services offer Q&A templates you can customize for your own purposes. In addition, many services are designed to auto-interface with the social media networks you promote on, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. That makes it a snap to publish a customer endorsement video you receive to all your social media properties in a matter of seconds.
Bottom line: It’s never been easier to get serious about soliciting—and leveraging—a library of testimonial videos for your business. And if you’re already involved in testimonial video promotion, it’s never been easier to automate much of the process that you may be engaging in manually.

Where To Begin

Here’s a representative sampling of existing solutions:
Widewail Invite Video: Widewail is definitely from the ‘less-is-more’ camp of customer testimonial videos. Your customers need only a smartphone to record videos endorsing your company, service, or product.
Once successfully invited, the Widewail service is designed to take these influencers every step of the way. And once your customers are satisfied with their testimonial, they simply submit their video via Widewail’s app—which auto-notifies your company that you have a new video endorsement waiting.
Widewail also secures a signed release from your customer as part of the video submission processing, guaranteeing that your company will be able to use the video anywhere for free—and in perpetuity.

Vocal Video: Testimonials handled by Vocal Video also require nothing more than a smartphone to submit a customer endorsement. It’s a full-featured service that includes consumer testimonial collecting, editing, publishing, and hosting. And it also offers auto-polishing of videos customers want to submit by combining raw footage into multi-scene productions including motion graphics, soundtracks, subtitles, and branding.
You’ll also have the option to feature your library on customer video endorsements via embeddable galleries that you can feature on your website and other digital properties.
Like many service providers, Vocal Video encourages you to offer questions to answer to your satisfied customers or you can customize one of Vocal Video’s 46 question templates for your own needs.
VideoPeel: Besides offering basic collecting, editing, and publishing services for your testimonial videos, Video Peel also enables you to do some extra editing once customers submit their videos. For example, VideoPeel enables you to add your own video to what customers submit. Plus, you will also be able to embed your company logo, some writing—and some calls-to-action to potential customers who are viewing the endorsement.
Vidmonials: Offering a video testimonial service similar to Widewail, Vocal Video, and Video Peel, Vidmonials takes things a step further by a text-to-video option. Essentially, if your customer prefers to file a testimonial via text, Vidmonials takes things from there by auto-converting that text review into a video slideshow that features background music. Either way, the resulting video testimonials can be posted to your website or other digital properties by using a Vidmonials “embeddable widget.” With these widgets, you have the option of showcasing an especially outstanding customer endorsement. Or you can use the “Playlist Widget” that plays all the testimonial videos you’d like to be displayed.
Testimonial Hero:  Business leaders looking for a more professional product-focused feel to their testimonial videos may want to opt for this service, which works with a company one-on-one to edit a customer-provided testimonial.
Testimonial Hero’s initial process is similar to more basic services: Customers are invited to submit a video, follow prompts offered by Testimonial Hero about what they may want to say, and then invite them to submit their footage to the service. But once the raw footage is in hand, Testimonial Hero works with you over the next 10 business days to create a 90-second edit of the customer video that will have more of a professional production quality feel.

Joe Dysart is an internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan. Voice: (631) 233-9770.
Email: joe@breakingintech.com.
Web: www.dysartnewsfeatures.com