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Testimonial Video Production: Why are Video Testimonials Effective?

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Testimonial Video Production

Effective testimonial video production is a powerful tool that can influence prospects and help them make buying decisions. Each customer testimonial video on your website serves as social proof that your company has delivered on its promise. As prospects look at client testimonials and see that other people, many just like them, have had successful experiences with your company, they’ll feel more confident in buying similar products and services from you.

What makes a customer testimonial video so effective? Featuring client testimonials in video format allows future site visitors to see and hear your customers speaking favorably about your products or services. They’ll see that despite the strong testimonial video production values that went on behind the scenes, these are real people relaying real experiences. This builds trust and reinforces your credibility.

In fact, effective testimonial video production centers on the following three important factors:

  • Credibility
  • Word of mouth
  • Relationships

Build Credibility with Client Testimonials

Whether you have one or dozens of client testimonials featured on your website, each customer testimonial video adds credibility to your claims. While you could broadcast high quality commercials touting how wonderful your product or service is, having a customer echo those claims is far more credible. Anyone can say their company will do a professional job; but if a satisfied customer says so, that’s much more credible. Ideally, not only will your testimonial video production team capture your client’s describing your product or service, it will also record images of your client enjoying the finished product.

Leverage Word of Mouth Advertising through Testimonial Video Production

Each customer testimonial video also harnesses the power of word of mouth advertising. People trust the recommendations that come from other consumers. Even if your site visitors don’t know your clients personally, they can relate to the people featured in each customer testimonial video.

Testimonial Video Production can Serve as a Relationship Marketing Tool

Client testimonials can reinforce your company’s commitment to becoming partners on each project and serve as social proof that you aren’t just a company, you’re a team of professionals that takes the time to get to know your customers and their needs. Your prospects will see a series of satisfied customers who were taken care of so well that they were willing to share a few words about their experiences via a customer testimonial video.

How to Ensure a Successful Testimonial Video Production Campaign

Clearly posting video client testimonials on your website can influence prospects due to the increase in credibility that each customer testimonial video provides. However, not all testimonial video production procedures are created equally. Some tips to follow include:

  • Using a professional video production company
  • Using real customers
  • Using a diverse mix of customers
  • Keeping each customer testimonial video short and focused on just one key benefit
  • Presenting different benefits from different customers
  • Addressing common objections via client testimonials
  • Inviting customers to contribute their own testimonials

Testimonial video production requires a mix of traditional video production techniques and marketing expertise. Your video production team should be prepared to allow your clients to speak freely while gently guiding them about which points to cover. Your clients should feel comfortable in front of the camera and be genuinely pleased with your products and services. After the shoot, the video production company’s editor will select the best parts of the customer testimonial video and create a final cut that delivers the client testimonials perfectly.

What are your thoughts on what makes an effective testimonial video production? Share your comments below:

Product Demo Video: Engaging Viewers and Calling Them to Action

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man looking at computer with engaged expression

Have you been tasked with producing a product demo video for your website? While you have numerous options as far as producing and uploading the final video, you’ll need to carefully plan your product video to ensure that it’s as effective as possible. Not only should your product demonstration video clearly show your product’s features, it must also:

  • Engage viewers
  • Show its benefits to viewers
  • Prompt viewers to take action

Using a Product Demo Video to Engage Viewers

Engaging viewers is one of the most important tasks your product demonstration video must perform. After all, if your product video is boring, poorly produced, or uninformative your prospects will quickly tune out. Today’s online video viewers are pulled in all directions with little leisure time. Make sure that your product demo video engages viewers and keeps them tuned in by:

  • Keeping the product demonstration video short. Your product video should be no longer than three minutes. Viewers that see a long video length may not bother to push the play button no matter how entertaining your video may be.
  • Getting to the point quickly. Online video viewers don’t have the patience for long introductions, even beautifully produced ones.
  • Staying on topic. Your product demonstration video is just that, a product video. This isn’t the time to delve into the history of your company or its accomplishments.

Demonstrating a Product’s Benefits in a Product Demo Video

In addition to engaging viewers through product video length and pacing, your product demo video must speak to your viewers by addressing what’s in it for them. For example, your product likely has several features that you’ll want to showcase in the product demonstration video. However, how do these features solve your viewers’ problems? Make sure that each feature you introduce in your product video is balanced by its benefits. This helps keep viewers engaged, shows you understand their problems, and most importantly, positions your product as the solution.

What Action Do You Want Viewers to Take after Watching the Product Demo Video?

No matter how engaging and benefits-oriented your product demonstration video may be, it can be even more effective if you add a call to action at the end. Think about what actions you want your viewers to take after watching the product video. For example, do you want them to order a free sample? Download a trial version? Request a custom quote? Request a product brochure? Order the product right away?

Carefully consider what action you want viewers to make and use the product demo video to guide them toward taking that action. At the end of the product demonstration video, explicitly prompt your viewers to take that action. You can do this in several ways. For example, you could have the narrator of the product video say, “Call our office to schedule a free consultation” or you could have a popup screen appear at the end of the product demo video prompting viewers to “Download a free trial version now.”

An effective product demo video is one that engages viewers, positions the product as a solution, and prompts viewers to take some sort of action. Once your prospects answer the call to action, you can then follow through with other sales steps.

What do you think the most important part of a product demo video is? Share your thoughts in the comment section below:

Website Video Spokesperson: More than Just a Pretty Face

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spokespeopleThere’s more to a website video spokesperson than meets the eye. While you’ll likely want to choose an attractive virtual spokesperson for your website, other considerations exist. In addition to choosing a professional actor to play the role of Web video spokesperson, the video itself must be produced so that the final product looks and sounds as professional as possible.

What is a website video spokesperson? A website video spokesperson serves as a virtual spokesperson who greets visitors when they land on your website. These pre-recorded videos can either play automatically or when the user clicks on them. Using green screen technology, the image of the Web video spokesperson plays on top of the website.

Because your website video spokesperson serves as the face of your website, it’s important to choose a professional actor. In some cases, it makes sense for the head of the company to serve as a virtual spokesperson. If you will be playing this role yourself, make sure that you’re comfortable speaking in front of a camera. Your video production company can help you with the script and provide you with some basic coaching. In both cases, your Web video spokesperson must be able to:

  • Look and play the part
  • Memorize a script or read off of a teleprompter
  • Deliver lines as directed
  • Speak clearly

In addition to the abilities of the person playing the role of website video spokesperson, it’s also important that the behind-the-scenes team is skilled at virtual spokesperson production. For example, what will your virtual spokesperson say? The script should be developed in conjunction with your Web content so that the Web video spokesperson guides visitors through a sales process.

In addition, the video production company will need to shoot the Web video spokesperson in a studio with a green screen so that only the virtual spokesperson appears on the website. Camera operators will also need to frame the shot appropriately as well. The director will work closely with you to determine the best camera angles based on your website design and the ultimate placement of the website video spokesperson. For example, if your website has blank vertical sidebars, it may make sense to have your Web video spokesperson appear in one of the sidebars in full length. Similarly, if you want the website video spokesperson to walk onto the screen, your director will need to frame the shot appropriately.

Broadcast quality production values are a must at all stages of the production including sound quality. When you choose a professional video production company to produce the virtual spokesperson video, you’re usually getting an entire team of video professionals committed to making sure that the Web video spokesperson looks and sounds good.

Once the footage of the website video spokesperson has been shot and edited, the next step involves putting the virtual spokesperson on the website. You will need to make several decisions such as which video player to use and whether or not the Web video spokesperson should begin speaking automatically.

Clearly, putting a website video spokesperson on your website is a process that involves making the right decisions. Not only will you need a person to play the role of virtual spokesperson, that person must be a skilled speaker. Your Web video spokesperson will need a compelling script to follow and a video production team working behind the scenes to produce broadcast quality video.

While a website video spokesperson may indeed have a pretty face, make sure all of the other pieces are in place. What do you think is a must for any website video spokesperson? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Online Video Marketing: Strategies for Getting Seen

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watching online videoOnline video marketing is a complex process involving far more than the actual production of the promotional video. Not only must you plan, produce, and polish your video, you need solid Internet video marketing strategies to ensure that your message is seen, heard, and ready to deliver results. Put the following two strategies to work and make sure your promotional video finds its audience.

Online Video Marketing Strategy #1 – Optimize
One of the reasons that Internet video marketing has become increasingly popular is because an optimized promotional video can rank well on Google for competitive keywords. While a page loaded with informative content may struggle to rank well due to extreme competition, a page featuring a promotional video could appear on the first page of Google in the video listings section because there’s less competition.

However, this doesn’t happen by accident. On-page online video marketing requires that you “optimize” certain elements so that Google can understand that your promotional video is relevant for a given keyword phrase. Just as you use keywords and alt tags in traditional Internet marketing pages, you need to do the same with Internet video marketing pages. Optimizations steps include:

  • Giving your promotional video file a descriptive filename containing your keyword phrase
  • Giving your video a keyword-rich title
  • Using alt text to describe the promotional video, again using your keyword phrase
  • Including supporting text on the page, optimized with the same keyword phrase

Online Video Marketing Strategy #2 – Socialize
Social media has changed the way many people use the Internet, and successful Internet video marketing campaigns address this. In the past, searchers came to your website after conducting a search, following a link, or entering your URL; Today’s users are spending more time on Facebook and other social media sites interacting with a stream of content that they’ve previously subscribed to. Your promotional video has the potential to be pushed to users – if you get social with your online video marketing efforts.

With a subtle push, your Internet video marketing campaign could get in front of a much larger audience than if you simply posted your promotional video on your site and waited for users to find you.

How does social online video marketing work? It starts by encouraging sharing. Even if you don’t have a Facebook account, an important Internet video marketing step to take involves putting a “like” button alongside your promotional video. Below are several easy steps that encourage sharing:

  • Include a “Like” button next to your promotional video. Facebook has a special “developers” section where you can grab the code to generate this button.
  • Include other social sharing buttons – Numerous plugins are available that automatically place a variety of social bookmarking buttons below your posts.
  • Make sure that your video has an embed code so users can embed it on their own sites and blogs.

While including sharing buttons and embed codes is good, your Internet video marketing should go further. For example, did you know that if a Facebook user likes, shares, or comments on a video, that original Facebook user’s friends can see the conversation? If a Facebook user watches your promotional video and makes a comment about it via Facebook, then that user’s friends will see the comment and may be inspired to watch the video. By encouraging comments, your online video marketing campaign can reach vast networks and sub-networks of viewers.

Optimize and socialize and your next online video marketing campaign is sure to find its audience! What do you think? Which online video marketing strategies work well for you? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Website Video Production: The Pros and Cons of Online Video Players

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video players

Your website video production has been shot, edited, and is now ready for the Web. However, before you call it a wrap, you need to upload the video to your website. Depending on the services you’ve contracted with your video production company, this may or may not be part of the actual Web video production. In order for the video to appear on your website, you’ll need to upload the files and install a video player on your site.

If your video production company offers comprehensive Web video production services, it will likely handle this as part of the package. If not, you’ll need to research the various options and choose the player that makes the most sense for your needs. In some cases, it makes sense to upload your website video production files to YouTube and then embed the code into your website. In other cases, you may want greater control over your video or want to do away with the YouTube branding. You may even want clickable links embedded into the final Web video production. In these cases, you’ll need to install a video player on your website.

Start by asking your video production company for a recommendation. Which video players do they use for their own website video production files? Why? Is the player affordable?

Next, use the Internet to research various players. Free and commercial players are available. For example, FlowPlayer offers a free version (with FlowPlayer branding) as well as several commercial versions (without the branding). Another popular, and free, player for your website video production files is JW Player. This video player can easily be extended with additional features thanks to numerous plugins, modules, and skins. For example, if you want to run your own advertisements within the player, you can add this function with a plugin.

Vimeo is yet another player to take a look at. The Plus and Pro versions eliminate the banner ads that come with the free version as well as add additional features such as high definition capabilities, the ability to fully customize the player itself, and analytics.

These are but a few of the many options your video production company may recommend for your Web video production. Which one is right for your website video production? That will depend on what’s important to you. Some priorities might revolve around:

  • Whether or not your Web video production was shot in high definition
  • You want to brand the player with your own logo
  • You need bundled video hosting
  • You want to analyze the Web video production’s performance
  • You need HTML5 support
  • You’re concerned about bandwidth
  • You want your video to look more professional
  • You don’t want your video on YouTube
  • You want the ultimate control over your video and its distribution
  • You want to host your website video production files on Amazon

While YouTube has a huge viewing audience and offers numerous capabilities, your video production company may recommend an alternative player for several important reasons including:

  • Video length restrictions. If your Web video production is over 15 minutes long, you can’t host it on YouTube.
  • Some companies block YouTube. If you’re targeting B2B customers, they may not be able to access your YouTube videos while they’re at work.
  • Related videos. Your competitors’ videos might be featured alongside yours.
  • Your account can be closed at any time by Google.

Which video player do you use? Share your thoughts about website video production and online video players in the comment section below:

B2B Video Marketing: What Do Your Business Customers Need To Know

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woman thinking

As you brainstorm ideas for your next B2B video marketing message, it’s easy to take the wrong perspective. You may want to focus your corporate video on how wonderful your people are or showcase the bells and whistles of your products. While this is understandable, your business video and its B2B marketing message may fail to resonate with your business customers. To avoid this, you need to adopt the customer’s perspective. What do your customers care about? What do they need to know? How will your product or service benefit them?

B2B Marketing Brainstorming Prompt: What Do Your Customers Care About?

During your B2B video marketing brainstorming session, ask yourself what your business customers care about. When you understand this and address it in your corporate video, you’ll be more likely to develop a connection with your customers. Your business video can communicate that you understand the problems faced by your customers and share their concerns.

One of the best ways to find out what’s important to your customers is to ask. B2B marketing is an ongoing process requiring a dialog between you and your business customers. Take your B2B marketing customers out to lunch, read the same trade journals they read, and ask probing questions at every opportunity. You could even watch their own corporate video productions to gain a better understanding of their concerns. Before producing a single business video, make sure to incorporate questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, and surveys as part of your B2B video marketing strategy.

B2B Video Marketing Brainstorming Prompt: What Do Your Customers Need to Know? Corporate video is an excellent platform for communicating new information. In fact, your business video should be both engaging and informative because your business customers have little time to spare. In addition, you may only have 60 to 90 seconds for your entire business video, so you don’t have time to spare either.

As part of your B2B video marketing brainstorming session, consider what your business customers already know and what they need to know. For example, if your B2B marketing customers are well aware of a new regulation and its affect on their industry, your corporate video on that topic needs to quickly move beyond what they already know and position your solution as the best one. What do they need to know about your solution that makes it better or different than other solutions. What don’t they know about your solution that they should know? Answer these B2B video marketing questions and incorporate your answers into your corporate video.

B2B Video Marketing Brainstorming Prompt: How Will Your Solution Benefit Your B2B Marketing Customers?

Finally, your business video brainstorming session should focus on how your solution benefits your B2B marketing customers. Rather than focusing your business video on bells and whistles, focus it on benefits. Your corporate video viewers may be momentarily impressed by your product’s features, but the benefits are what will win them over. For example, a car that gets 30 miles per gallon has an impressive feature (good gas mileage) but its benefits (save money, reduce carbon footprint, and fewer trips to the gas station) are what resonate with customers. Similarly, if your B2B video marketing involves a business video touting accounting software with online reports, the online reports are a feature whereas the benefit might be anytime, anywhere access to real-time financial data. Focus your corporate video on the benefits and your B2B marketing campaign is sure to be successful.

Brainstorming ideas for your corporate video involves getting into the heads of your B2B video marketing customers. What do they care about? What do they need to know? What benefits will they realize by choosing the solution your business video proposes? Answer these three B2B marketing questions and write your corporate video script around your answers. In short, your B2B video marketing campaign answers the question on your B2B marketing customers’ minds: What’s in it for me?

What do you think? Are there any other questions a corporate video should answer? Share your B2B video marketing ideas in the comments section below.

Video Email Marketing: Helping Leads Become Customers

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video email marketing

Video email marketing is a process that, when done correctly, can bring leads back to your website where they can view an informative website video that both educates and reinforces the benefits of your product and service. Using video within your email marketing nurtures your sales leads and helps them make the decision to become customers.

Using Video Email Marketing to Nurture Sales Leads

Video email marketing falls under the “Nurture” phase of the video-to-lead funnel. This sales funnel involves a website video series that first engages prospects, earning their trust. After engaging prospects, the next website video series continues to deliver interesting information, but with a goal of converting these prospects into leads. Finally, once converted and opted into your email marketing campaign, you’ve earned the right to present a website video that reinforces your message. You are now in the nurturing phase.

As you know, you must have permission in order to begin an email marketing campaign. Using video to engage and convert your prospects sets the stage for video email marketing. If you’ve followed the video-to-lead funnel strategies we’ve previously discussed, your leads will know that each website video in the past was engaging, informative, and relatively short. When they receive an email marketing message from you containing a link to a website video, they’ll expect more of the same and trust your video email marketing messages.

Website Video Messages

In most cases, your video email marketing messages will contain links back to your website video where visitors can learn more about the benefits of your products and services. In order to be effective, each website video should be related to the original call to action. For example, if you’ve prompted the prospect to download a buying guide for kitchen appliances, your email marketing campaign should include content relevant to people interested in buying kitchen appliances. This isn’t the time for an email marketing campaign about remodeling bathrooms. Therefore, your website video should be related to that initial action. For instance, you might create a website video focused on how your appliances save energy in the kitchen and reduce utility bills.

In addition to being relevant, your video email marketing campaign must also be focused on benefits. In the email marketing example above, appliances that save energy in the kitchen deliver a benefit to the sales lead: they reduce utility bills. Your prospects may love that your appliances have a specific feature such as a built-in timer, but people don’t buy features; they buy benefits. Make sure that each website video focuses on benefits and your video email marketing campaign will be much more likely to connect with your leads.

How long should your video email marketing campaign be? As with general email marketing, each campaign will be unique. Before you produce a single website video, you should first map out your email marketing strategy. Think about the following:

  • What is your primary goal for the video email marketing campaign?
  • How long is the buying process for your particular product or service?
  • What interval is right for sending messages?
  • How many contacts do you need to make?

Once you know the primary goal, make sure that each website video supports that goal, educates sales leads, and reinforces benefits. After identifying the length of the buying process, you can create a website video email marketing campaign of a similar length. For example, if the average kitchen appliance buyer spends a month researching before buying, your video email marketing campaign might be three to four weeks long. Your email marketing message intervals will be determined by the overall length of the campaign and the number of contacts you feel is appropriate to educate, nurture, and ask for the sale.

Video email marketing is an important part of the video-to-lead funnel. You’ve worked hard to engage and convert your prospects. Now it’s time to nurture them and bring them back to your website for more relevant information.

How have you used video email marketing? Share your thoughts in the comment section below:

Testimonial Video Production: Why Client Testimonials on Video are Effective

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testimonial video production

Testimonial video production is a process that can yield tremendous results. By posting a customer testimonial video on your website, not only are you leveraging the power of word-of-mouth advertising, you’re also presenting social proof that you can deliver on your promise. When viewers watch client testimonials, they can see that a past customer of yours is happy with your service. When taken all together, your prospects will start to trust you and your offer. Let’s take a look at why testimonial video production is so important.

Leveraging Word-of-Mouth Advertising with a Customer Testimonial Video

We all know how powerful word-of-mouth advertising is. When a customer tells other people about how wonderful your product or service is, those other people warm up to the idea of potentially making a similar purchase. However, the traditional word-of-mouth advertising model is slow and largely out of your control. With video client testimonials on your website, you can speed up the process and take control over the entire testimonial video production.

For example, with a customer testimonial video, you no longer have to wait for customers to tell their friends. Instead, you’ll record client testimonials and place them prominently on your website where your prospects can easily view them. In addition, since you control the testimonial video production process, you can provide a script for each customer testimonial video or carefully edit the client testimonials for maximum impact.

Client Testimonials Deliver Social Proof

Each customer testimonial video on your website serves as social proof that you can deliver. While word-of-mouth advertising does the same thing, that social proof usually takes place outside of your realm. In addition, the people hearing word-of-mouth recommendations may not be suitable prospects. With testimonial video production, you now have a way to prove your capabilities to an audience that’s already interested in learning about them.

Your prospects are prospects because they’ve arrived at your website looking for information about your product or service. As they are exposed to your messages, they may be interested but also slightly doubtful. Your client testimonials can ease those doubts by proving that you did deliver on your promises. What’s more credible, an advertisement touting the benefits of your products and services or a customer testimonial video featuring a satisfied customer who has the same problems and needs as your prospects? Let your customers build trust on your behalf by starting the testimonial video production process.

What Makes a Customer Testimonial Video Effective?

As you begin the testimonial video production process, it’s important to understand what makes client testimonials so effective. By understanding this, you can choose remarks that build trust and reflect well on your product or service.

The most effective testimonial video productions include the following:

  • Relatable people – Select customers that your prospects can relate to. For example, if you’re marketing a product to executives, your customer testimonial video should feature a business professional. If you’re targeting young adults, your client testimonials should be from young adults.
  • Specific examples – An effective customer testimonial video is loaded with specific examples, not vague murmurs of greatness.
  • Benefits – As part of the testimonial video production process, provide a loose outline of some of the benefits your product or service delivers and make sure that your client testimonials mention those benefits.

Throughout the testimonial video production, keep benefits firmly in mind and focus the entire production around those benefits. Doing so ensures that each customer testimonial video is as effective and credible as possible.

How have you approached testimonial video production? Which client testimonials are the most effective? Share your thoughts in the comment section below:

Product Demo Video: The Importance of High Quality Video

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product demo video

A good product demo video not only showcases the product you are demonstrating, it also sends a message to viewers about the product’s quality. Make sure that your product demonstration video features the best production values possible so that viewers receive a message of quality. After all, an amateurish product video screams out that your product or company is also amateurish while a high quality video has the opposite effect. In addition to production values, your video should also contain quality content that shows you understand the benefits your viewers will realize by choosing your product.

Product Demo Video: Production Values

Whether your product demonstration video focuses on luxurious cosmetics or heavy duty construction equipment, the quality of the video production says something about the quality of the product. For example, if you were considering purchasing a $250,000 bulldozer, what would you think about a product video with fuzzy images, horrible sound, and jerky camera moves. If the video looks like it was shot on a cell phone by one of the equipment operators, what does that tell you about the company’s commitment to its customers?

While you may not be able to drag a bulldozer into a video production studio, you can certainly hire a professional video crew to shoot and edit the product demo video. Using a professional-grade video camera, tripod, sound equipment, and lighting is a must because the overall quality of the product demonstration video relies on the production values used at every point of the process including shooting.

In addition, the product video should be professionally edited. A good editor can do wonders with raw footage, voiceover, music, and interviews. A good video editor can transform a lengthy product video into a short, engaging product demonstration video.

High Definition Product Demo Video – Is it Necessary?

Before you shoot the product demonstration video, make sure to consider shooting in high definition. Even if your product demo video is destined for your website where high definition may not be necessary, shooting a high definition product video gives you options. Remember, you can always scale down a high definition product demo video for the small screen, but you can’t necessarily do the opposite. Once you have your product demonstration video produced in high definition, you can repurpose it for tradeshows, sales presentations, Blu-ray discs, or even television commercials.

Most video production companies have the capacity to produce your product video in high definition. In fact, most will be happy to produce the product demo video in HD and provide you with alternate formats for the Web and other uses.

Product Demo Video: What to Include

Okay, so you know you want your product demonstration video to have the best production values possible and be shot in high definition – now what? Before sending a product video film crew to your jobsite or booking studio time, you’ll need a solid idea about what your product demonstration video should include.

You may have already detailed which features to demonstrate in your product video. While that’s a great start, a feature-rich product demo video is missing a key component: the viewer. Instead of focusing your product demonstration video solely on your product’s features, switch perspectives and adopt the viewer’s perspective. What benefits will viewers of the product video realize if they purchase your product?

A product demo video that focuses on benefits answers the question of “what’s in it for me?” Viewers watching a benefit-focused product demonstration video will know that the product makes them look younger, saves them money, saves them time, reduces injuries on the job, makes them more productive, and so on. A product video that focuses on benefits creates an emotional connection and helps frame buying decisions.

When a product demo video features high production values and focuses on the benefits viewers will receive by choosing that product, it’s bound to be a success. How have you incorporated benefits into your product demo video? Share your thoughts in the comment section below:

Website Video Spokesperson: Choosing Talent Your Visitors Can Relate To

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If you’re considering adding a website video spokesperson to your website, it’s vital to cast an actor that your website visitors can relate to. Not only can a relatable virtual spokesperson welcome your visitors, that Web video spokesperson can help them feel at ease. Choose the wrong talent for your site, and your visitors will likely click the “stop” button – or worse, the “back” button. Choose the right talent for your site, and your visitors will feel engaged, nurtured, and empowered to make a favorable decision.

Determining the Ideal Website Video Spokesperson for Your Site

Before you look at audition tapes, consider the demographics of your website. Is your audience primarily male? Female? How old are your website visitors? What are they interested in? What problems do they have? What type of person do they look to for advice?

This doesn’t mean choosing a virtual spokesperson that looks like your target audience; it means that your Web video spokesperson should be someone your target audience can relate with.

For example, if your website sells cheerleading outfits to teenage girls, you don’t necessarily have to choose a female teenager to serve as your website video spokesperson. A 30-something virtual spokesperson playing a cheerleading coach may be more effective.

Casting the Web Video Spokesperson

Once you understand what your ideal website video spokesperson looks like, you can start casting. By determining the gender and age of your virtual spokesperson in advance, you’ll save time and be able to focus only on those audition tapes that meet your criteria.

What to Look for As You View Web Video Spokesperson Audition Tapes

You may have a specific look in mind for your website video spokesperson such as our 30-something cheerleading coach example. However, not all of the audition tapes of 30-something actresses will contain athletic wardrobe changes. You may need to use your imagination to visualize the virtual spokesperson in appropriate clothing. Many audition tapes do contain clips with the Web video spokesperson wearing various outfits such as business suits, casual clothing, and athletic wear.

Listen to the voice of each website video spokesperson. Does the virtual spokesperson have a delivery style that matches the mood of your website? For example, if you’re looking for an authority figure, a Web video spokesperson with a perky delivery style might not be the best choice. Similarly, if you want a perky, upbeat voice, a website video spokesperson with a deep, authoritative voice may not be what you’re looking for. Keep in mind that each virtual spokesperson is an actor who may have a range of delivery styles. Listen to the entire delivery and review each Web video spokesperson’s bio to see if other accents or delivery styles are available.

Watch each website video spokesperson as if you were your target audience. If your website appeals to teenage girls, pretend you’re a teenage girl while watching the audition. If your website appeals to 80-year-old men, pretend you’re an 80-year-old man. Ask yourself if you can relate to the virtual spokesperson from your temporary perspective. If so, you’re getting closer. If not, ask yourself who you would prefer to hear this information from and rethink your Web video spokesperson criteria.

As you can see, casting a website video spokesperson is more involved than picking an attractive actor or actress to play a role. You absolutely need to know your audience and what type of virtual spokesperson your audience can relate and respond to. Once you know that, you can choose your Web video spokesperson with confidence.

What else should you look for in a website video spokesperson? Share your thoughts in the comments section below: