One of the challenges of selling a product or service is convincing someone that your company can deliver results, satisfaction, and value. Beyond product specs, cost comparisons, feature lists and benefits bullet points, for many would-be consumers of your products or services, there still remains one crucial question that needs a concrete answer: What do other people think?

Testimonial videos, whether distributed via DVD marketing, online or broadcast TV, present a singularly unique opportunity. It is perhaps the only time in the marketing and sales cycle when you can step back and allow someone else to toot your horn for you.

Often video testimonials will close a deal or make a sale when nothing else seems to be able to move a person or company from being a prospect to a customer. And it makes sense. When evaluating any invitation, we instinctively want to know who else will be at the party, and we use that information to make our decision and even bolster our confidence and assuage any future doubts that we are making the right choice.

Most companies, if they really do provide value, results and satisfaction, will not have any trouble finding a happy customer or two that can articulate why they recommend you to everyone they know. In our experience, customers are flattered when they are asked to sit for a short video testimonial to be used in various marketing materials, and oftentimes it can be a way to soft-market their own company or brand.

The video recommendation can take the form of a short, 30 second bite, or even a longer story, where a customer has a chance to really talk about their needs before you entered their lives, and then explain the many ways you were able to meet those needs and solve their problems, and even exceed their expectations.

So step out of the way and let your happiest clients take a turn at telling the world why your company’s product or service is the best thing that’s ever happened to them!

We just received word from our client Stevn Lovink, founder of Planet2025 Network, that the three videos we were hired to produce for the World Bank as part of a worldwide conference held in Zaragoza Spain were a great success!

The goal of the project was to create a series of three short videos to be used in a week-long live, multi-location, globally networked conference, with groups of participants located in nearly 30 countries, all participating live via GDLN conferencing software. The videos were designed to be the catalyst for those discussions, which centered around the global challenges taking place in the water sector.

Each video tackled a unique area, such as the societal values necessary to foster a water and life-sustaining civilization, or effective methods of communication about water issues such as waste, pollution and leadership corruption, and accelerated means of educating a global populace about these urgent issues.

It was challenging work, which is just the sort of thing we love around here! You can view three of them on YouTube (as a matter of pride, I feel I must mention that YouTube really distorts the quality of both the audio and video. We delivered a final cut with a much higher production value, but YouTube is the easiest place to see it online, so the tradeoff for the client was worth it. Please be sure to click the “View in High Quality” link right below each video as it loads. Thanks!)

Values for a Life Sustaining Civilization (Part 1)
Values for a Life Sustaining Civilization (Part 2)
Accelerated Learning

We just wrapped a large video project for the World Bank, and in it one of the people being interviewed made a comment I have been quoting to clients for two weeks: “No one changes their behavior when confronted with naked facts and figures. If we expect people to see things our way, we have to tell stories. It is the narrative that motivates change.”

Every company, no matter how large or small, has a story worth telling. A story that, if told well, can cause customers, clients and prospects to react in a desired way. I have thought about how video interviews and productions can help to accomplish certain conversion goals, such as overcoming purchase resistance, managing fears (medical, etc.) and helping to introduce people to concepts and ways of thinking that funnel them deeper into the sales process.

Even if it’s just about helping prospects get to know your company better before making first contact, video is a powerful storytelling tool. See below for two examples of how video is being used by one of our clients in San Antonio:

(Patient Testimonial for Integra Clinical Research)

(Hiring Video for the medical group including Integra Clinical Research)

(NOTE: For video editors and production personnel) The process of timing script treatments and voice overs to match image sequences has been laborious and frustrating for me, mostly because keeping a stopwatch handy has proven harder than you might imagine. I’ve had at least a dozen, from the Sports Illustrated freebies, to magnetized kitchen varieties (until it corrupted a floppy back in the late 90s) and wristwatches. Dead batteries, chronic “borrowing”, stuck buttons, and tiny controls – these reasons and more have kept me hunting for better solutions.

A rock-solid clock is impossible to find in your typical NLE, which, in the typical work environment, is nothing close to real-time sync, what with all the rendering going on on the fly. Even when it looks pretty solid, it’s not. In a pinch, I have been known to throw a CD into a portable player, and use the time readout and play/pause controls to good effect. That is until I have a sequence with a total time of 00:07:53:00 and a CD with song times not exceeding 4 minutes. Stuck again. I’m a musician with decent rhythm, so I’ve even tried tapping seconds out with my hand, but try doing that while reading a script in a normal cadence, and you’ll understand why asylums were built.

Anyway, I Googled the term “online stopwatch”, and what do you know! Here’s the one that I have fallen in love with, for it’s simplicity, and the fact that it can operate both as a stopwatch and a countdown clock.

Accessible as an online version and as a downloadable Flash .exe, I find myself using it for a whole lot more than video work. (meeting clocks, get-up-and-stretch reminders, etc.)

It’s a freebie worth grabbing!

In this short video, Carter Harkins talks about what works in an online video strategy. Tutorial videos can be an excellent way to get more in-depth about your products and services, and connect with visitors who are really hungry for more information, not just “fluff”.

(Video Interview) Carter Harkins, the founder of Harkins Creative, talks about the changed expectations of internet users for web sites, in light of the “YouTube Revolution”.

The web is an amazing platform to tell a corporate story and engage visitors in more immersive brand experiences. And although it was once considered something only the mega-brands could afford, web video production is actually more reasonable than you think.

In a series of short video interviews with our founder, we will discover the trends that are shaping today’s internet experience, and lock in on key strategies using audio and video to drive traffic and engage consumers. Stay tuned in the days and weeks to come!

We have begun shooting HD video for clients for a couple of very good reasons.

First, HD helps to extend the life of the footage and the resulting final production as we move into an increasingly high-definition viewing experience on televisions and computers.

Second, even if the end game is still DVD (which is standard definition video, or SD), HD video footage gives us more options and possibilities during editing.

In all, these are two very good reasons to request HD production services from Harkins Creative.