A TeraLeap Customer Story with SEAL Analytical
When the Brochure Isn't Enough
Johann Hinck, Marketing Manager at SEAL Analytical, knew their instruments delivered results in real labs. What he needed was proof that could reach markets where word of mouth had never traveled, without adding a production project to his team’s plate.
What’s inside this video:
How word of mouth made SEAL well-known in some markets and invisible in others, and what the company tried first to close that gap
Why written case studies couldn’t communicate what complex analytical equipment actually does in a real laboratory
How SEAL captured B-roll of their instrumentation in live customer labs without sending a film crew
What changed when Johann handed over the production process after years of wanting to control it himself
Where SEAL is deploying the videos: product catalogs, website articles, and LinkedIn brand awareness campaigns
Strong in Some Markets, Invisible in Others
Word of mouth has geography.
SEAL Analytical makes analytical equipment for environmental laboratories: instruments that (in the right hands) solve complex measurement problems that most labs can’t solve any other way. In certain states, certain professional circles, the SEAL name carried real weight. Their customers were loyal. Their reputation traveled.
Just not everywhere.
“We were extremely popular within certain groups in the environmental laboratory world,” Johann told us. “Certain states, everyone knew about SEAL and wanted to work with us. And in other states, people maybe hadn’t heard of us at all.”
This is a pattern we see often with manufacturers. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful forces in B2B sales, and one of the most geographically limited. Breaking into a new market means establishing trust with analysts who have no frame of reference for who you are.
SEAL’s first instinct was solid: document the proof in writing. They built out written case studies (articles about what customers were doing with their instrumentation), but each one required weeks of coordination and Johann’s questioned how much engagement they even got on them: “a written story that maybe didn’t even get that many full reads.”
“We had done lots of customer stories, just written articles about what customers were doing with their instrumentation, but that didn’t communicate what we needed to tell an interested analyst when they’re first looking at instrumentation.”
Johann Hinck, Marketing Manager, SEAL Analytical
What Brochures Can't Prove
With complex technical equipment, buyers enter the evaluation knowing the instrument claims to perform. The question they’re actually trying to answer is: has it done this, in a lab like mine, with samples like mine?
A brochure can’t answer that.
“When you’re producing analytical equipment for the laboratory, there’s a lot of complexity to the product itself,” Johann explained. “It’s very easy to say on paper or in a brochure that a product can do X, Y, and Z. But having it actually perform that in a real laboratory with real samples is a lot more difficult.”
The format that closes that gap is a real analyst, in a real lab, saying: “I run samples with this instrument, in my actual application, and it does exactly what SEAL says it does.” That claim can only come from someone who isn’t you.
SEAL knew this. Video had been on the list for years. They had willing customers and great stories to tell. The production question kept it from happening: “We just didn’t have the time on our hands to figure out when we would make these videos, how we would make them happen, what questions to ask, as well as editing video at the end.”
Most testimonial programs stall here because the process lands entirely on the marketing team.
“Doing any kind of video with the customer felt extremely daunting… but now seeing how easy it was to create these customer testimonials, the possibilities are endless.”
Johann Hinck, Marketing Manager, SEAL Analytical
The Process That Made It Possible
Johann’s main question going into that first call with us: how much of this is going to land on me?
“It really was just immediately useful from the first call forward.”
Almost nothing landed on him. We built the questions from a few prompts he gave us. We conducted the session directly with his customer. Johann joined the call “just to make sure there weren’t any extra questions.” He didn’t need to do anything himself.
Before the session, a video kit had already arrived at SEAL’s customer location (the standard setup for every TeraLeap interview). During the same call, once we had the story, we asked the customer to turn the camera toward the SEAL instrument on their bench. “Capturing the B-roll with the customer is really easy during the call,” Johann told us. “All that involved was them moving their phone camera over to their instrument on the bench, and then TeraLeap guided them through capturing some really ideal shots for the videos.”
Real lab. Real equipment. Real environment. Same 45-minute session.
“Getting to see our instrumentation in the customer’s actual lab makes the story come so much more to life,” Johann said. “It’s one thing to have these perfectly staged scenes of your product at work. But to see our product on the lab bench at the customer site, working with real samples, in a real environment, that really furthers the story along.”
“TeraLeap allows us to really easily create videos with our customers, to allow them to explain why they purchased a SEAL Analytical instrument and then how that impacted their lab, and then we can easily share that video with our customers for immediate proof of product.”
Johann Hinck, Marketing Manager, SEAL Analytical
One Interview, Three Channels
One 45-minute interview. Here’s where it went.
The product catalog. SEAL added QR codes linking directly to the testimonial video, so when an analyst picks up a catalog, they’re not just reading specifications. They’re hearing from another analyst, in a similar role, explaining why the instrument actually performs in a real lab. Those QR codes and digital catalog links have been clicked or scanned 295 times and counting.
Consider what a catalog scan actually represents: buyer-initiated proof-seeking at the exact moment of product consideration. Someone already in evaluation mode, already reading product specs, stopped to watch a peer confirm the instrument worked in a real lab. In a product category where instruments average $50,000 and range up to $200,000, 295 of those represent a meaningful volume of technical buyers engaging with customer proof before a sales conversation begins.
“Our product catalogs have QR codes that can be scanned, or links that can be clicked in a digital version, that go straight to these customer testimonials. Those have been clicked on or scanned hundreds of times. So even when someone just first sees our product catalog, they already see customers who are happy and successful with their instrumentation.”
Johann Hinck, Marketing Manager, SEAL Analytical
The website. Articles built around the same story, with the video embedded. Customer story pages averaged more than 2x the time on page of SEAL’s other articles: over a minute of engagement in a category where most pages hold attention for about 30 seconds. The customer story format drew 5x the views of SEAL’s other recent product videos.
When buyers stay over a minute on a technical article, they’re watching the video.
LinkedIn. Paid brand awareness campaigns running in markets where SEAL had no prior presence. Hundreds of thousands of impressions among the specific analyst communities that word of mouth had never reached.
One interview. Three channels. And a team that went from “this feels daunting” to already planning the next three.
A customer video puts proof at the first touchpoint: before a sales call, in a real lab, in the words of the analyst who already runs the instrument.
Free Guide & Templates
To Get More Testimonials
- Best practices for getting more customers to say ‘yes’
- The 3-Step Ask your team can implement today
- Ultimate 7-step checklist for a B2B social proof program
- 5 data-backed email templates and call scripts
- Additional outreach tactics to for hard-to-get customers
