Social proof is king
“Testimonials provide a way for us to tell prospective customers about the value we’re already offering to all of our existing customers. Social proof is king. If we can tell the story about others and how they’re using our product or getting value from our product, the reality is that everyone else naturally follows. Written case studies come across as marketing content. It’s not organic, it’s not authentic, and anyone could have written it. When I hear something from someone’s mouth with a face with a name, someone I can relate to, all of a sudden it’s real, it’s like I’m having the conversation with that person myself.”
A transformative, huge ROI impact
“We’ve always wanted to use video more extensively in our business—for video testimonials to tell that story in that authentic way. We’ve never had the budget or the time to be sending production crews out to meet our customers, to be inconveniencing them, making them move around their office and set up lights and cameras and have five people in there. And then when COVID came along, firstly, there’s safety concerns. But also, everyone’s at home, there’s no longer an office where I can go and take over and set up. So cost, health concerns, not even having everyone in the office made it impossible to do that, especially for a young company who doesn’t have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on each video. So that was always the challenge that got in the way of us using video testimonials more extensively. So as a founder, there’s naturally so much on your plate. And the way I prioritize things, firstly, sales is king. That’s the future of the business, that’s our ability to survive and to thrive. So anything we can do to enable sales is critically important. And talking to customers and selling is obviously really important. But if I can invest a little bit of time for something that I can use over and over again, that’s going to help me sell in a one-to-many way, that time is the best time I can spend as a founder. I can go and have this two minute video clip that tells this story in this perfect, authentic way about the value we provide. And that piece of content can be shown to thousands of people for a long time. That’s the best time investment in sales that I can make as a founder. So like always, it’s something else on the list. But it’s something that has such a transformative, huge ROI impact.”
Close more deals, faster
“After working with TeraLeap, and producing our first video testimonials, our sales org has never been more excited. They have this library of high quality stories from real people that they pull off the shelf as they need every day to explain the value of our product and why you should be choosing us. So TeraLeap is helping them close many more deals much faster, and in a much more engaging way. On the marketing side, we’re working on a new website—we’ve actually switched our results page from being a page of testimonials to a page of videos, where we’re doubling down on video as a way to tell stories for all the reasons I’ve described. And on the paid social side, on the advertising side, the data is there that shows that having a real person telling you why this product is great is going to do 10 times better than any quote, image or animation. So we’re really excited about the future of our paid social campaigns using TeraLeap video testimonials.”
Don’t just jump the obstacles—TeraLeap
“I’ve always had video testimonials high up on the list as something I really wanted to achieve to enable our sales team, and our marketing org as well, to have these real stories on our website and to help with our marketing content. But being blocked by huge budgets, COVID, being able to get out to people’s offices and the like, it was something that I didn’t think was feasible for now. And another SaaS company we use actually reached out to me and said, “Hey, we’re recording some videos using this product called TeraLeap. I would love it if you could join and tell us about why you love our product.” And I remember getting this package, and I flip it open, and there’s my tripod and the light and the microphone and the adapter for my device and these beautifully formatted instructions. And in my inbox, the link to get this set off. A few days later, I had this conversation with a video producer who really understood my business and the business I was talking about. And I was able to tell the story like I would to a friend. And then days later, I see this beautifully produced two minute video about why I love that product. And immediately for me, I knew that’s what we needed. So we very quickly became a TeraLeap customer. Two weeks later, I think three weeks later, we had our first three videos, we’ve now got a roadmap of many more, and have obviously been telling everyone we know about TeraLeap.”
Your customers will thank you
“What sets TeraLeap apart is the customer experience. We obviously want testimonial videos to tell the story. But these are our real customers who pay us money, who do care a lot about our product, and we really need to look after them. They’re doing us a favor by helping us tell this story. And we want them to have a really good experience. So it’s as important to us that we have an amazing, high-quality piece of video content that tells the story, but it’s just as important that they have a great experience too, and enjoy the process. And the irony is it’s a favor for us, but all of our customers walk away thanking us for the opportunity to tell the story because of the experience they had with TeraLeap.”
Film once, use everywhere
The way we’re using our TeraLeap videos is nicely split between sales and marketing. On the sales side of things, we’re emailing them out to relevant prospects when we’re having conversations so they can hear it firsthand from a relevant company that they can relate to. And on the marketing side, we’ve got a whole roadmap of users for these videos. To start with, they’re finding their way into a new website that we’re designing at the moment. We’ve cut them up and used them on social for paid ads. So we are already using them in places where we can tell a story to prospects we don’t even know yet. They can hear it straight from a real customer.
Let your customers close the deal
We’re also starting to look for other opportunities for social proof. One objection we sometimes hear is around security and concerns about security. So we’re looking at now setting up another video with a head of security at a company talking about why Hugo is a great, secure, private solution for their meetings. So for us, wherever there’s a use case for social proof, either one-to-one in a sales context, or one-to-many in a marketing context, we’re turning to TeraLeap as the way to tell that story authentically. We all know that when you’re selling a product, objections or concerns is what breaks deals, right? People always have these things on their mind that they’re trying to get through. And a great sales representative is working hard to overcome them. But it’s very hard to do that when you’re hearing it from me as the sales rep. You know, obviously, I’m going to be telling you why that objection isn’t a problem, or why that challenge isn’t the challenge. All of a sudden, when you have a third party who you can relate to, who’s a real person in your shoes explaining why that objection may not be an objection, why the product is perfect for what you’re looking to do, we can jump miles ahead in our sales process. So we’re looking to TeraLeap and video testimonials as a way to overcome objections with real stories from real people.
Recommended, again and again
So if you ask me the question, would I recommend TeraLeap, all you need to do is look at how many companies we’ve already recommended use TeraLeap. The answer is absolutely yes. For an early stage startup, you can act like a really big company with video production teams and huge marketing budgets to tell a story in this high-production way for a fraction of the cost and for a fraction of the time. So it’s an absolute no brainer to any team who’s looking to unlock sales and marketing with real customer stories.
