As a business owner, personally conducting a customer video review interview can be a powerful experience.  It produces a wonderful sales tool for your small business.  It also builds incredible customer loyalty.

You have many options for getting customer video reviews.  More will be explored in the next post.   In this post, I will focus on the Video Interview Model.  Below are some tips and suggestions for conducting a customer video review interview.

• Video customer reviews have structures similar to written customer reviews.  They also have unique qualities specific to the video medium.
• Open ended questions are better than Yes or No questions.  Three key questions:
  Describe their situation/problem
  What did they experience with your product/solution?
  Why was it better for them?
• Listen to the customer.
• Specifics are better than generalities.
• Not too short; not too long. 1-2 minutes is plenty for a customer review video.
• Honest opinions may include both negative and positives.  Both can be helpful to customers considering a purchase.
• If the customer has received the product free or has other connections to the business beyond customer to business relationship, there should be full disclosure.
• People tend to get nervous in front of a camera.  It may be helpful to send questions ahead of time to relax the situation.
• To make everyone feel more comfortable, have a “dry run” before turning on the camera.
• If you are using a flip camera or a smart phone video, show the customer the video version to see if they want to cut any sections.
• Make the setting natural, light and fun.  It’s an opportunity for the customer to share their experiences with other.
• It is not about you, it’s about the customer experience.
• It’s the customer’s 15 minutes of fame!

Conclusion

The time you invest in 2-3 video customer reviews can have a huge payoff for your business.  When done well, a customer review interview becomes a powerful online sales tool that helps close many future sales for your business.  It becomes than a customer review.  It becomes a 24/7 sales person for your business!  Give it a try.

What are your questions for video customer reviews?

Looking for more interview tips, check out this video with Katie Couric ,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eOynrI2eTM.

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Here’s a personal example on the power of video testimonials.   Four years ago, my furnace went out.  I called several dealers in the area.  I had one of them replaced my furnace.  He did a great job.  At the time, I told him his website did a poor job of representing his business.  So he gave me the job of creating a new website for him.  On the landing page, I put a short video of the owner welcoming people to his website.  In the upper left hand corner, I put a video testimonial from myself about his good work.  Looking at his web statistics over the last six months, he had 630 people view his video.  Over 1900 people clicked on my testimonial video.  It shows you the power of video testimonials.  I didn’t get these views because of my good looks!

Customer video testimonials or reviews come in many shapes and sizes.  Here are the three most popular forms.  Which one fits your business?

Product Video Testimonials

A customer demonstration showing the product usage is very effective.  The last notepad I purchased had a customer showing some of the cool features of the notepad.  This prompted me to buy.  This business’s presentation was far more effective than the text versions offered by other businesses selling the same notepad.  Potential customers love to see a product in use.

Service Video Testimonials

Services businesses generally involved a process that may be difficult or two lengthy to explain in text form.  When a customer gives a testimonial about their problem and the results your services produced, it is very effective for a service business.  Prime example, notice the number of video testimonials for weight loss programs.  You can see the difference!

Professional Video Testimonials

These type of video testimonials or reviews work well for professional businesses.  It is difficult for the average customer to know the difference between a good lawyer and a bad one; a good real estate agent and a bad one.  These customer videos testimonials speak to the character and integrity of you as a professional.  They instill confidence in a potential customer that you can help their situation.

Conclusion

Review your business operations and decide what types of video testimonials or reviews are best for your business.

In the next post, I will provide you with a framework for conducting a customer video review.

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Video marketing has made life easier for the small business owner.  YouTube makes video distribution better.  Increasingly, video marketing has become a part of local search marketing to enhance your local search directories.

As a small business owner your interest is not in videos.  You want more customers, more visibility, and more money to flow into your business.

It does no good to put a video together and hope for the best.  Like others parts of your business, you need a plan.  Are you going to use videos to attract new customers, inform existing customers, use video testimonials (I will deal with this in the next post) or do a product demonstration?  Video can do all of this and more.   In most cases, videos are more engaging than text.

There are tips for getting videos done right so they add to the quality of your business.  Click here for six tips.

If you want to make more money with your small business video marketing and are not sure how, give me a call (651-485-3340) or shoot me an email.  I will be glad to talk with you and share my experiences.  al@hanzal.com

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One of my favorite people is Lou Bortone.  His insights have always been dead-on.  Here are his comments from a recent conference.

Hi Al!

I just got back from Infusioncon, a huge sales and marketing conference which, this year, featured top speakers and industry leaders like (my client) Ali Brown, Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, Pam Slim, Loral Langemeier and a host of other experts.

One message came through loud and clear from each and every one of the speakers and authors: The future of business is video. No question. No debate. No choice. It’s simply the way business is being done. All the experts agreed… If you don’t embrace video, you may not even be in business two years from now!

As you know, I’ve been preaching this gospel for years, so it’s kinda cool to hear all these business icons and mentors saying what I’ve been saying all along. Video marketing really works, and it’s the way of the future.

Adding video to your marketing mix will get you way more visibility, it will immediately improve your search engine rankings so your ideal clients can find you, and it will establish you as THE go-to expert in your niche.

You can read more about his article here:  click here

This is the fourth time in the last two weeks, I have seen references about the power of local video marketing.  Stay tune for future developments in my own business.

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If you are new to the process of local search marketing, this short video will give you some valuable insights into the process.

What is your biggest issue regarding local search marketing?

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Ready or not, Facebook will be changing your business Page to their new Timelines.  If you don’t make changes to your business Page, Facebook will make them for you on March 30^th.  You may not like the results.  You can click on your current Page to see what Facebook has planned for you.

Why Timelines?

According to Facebook, “Your timeline is your collection of the photos, stories, and experiences that tell your story. Here are some of the things you can do on your timeline:”  They state the benefits are:

Brand your Page–Add a unique cover photo and showcase your most important news on your Page timeline.

Highlight what matters–Pin a new post to the top of your Page each week so people notice what’s important.

Manage everything in one place–See and respond to your recent activity and private messages right from the top of your Page.

Where You Can Get Help for Your Timeline?

This is another opportunity to get exposure for your local business.  If you want to learn more about what to do and how to use Facebook Timelines for your local marketing, check out the article by Mari Smith, the Queen of Facebook.  Mari is one of the best experts on Facebook.  She explains things in a simple down to earth way.  She has a check list process for getting your business positioned on the Facebook Timelines.

Check out her article here at Fan Page Checklist   Enjoy creating your new Timeline.

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I am always looking for local search marketing success stories.  Even if I was not a contributor to the story, I find it helpful to share the power of local search marketing with my readers.   I invite you to watch this short video.  Then ask yourself, “How can local search marketing change my business.”  Give me a call and I can help answer your question.

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Not using your website for local business is no longer possible.  Chad Brooks has written a wonderful article on seven ways to lure customers to your local website. Here are his seven options. You can read more details about each of these options and resources you can use in his article, “7 Ways to Drive Local Traffic to Your Web Site.”

• Coupon Pages—coupons are 3 billion dollar industry. 75% of consumers using coupons will use more than they did six months ago.
• Online Videos—videos are a more engaging way to get information to your customers.
• Local Online Directories—ten years ago your business could not survive without a yellow page Ad. Today people are using local search directories just as they once did the yellow pages. If you want to be found by local customers, you need to be on local search directories.
• Incentives—use incentives for such things as special deals or pricing for those who write a review about your business.
• QR Codes—shoppers are using their smart phones to scan the QR codes. Put a QR code on your business card that connections them with a special landing page on your website.
• Social Media—choose social media sites that are relevant for your customer’s interest.
• Email Marketing—is still one of the best ways to keep in touch with your existing customers—the gold mine of your small business.

Enjoy and prosper.  What ways are you using to get customers to your local business?

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In a previous post, I showed the connection between mobile marketing and local search marketing.  According to research, in two years, more people will be accessing the internet with their smart phones than with their computers.

All website do not lend themselves to being mobile friendly.  If you want to attract these mobile customer, its time you retooled your website to make it mobile friendly.

In this article from Local Corporation, they identify a three step process for getting your website mobile ready.  Click on the logo to read the article.  Enjoy and prosper.

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As small business owners we have limited time and resources we can use for our marketing efforts. If your business is local and you have made local search marketing a center piece of your efforts, you want to know which social media sites are your best values to enhance your local search marketing.

In previous posts, I review the popular social media sites and how they can support your local search marketing.  In this post I will review the newest and very popular Pinterest to see how it can help move your business to the top of the local Map.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest can be described as a social networking program that allows participants to share visually with each other. The focus is on particular life styles or passions participants have around about specific topic. It started in March of 2010 and already has 11 million participants

Pinterest is best described as a “virtual pinboard.” Many people collect clippings of their dream vacations, weight loss goals, or other passions in life. Pinterest allows users to create “boards” to share content by uploading images, “pins” from your site, from other sites, or “re-pin” from other user boards. The social networking comes from your comments and sharing pictures about a common passion or cause.

Does it Work? Real Simple Magazine now gets more traffic from Pinterest than from Facebook. Kate Bryan , http://www.thesmallthingsblog.com/ starting to pin her work on Pinterest and attracted more than 16,000 blog subscribers.

How does Pinterest work?

Pinterest operates by invitation only basis. You can request an invitation www.pinterest.com and then wait for them to grant your request. This is a slow process. Or you can ask a friend who already has a Pinterest account to invite you. This is a quicker way to gain access.

When you are accepted, you can create a Pinterest profile. You can have your company’s name, a logo, a brief description and also create links as part of your profile. By making this profile visible, your profile gets indexed by the search engines.

Like other social media sites , Pinterest has its own etiquette. People do not look kindly on blatant promotions of your business or products. For example, if you are selling shoes, you do not promote your shoes by showing pictures of them. You show pictures of where shoes can take a person.

Like other social networks, followers and following others are part of the networking process. You do this in the visual form of networking photos and videos on your Pin Board and repining other Pin Boards.

Example

I work with a business owner, Marie, http://www.woollysomething.com/, who sells knitting

Marie Mayhew

patterns on the internet. She uses a program called Etsy which is an online shopping program for people who sell personal crafts items. Etsy has more than 50,000 followers.

People who use Etsy to buy or sell personal craft products love Pinterest. They have their own community of people who are passionate about personal crafts items. They can use the visual aspect of Pinterest to show their crafts. Marie has dozens of people who follow her on Pinterest and go to Etsy where they purchase her knitting patterns.

For this type of business, Pinterest becomes a huge craft meeting place where participants can share with others their passion about crafting.

Conclusion

The heart and soul of Pinterest is social sharing around a life style issue or passion in life. It allows people to come together with others who share the same interests. Having a Pinterest site has obvious advantages. A Pinteresdt site creates another citation for search engines to use for ranking your business on a local Map.

However, unlike Foursquare and Facebook Places, Pinterest does not have a geo-location focus. For businesses using local search marketing, it has no immediate value. Like other social media sites, it requires time, energy and participation to maximize the value of the site. This may detract from other core marketing efforts.

If your local business is a life style business built around a particular group of people who have a common interest, then you may wish to investigate using Pinterest to enhance your local search marketing.

If you are looking for a great resource to learn more about Pinterest, Hubspot (www.hubspot.com) offers a free e-book that explains the entire program, How to Use Pinterest for Business,

What has been your experience with Pinterest?

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