Co-Creating Content with Customers

Content that is Human. Shareworthy. Engageworthy. Content that Converts to sales.

I was judging DMA awards entries and I found one common thread across the entries that made it to the top. Consumer research, learning from existing customers and then using those insights to create Video content.

I did the exact same thing 9 years back where I met few of our customers and learnt from them on why they use our product. And used those as customer testimonial ads.

As a business owner we understand the power of getting endorsements or testimonials. What do you do when you are looking to get a testimonial?

You pick up the phone and call some of your customers and ask them for the feedback and then ask them to fill a survey and hope with your fingers crossed that some of them will write good things about your business?

You get a customer support person get your customers to send a Video on Whatsapp, Google Drive, We Transfer.

Or you may get it on a Zoom call or Meet call and do the recording and then ask your Video editor to cut it out into a Video testimonial.

Or you may hire an expensive production company to go and meet your customers with lights and camera and get your customers to rehearse and doll up to give you a beautiful looking testimonial.

And then what do you do with that? You put it up on your website and hope that visitors will see that and feel more trust worthy of your products and services.

I have done all of this in past and then one fine day I did something different. I asked permissions from my customers to allow me to use their testimony to be used in an ad on Facebook. And some of the customers agreed.

That was a turning point of how we did marketing and our revenues sky-rocketed.

A customer's testimonial, on a Video is an ultimate endorsement to our product or service's value. They are so much in awe of it that they are willing to put their own self behind our product.

When I understood the power of Video testimonials, I deployed a dedicated team to constantly reach out to our loyal customers and seek for permission from them to share a video that I can use in ads. I started calling it Customer Testimonial Ads.

While the usage of the word Ad dilutes the power of Customer Testimonials, however, the reality has always been that the customers are the real brand ambassadors of our products and services. And hence, engaging them in real life advocacy is what we all need.

Case Study 1 - B2B Education technology Client.

Monthly Spends - $100K

Within 1 month of Launching Customer Testimonial Video Ads, CPL Reduced by 268% and CPS reduced by 52% and total transaction volumes increased by 20%.

There are so many marketers in today's time who are vouching for customer testimonial driven content over Influencer Videos or Celebrity ads. The content that is human. It is shareworthy, people feel comfortable sharing a real person's testimony. They are willing to respond, comment, like and more. They engage more. This content converts to sales.

Do share your thoughts on such customer driven content and what are you currently doing to create such content?