What is a customer success story video?
A customer success story is a key part of any video marketing campaign as it helps you achieve the 2nd stage of the marketing funnel. As I’m sure you know this stage is consideration, where new customers are deciding whether your product is the product for them. A strong and clear story that follows the 4 stages below, about how your product changed someones life is a very powerful tool.
What are the key ingredients of a customer success story?
There are four key ingredients to a successful customer success story videoåÊ –
- The customer is the most important part of the video. It is their story not yours, the trick with these videos is to choose the right customer, one who can tell their story without too much assistance from you. If you can achieve this the video will be a lot more authentic and therefore a stronger sales tool even though it doesn’t directly sell.
- As I alluded to briefly above, these videos should not sell. Consumers are a savvy bunch in this continually connected, modern day market place and if they get a sniff of a direct sell the power and impact of a human story will be blown.
- Customer success story videos should have four clear goals, they need to clearly set out who the customer is, the customers problem, the solution and then how the solution transformed the customers life. If you miss one of these out, the video will not be effective as each of the four sections rely on one another.
- A human being must be the centre piece of the video. The spoken words tell a lot of the story but body language is absolute key. It is so powerful and adds a lot more feel and emotion to the video. You can physically see how your product or service has changed their life and you can tell the authenticity of the story by their micro body movements.
The Customer Success Story Template
I’ll now take you through two example videos to help you get started on your own customer success story video.
Below are the four sections a customer success story video should be broken down to and each of these sections needs to include the ingredients from above.
- Introduce the customer, the hero of the story.
- Introduce the problem that needs to be solved.
- Present the solution that will beat the problem.
- The outcome, how the customers life was changed.
Vitality – How life insurance can save a life
Vitality have done a great job with this customer success story, so lets break it down –
The Customer – The video opens with the customer introducing himself as a hard worker and family man. This will instantly resonant with the majority of Vitality’s target audience and the country.
The imagery of him arriving home from work and his son and wife welcoming him home is something that resonates with most people, so is a great openingåÊsequence to introduce him.
The problem – Chris then expands on his lifestyle and health concerns because he had noticed some symptoms, this is important because every good story needs some jeopardy as it hooks the viewer in as they want to find out what happens at the end. He goes on to explain that doctors and consultants could join the dots so he needed to find another option.
During this section it is only Chris featured in the shots and the colours are washed out with a bluish hue, this all helps illustrate how Chris was feeling inside. We see him searching on Google, self diagnosis is a big thing in this information rich age we live, this helps portray him as one of us and draws us in to his story further.
The Solution – Whilst he was signing up to Vitality he signed up to a health check at a local pharmacy and was diagnosed with diabetes type 2.
The key takeaway here is Chris’ body language, during the key lines when he is talking about his diagnosis all we see is him on screen. This is very important because as well as hearing how it made him feel we can see it as well, his facial expressions and his intonation as he speaks adds a lot of weight to the scene.
The Outcome – Vitality helped him get the medication he needed and he now lives a much healthier life and has lost weight. Vitality saved his life.
When Chris moves onto the uplifting part of the film the tone of the music changes to something much brighter and upbeat, this is combined with lush green leaves and the sun, all very powerful images of rebirth and better times to come. He is dressed down, looking much more relaxed and enjoying life with his young family. The happy ending we have to come expect from popular culture stories.
After the false closing graphic we get a great candid ending of Chris and his family laughing on a park bench where Chris refers to himself as ‘the StepMaster’, this is a fabulous ending as it makes them look real and makes the story even more believable.’
FreshBooks – Sarah
The hero – Sarah and her situation is a lack of time as she runs a business and has a family to look after.
This video is a lot simpler than the one above but it is still very effective. Sarah comes across very well on screen and because we never cut away from her we are always seeing how she reacts to her story, via her body language, her facial expressions and intonation. It’s also important to know that she is a mum because this means that her time is very valuable and any spare time will most likely be used up by her family.
The problem – Her messy and confused accounting system which takes up more of her valuable time. It gets on top of her so much that she actually puts off sending out invoices and therefore doesn’t get paid when she should. This is most definitely a serious problem for a business.
During this section we see Sarah getting quite animated about her situation and she has a nervous laugh because what she is saying sounds ridiculous for the business owner. Video is the only mass audience media that can portray this! It’s interesting that FreshBooks decided to use an interior and architecturalåÊdesigner for this video because her current accounting solution is the complete opposite to how she needs to be when working with one of her clients.
The solution – FreshBooks is the accounting software solution she was waiting for and she compares it to finding gold! This is a fantastic comparison for any business to receive, especially when you think of the many connotations for gold.
In this section you can clearly see in her body language and facial expressions that Sarah is very happy with her choice. Gold was an interesting word to use because it is probablyåÊthe most common, most expensive product/material the wider population wants.åÊ
The Outcome – The happy ending is that she saves so much time she can spend it working and therefore making more money.
I hope this blog has been interesting and you can now see how important a well made customer success story video is. If you would like us to help you produce one or a series of these videos please get in touchåÊor call Andy and Will on 01273 911345.