A few weeks ago, we gave you access to our latest email template, making it easier for you to ask clients to appear in testimonial videos.
This week, you’re going to learn about the type of clients you should ask.
Don’t ask your longest-serving clients
In our experience, and quite understandably, when left to their own devices most advisers/planners ask their longest-standing clients to appear in testimonial videos. This causes two problems:
- The clients often talk about a previous iteration of a service proposition
- They tend (although not always) to take the exercise less seriously.
Consequently, their videos aren’t as powerful as they could be, and you lose an opportunity to impress potential clients.
Ask clients who’ve been through a big event
In our experience, the most powerful testimonial videos are from clients who’ve been through a big life event relatively recently – ideally, in the last 2-3 years. That’s because they can explain:
- What life was like before the event
- How you helped them to navigate the event
- What life is like now and how they feel about their future.
In other words, they’re telling a story with you as a central character.
Examples of big life events include:
- Retirement
- Bereavement
- Business sale
- Serious illness
- Business purchase
- Divorce or separation.
At this point, two elephants might enter the room.
Firstly, you might be worried that clients who’ve been with you for a short period are less likely to agree to be in a video.
In our experience, that’s not the case. There’s no magic number of years a client must be with you before they’ll appear in a video, recommend you to others, leave a review and so on.
To prove that point, I interviewed four clients for a financial planner earlier this year on a face-to-face shoot. One of them described the positive impact the planner had delivered on their retirement planning despite the fact they’d only worked together since 2023.
Secondly, you might be concerned that clients won’t want to talk about difficult subjects such as illness, bereavement or divorce (although that’s not always a bad thing!). Some won’t, but others will be happy to tell their story.
Again, to prove the point, over the last few years, we’ve interviewed people who are disabled, recently widowed, been seriously ill (in one case terminally ill) or had recently divorced. Each had their own motivation for agreeing to be filmed, but all were very powerful stories.
The exception that proves the rule
As with all “rules” there’s an exception.
In this case, the exceptions to the ‘big life event rule’ are the people you’ve put on the right track to retirement but have not yet retired.
These people might have accumulated pensions, investments and other assets but come to you feeling disorganised, confused and unsure whether they have “enough” (Credit: Paul Armson!).
You take them through a financial planning process, prove that you understand their goals and aspirations, and map out a course to achieving them. As a result, they gain invaluable peace of mind, reassurance, and confidence.
Sure, they might not have retired yet and had that ‘big life event’ but they make fantastic video testimonials.
Only one missing piece of the jigsaw
So now you know which clients to ask and how to ask them, plus you have a free email template to make the job even easier.
All you need now is a partner to run the project with.
Over the years our team has recorded well over 100 client testimonial videos. We offer a full service, which includes:
- Advice about the type of shoot; remote or face-to-face
- Help in selecting the clients to ask
- Shooting and editing the videos
- Transcripts and subtitles
- Adding to your website.
And once we’ve done all that, we’ll help you to capitalise on your investment by recommending other ways you can use the videos in your marketing.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you join the 6.4% of firms who have client videos, email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300.
