Gathering and Using Insurance Customer Video Reviews

Recently, we discussed how to gather and use written customer reviews. In this post, we’ll discuss the other type of customer reviews—video reviews. 

We’ll cover why you should gather video reviews, how to do so, where you can store them, and where you can share them. For more about how to request reviews, please refer to our written customer reviews blog. 

Why Video Reviews?

Not everyone wants to read a review and sometimes written reviews don’t go into great depth. It’s fantastic to receive a review that says: “XYC Insurance Agency is great!”, but it doesn’t give prospects much to go on. 

Why are you great? What do you do that makes you so great? A video review often goes into much more depth about the whys and hows behind their review. 

Another major benefit you can’t overlook is the human aspect of a video review vs. a written one. Your audience will feel a connection to the person on the video more significantly than they will reading a paragraph of praise.

Let’s look at some numbers about the benefits of video:

  • 65% of your audience are visual learners
  • Posts with videos attract 3 times as many inbound links as plain text posts
  • Shoppers who view video are 1.81 times more likely to purchase than non-viewers
  • Customer testimonials have the highest effectiveness rating for content marketing at 89%

Remember, 72% of customers don’t take action until they have read reviews, and a healthy mix of both written and video reviews is sure to spark some action.

 Pro Tip:

Make sure you gather video reviews the right way by leaving the script completely in the hands of your client. Trust us, your audience will know if a video is canned.

How Can I Get Video Reviews?

Video reviews don’t have to be that hard to collect. 

Sometimes clients will take it upon themselves and create their own videos, which is great! However, most clients will want you to have a process set up for them.

The old school method to capture video reviews is to identify clients who have agreed to the review and send them a camera in the mail. 

The downside to this method is you have to wait for them to send it back and hope that it doesn’t get lost in the mail or in their office/home. It also puts a lot of responsibility on the client—which isn’t always what they want. 

To simplify the process, use an online source. 

Here at AgencyBloc, we use Boast.io. Plans start at $16/month and allow space to collect at least 10 video reviews a month. The more you pay, the more videos you can collect a month. 

Once you’ve signed up, you create a review collection form that fits your needs. 

To share your Boast video review collection form, follow these steps:

  1. Create your Boast account
  2. Create your Boast collection form
  3. Create a landing page on your website specifically for video review collection
  4. Copy and paste your Boast collection form onto that landing page
  5. Share the URL of the landing page with your identified video review clients

Once you have the form on your page, you can share that landing page with anyone and they can take it from there. Your clients will record directly on that page via their computer’s webcam and microphone and, when they’re done, they just have to press accept. 

Then you’re notified via email and the process is over. Easy.

Here’s how the form looks to your audience:

AgencyBloc Video Testimonial Capture Form

Source | AgencyBloc

It can sound like a lot, but the simpler you make the process, the more likely your clients will be willing to complete the video for you. When I talk to my video review clients, I like to tell them, “all you need is a webcam and your favorite chair.” 

The other added benefit of this method is that anyone with a smartphone can do this since nearly every single smartphone comes with a built-in camera.

The downside of using an online gathering system is that it puts the quality of the video in the hands of your client. Some videos will come out great and look nice. Others may have a significant amount of feedback or background noise. 

It’s best to provide your clients with some direction and best practice tips up front either on the landing page or in your original request. (Both places is even better!) Again, this won’t eliminate all of the potential problems, but it can help set your clients up for success.

 Pro Tip:

Whichever online gathering software you choose, make sure it comes equipped with these 8 Essential Features.

Other services besides Boast you could consider are VideoPeel and Magnfi. 

Another avenue we’ve seen lately is video reviews coming through third-party review sites like TrustPilot or G2 (formally G2 Crowd Reviews). They’ve had written reviews for a long time, but the video review side seems to be growing. However, it’s important to note that many software review sites often cultivate reviews from your audience in exchange for an incentive, and depending on the site, may not be verified. 

What Do I Do Next?

Congratulations, you’ve received your first video review! This is the time to celebrate because it means that client really likes you. Otherwise, they wouldn’t take the time to put together a whole video!

Now that you have the review, what do you do? Best answer, USE IT! Share it with your team, your audience, everyone! 

To help it come up on Google searches, post it on your YouTube channel and post it on your website. 

A couple of notes about posting videos on your website:

  1. You will need access to the backend (i.e. the HTML) of your website.
  2. You may need to host your videos elsewhere then post them on your website. This could be any video hosting platform like Wistia or Vimeo.

Then, share it on your social media profiles. For an uplevel move, check out these blogs from Snappa about the best video formats for different social channels:

It is important to note that when you share on social media, especially Facebook and LinkedIn, try to do so natively. What that means is you don’t share a YouTube link or Wistia link on social but actually upload the video to your social post.

The reason for this is that both Facebook and LinkedIn put more emphasis on native videos than they do shared links. This will help your video get more impressions (views) and may help it perform better. Plus, if you are using the analytics and ads within those two platforms, native videos are easier to track and report on. 

 Pro Tip:

When sharing written and video reviews on social media ALWAYS make sure you link back to your website. Link to a page that has your lead form on it so you can continuously gather leads. It can be as easy as “Thanks, Bob Jones, for sharing your experience with XYZ Agency. Schedule a time to chat with us to see how we can help you achieve XYZ”. Then, make sure to link to the appropriate page on your website. This creates an open channel for people to navigate from your social profile to your website and engage with you further.

If you want to include a video in an email campaign, it will have to be a link. As of right now, videos cannot play within emails. For a workaround, link to a place like YouTube, Wistia, or Vimeo where you can track plays and engagement.

After that, just continue gathering reviews and sharing them. Once you’ve got your first, you’re well on your way!

Retain Your Clients & Increase Your Chances of Positive Testimonials

Before you can gather testimonials, you need to retain your clients. Download this free PDF to learn three ways to improve your agency's retention and increase your pool of testimonial opportunities.

Download Now

Posted by Allison Babberl on Tuesday, September 10, 2019 in Insurance Agency Management System

  1. marketing
  2. selling

About The Author

Allison Babberl

Allison is the Content Marketing Manager at AgencyBloc. She manages the creation and schedule of all educational content for our BlocTalk and Member communities. Favorite quote: “Conversation is the bedrock of relationships. Without it, our relationships are devoid of substance.” ... read more