A good testimonial has to meet your reader or viewer where they are. We need to structure it so that it effortlessly answers their natural questions as they would naturally come up.
Who is the hero? What’s their situation? What pain points are they suffering?

Next, we introduce the potential solution. As much as possible, we let the hero tell THEIR story in THEIR words, remembering that flowery marketing language is no match for true human sentiment.

Finally, we go full circle, making sure that we answer every pain point set up in the beginning.

See the Before/After structure in action in these Eviva Medical Weight Loss testimonials I wrote.

It’s no secret that the bulk of marketing content we see is meticulously crafted. There are messaging hierarchies, creative briefs, brand strategies, visual style guides—the list goes on and on.

But, when it comes to producing a testimonial, we have to completely rethink how we approach the task. The customers and clients who are the heroes of these stories aren’t going to speak in perfect sound bites, use brand-approved messaging points, or deliver clever slogans. But what they can deliver is authenticity—in a way that no copywriter could match.

See how we kept things real with this case study that highlights the work we did for Philips Healthcare.

A good testimonial captures the emotional response of its hero. The audience will happily forgive the “umms” and “ahhs” from the subject; in fact, that realness will likely be perceived as a positive. But what happens if things get TOO real?

In early 2020, the video production company I worked for was asked to create a testimonial video for an educational course. We had planned on sending a full video crew to capture the footage—and then our plans went out the door when the pandemic hit. To meet the tight deadline, we switched gears and conducted the interviews over Zoom—a technique that was still pretty new back then.

To be frank, the video quality wasn’t what we were used to. But we found a way to turn the fuzzy picture to our advantage.