Camtasia: How Not to Get a Testimonial
One of the most important components of a successful direct response marketing program is to get testimonials.
A testimonial indicates that somebody was pleased with the product.
The greatest use of testimonials in marketing history are those on Amazon. Some people like a product, others hate it, and some people are in between. By reading the testimonials from the people who really like a product, a shopper can find out why people liked it. This is important. If what he is after as a shopper is what several five-star testimonials promise, this is an excellent reason to buy the product.
Recently, I bought an upgrade for Camtasia. Camtasia is generally regarded as the most powerful of all screencasting programs.
I selected Camtasia when I was putting together the faculty for the Ron Paul Curriculum. Most of the course providers used it. The RPC site has about 8,000 screencast videos that were produced with the old Camtasia Studio program. I personally produced over 1,200 screencasts. So, I am familiar with the product.
I have not used the product since 2017. I haven't had to produce long screencasts. Instead, I use Screencast-O-Matic, which is under $20 a year for the version that records only up to 15 minutes. That's plenty of time for me. It's easy to use.
I'm thinking of going back into the production of educational videos that will last over 15 minutes. The most important feature that I am after is the speed of rendering the video files. With the older 8.6 version, it took 30 seconds per minute of presentation to render a raw file into an MP4 file for posting. That speed depends upon the speed of the processor and the amount of RAM.
I paid $99.50 to upgrade to the 2020 edition. I was hoping for an increase in the speed of video rendering. I got it. It rendered a 24-minute PowerPoint screencast in just under three minutes. This was spectacular. My money was well spent.
Two weeks later, I received the following email. It is a request that I provide the company with a review. This is wise marketing.
Because I was impressed by the product, I decided to take time to write a review. Most people will not do this. Their time is valuable. They don't see any self-interested reason to do it. Usually, two types of people will write a review: people who love the product and people who hate it. That is typical of Amazon reviews. One person wants to spread the word about how good it is; the other person wants to keep other people from buying it. Generally, not many people will write one-star reviews. On Amazon, the people who write them tend to be churlish. Sometimes, a one-star review scares me off, but not often.
So, when a company sends out a request like this, the reviews are probably going to be positive. Such was the case with me.
What I found was that I could not post the review without going through an absolutely imbecilic hoop. The form would not let me post my review. I gave the product an excellent rating. That didn't matter to the person who designed the testimonial site. I wouldn't jump through his hoop, so I was not allowed to post it.
As it turned out, I'm posting the review here. It reviews the product, and it also reviews the utter imbecility of whoever designed the testimonial entry page. With respect to marketing, he doesn't know what he's doing. Also, whoever is in charge of this person did not spot the obvious mistake. That means he doesn't know what he's doing, either.
I am sensitive to good marketing. I have been involved in marketing since 1975. I have known the power of testimonials for decades.
The Techsmith company also understands the power of testimonials. But whoever is in charge of the company has delegated the task of collecting of the testimonials to people who do not know what they are doing.
Here, for your edification and perhaps for the edification of somebody up the chain of command at Techsmith, I provide a free tutorial on how not to design a testimonial page.
Note: I produced this screencast with Screencast-O-Matic. It works just fine most of the time. For introductory videos and for instructional videos that are short and to the point, it is my screencasting program of choice.
Every president of a company should OK every aspect of marketing. He should personally beta-test every online aspect of marketing. He should approve every ad. This is where the company makes its money. He should not delegate the final phase of any campaign, where the shopper or customer is asked to take an action, to a munchkin. But presidents of companies dismiss marketing as beneath them. They do not pay attention.
You have seen the result.