Michelle Ahlman

Michelle Ahlman

Patient testimonials are a great way to enhance credibility, create loyalty, and generate leads for your practice. They provide your patients with familiar faces and increase the transparency of your clinic. Testimonials are rewarding and motivate staff to continue to provide a quality service. And, most importantly, testimonials empower patients. Creating video testimonials can have a powerful impact and can be used on your website, in social media posts, and on your Hearing News Network Waiting Room Screen (What? You don’t have HNN in your clinic? Contact Clear Digital Media for information!). All that being said, patient testimonials are not always the easiest projects to record.

Here are some tips for filming your own patient testimonials:

Camera

While you can certainly go the route of purchasing a high-end, professional camera, it isn’t essential to create great-looking, professionally-shot videos for your practice. Most modern smartphones have cameras sufficient for many types of videos. If you or a team member owns a smartphone, you can easily capture a video.

Tips:

  • Always hold your phone horizontally when filming. This will give you the widescreen shot that will look best on your HNN screen.
  • Use a tripod—Holding a phone with your hands can result in grainy, wobbly footage. There are attachments for camera tripods that will hold your phone.
  • Don’t zoom. Move closer instead. Zooming can result in a pixelated shot. Physically move the camera closer to your patients until you have found the ideal framing.

Setting

Generally, your office can serve as a great background as it’s a great idea to familiarize prospective patients with your office surroundings.

Tips:

  • Find a spot in the reception area or in the consultation room to capture that office feel and decor.
  • Taking your photo shoot outdoors is also an option. Just be sure to test the audio and video quality of your outdoor settings first to avoid muffled wind noises or glares. 

Lighting

Proper lighting is essential for a high quality video. Overhead, fluorescent lighting is not always the most flattering light. Most phones or cameras do not have idea lights built in, but there are alternatives:

  • Purchase studio lights
  • Position your subjects so they are facing an uncovered window and use the sunlight (though make sure they are not squinting into very bright light.)

Sound

Many smart phones have adequate microphones that will capture your patients’ voices. However, if you feel the sound quality is too low, add a microphone. Simply purchase a clip-on microphone from an electronics store, and then get a microphone adaptor that enables you to plug it right into your phone or camera.

Duration

Keep your videos short! An effective video is 30 seconds to 2 minutes in length so you want to keep your patient testimonials short.

Permission

Whenever you’re featuring patients in photos or video—whether through before-and-after photos, or testimonials recorded for an HNN video, or a Facebook post—you should always get written permission from the patient or their legal guardian beforehand.

*NOTE: Some clinics prefer to take photos of their patients holding a whiteboard containing the patient’s testimonial rather than filming their own videos. This is a fine alternative, however, many of these tips still apply to photographs.

If you are interested in more information on filming your own patient testimonials or on acquiring Hearing News Network for your waiting room, we can help!  Please contact our Content Architect, Abigial Tichler, at [email protected] for more information.

Sponsored content courtesy of ClearSounds. See previous blog posts from ClearSounds here.

Michele Ahlman is president and CEO of ClearSounds.com, a provider of devices for the hearing impaired, and ClearDigital Media, Burr Ridge, Ill, which has created the Hearing Health News Network (HHN). HHN is delivered via wired or wireless Internet to your waiting room and features a playlist of hearing-related items to benefit your patients.