#announcements

Hey Margo! I've absolutely done this. I don't necessarily recommend doing it on the floor/at a booth, because that will significantly impact the quality of the video (but this depends on what exactly you're looking for). We've used hotel rooms in the area, invited customers ahead of time, filmed for ~15-20 mins. In April at RSC our team captured 15 customers (with multiple spokespeople) over 3 days. Happy to chat!

Thank you - this is so helpful. We are having a customer conference I was thinking at the evening social event having like photo type booth with a little video recording set up to capture quotes

I would recommend "booking" people in for time slots, both ahead of the user conference and at the booth/on the floor. Bookings help ensure that you capture the right kind of user for your testimonials, but also having a busy booth helps attract others to see whats going on. It's a much better look than an empty booth for the duration 🥲 Note that when you're recording at any kind of conference you're going to deal with a lot of noise outside of the person speaking. If you can come equipped with an external microphone that easily clips to a shirt, you'll likely have better results.

I always love how @Leslie Barrett manages her events, too. She might have something to share. @Laurie Timms @ @Ciana Abdollahian and @Kevin Lau might have suggestions too. TY @Alexie Glover 😄

I've also seen folks have a lot of success with a two birds, one stone approach to these sorts of things. I'd recommend having an iPad set up to capture reviews while they wait, for example!

We recently helped a client coordinate and run a booth/room; here's what we learned:

It's important to plan accordingly, because there's so much variability here.

But some of the big regrets people have when doing this:

1. Not having clarity on the desired output.

Do you want ad hoc, off-the-floor sentiments about your brand/the event?

Do you want happy soundbites, or do you want full blown stories?

You can't expect to fall backwards into getting both, and the second (full stories) can take a lot more intention and planning than the first. Thankfully, it's manageable!

You CAN absolutely capture both, and even have separate teams/processes on both, but don't treat them like they are the same thing.

1. Not planning out the question set intentionally to support campaigns, initiatives, etc. for the year.

SO often it's "GAH! If only we'd though to task them that!" when reviewing the footage, so you want to be intentional about what you ask of whom.

1. Not being intentional about approval. We've seen teams capture hours of footage they cannot use at all because the end product was sprung on the customers' company/legal/PR without expectation or approval.

While it's not universally the case, getting approval in advance can make things MUCH clearer, and the great news is, if your clients are speakers or award-winners, you can couch approvals in the agreements for speaking, etc. without it being slimy.

I think @Alexie Glover has already shared some fantastic tips, in terms of:

1. Have the booth elsewhere/in a private and quiet space.

2. Seed participation before the event and have a calendar for booking. This not only ensures you maximize the opportunity, it also gives you the ability to proactively plan and follow up with those individuals.
   Some other things I might recommend (most relevant to capturing deeper stories, but maybe still helpful)...

3. Have a 'pitch packet' of sorts that presents the booth as an exclusive opportunity (if it is) and/or outlines the benefits of participating and the process from a high level.

This can be easily passed around internally by your POC so that they can get the necessary approvals. It can also make participation far less scary for those who can be nervous about being on camera.

This can also be a chance for the client to secure metrics, KPIs, etc. before the interview if you mention the types of things you'd love for them to speak to.

Ideally, the ask should come from the person either most familiar to the client, or the most authoritative; when we did this we had a huge spreadsheet of nominees, reps, status on the ask, status on approval, etc.

1. Secure release ahead of time. While it can definitely be more work, having a templated release form you can send once someone has communicated interest can mean all the difference and avoid blown budget/footage.

2. Have a well-vetted and experienced producer onsite. It's AMAZING the difference it makes when you have someone seasoned at getting people to open up on camera running the interviews vs. someone thrown into the role. This is a job worth paying for/choosing carefully, and while you definitely can get good results with someone less experienced or just winging it, the difference is noticeable with a pro.

3. Plan out the campaigns, initiatives, etc. you want to support and customize your question set around these.

With ChatGPT at your disposal, it's also not hard to customize EVERY interview to that person and their context—which can mean extremely powerful content coming out the other side.

1. Have a ''cheat sheet" for your producer/interviewer for the pre-planned interviews so they are easily reminded of the context, metrics, etc. for the day-of shoot.

2. Nominate a cat wrangler/runner. This is someone from YOUR team whose only job is making sure people show up to sessions (in a kind, friendly, enthusiastic way!)

They might help by meeting and leading people to the room, sending reminders, advocating for the booth to 'sporadic' interviews, etc.

1. Plan a follow-up email series to participants so they know where things are at with their contribution (only when doing more involved stories vs. small soundbites).

Reminding them that a cut may be coming their way to review, or to celebrate the launch of their interview together, can be great ways of checking in and involving them.

We had 30 maximum potential slots, a customer choosy about which stories they wanted to capture (not a shotgun approach open to everyone) and the need to secure approval for the footage ahead of time.

We were able to fill 23+ -- which (IMO) is pretty good and will give them a HUGE amount of content to lean on for the coming year(s)!

Hey there - I'm actually AT our user conference now. I'll respond when I have a bit more time. :)

Super helpful! @Joel Klettke how do you get approval before the customer sees the video?

I also recommend getting the person's cell phone number so you can call them if you can't find them. Make sure all employees know where the video room is so they can direct customers if needed.

@Rebecca Grossman we first secure approval for taking part in the video in the first place.

When we ask, we lay out the nature of the video, the points we'd love to cover, and the way the video(s) will be used so that at least there is agreement/release in principal.

We sometimes share the core questions an individual will be asked so they can be vetted or refused—this allows PR teams/legal to call out issues before the shoot ever happens.

We also share the video cut after the fact now that the expectation has been established. It's presented like a "here's your video, let's celebrate!" -- but it's noted that if there are any changes they require they should let us know ASAP (few, if any actually have any at that point.)

So it's essentially: "We'd like to do this. These are the sorts of details we'd love to capture. The goal is to make you/your business look incredible while highlighting the positive relationship we have. This is where and how the video would be used. You'd of course have a chance to review and approve the footage before it goes live. (Sometimes: here are the core questions we'd love to cover—though we can kill any you aren't comfortable with.)

Can we count you in?"

@Margo Schneider we just had our first successful execution of this at an event in Sydney last week - +1 to everyone's feedback, a few best practices:
• Scheduling Customer Champions before the day itself
• The video content became the highlight of the post-event reel
• Headshots were an added perk
• We had a "Meet a Customer Champion lounge" where prospects chatted with customers - in future would have this more amongst the main room vs separate
• Would have loved an incentive as we were in a side room, folks walked by curious but we needed to draw more folks in
• We tried testimonials on a laptop/iPad but there were too many CTAs
• We will do this again for our Fall User Conference at a greater scale