Paylocity Client Testimonial Videos

About Paylocity:

Paylocity is a software company that specializes in HR & Payroll with many features within it’s app to make the employee lifecycle smooth from hire to retire.

Their Business Needs and Goals:

Paylocity needed to create more credibility in the market to target clients that had a larger employee count. Their software is capable of hosting massive corporations’ HCM needs, but there was very little awareness in the industry about this.

The Solution to Their Needs:

The Creative team, Multimedia, and Client Advocacy collaborated to film new client testimonial videos of clients that are large organizations to increase credibility and brand awareness for Paylocity. I created 18 videos with various topics discussed by our clients in their interviews. Each one had a 45 second and 30 second version to make them ideal for social media video ads, for a total of 36 videos in this batch of client testimonials.

Results:

Completing this video project contributed to corporate goals for Paylocity. The sales team loves these videos and uses them to close deals with prospective clients. These videos are used for paid and organic social media platforms to increase traffic. They are also featured in the bi-weekly company-wide meetings and get massive praise from all departments.

Filming

I had the opportunity to fly out and see the filming of these testimonials take place at the headquarters. It was a great experience to see the behind-the-scenes action take place. I took notes and jotted down talking points that I liked so that I could make sure to include those pieces in the final testimonial videos.

Transcripts

After the filming of the testimonials I received the footage on my computer and sent them to get transcripts. After the transcripts were received we were going to have the manager of Client Advocacy review them and highlight which quotes he wanted in the videos. There was a lull in the project, he had a lot on his plate, so reviewing the transcripts was getting pushed back. I didn’t want to waiting any longer to get these videos going because I was excited about it, so I took action and reviewed the transcripts myself. I read all 4 of the interviews front to back, created stories from their testimonials, established the topics for each snippet I would pull, highlighted them all with a color code so I could easily cut the video later, and sent them to the team for review.

My team was so happy with the results and the fact that I took initiative to get these videos into production. The clips I selected were approved and it was time for the video editing.

Video Editing

When it comes to video editing I like to do things in a specific order to make it efficient. I start with the audio first. I make a rough cut of the video clips I need along with all of the camera angles synced up, once I have the clips I need I clean up the audio removing ‘umms’, ‘ahhhs’, and long pauses from their sentences. Next I add audio effects to clean up background noises and for visuals I’ll dictate which camera angles I’m using for each section and then I put black boxes over the video in spots where b-roll will be. Once I get approval on the audio then it’s time to add music, color enhancements, and b-roll. After that is approved the video is done!

Check out this cool video that shows the before and after editing comparison. The first half shows the unedited version, then a side-by-side in the middle, followed by the second half that shows the edited version of the video.

Once the 45 second version was approved I would then create a 30 second version by trimming down the existing content. Still keeping the topic and story intact. It was a fun challenge figuring out what words and sentences could be removed while still keeping the original message intact.

45 second clip

30 second clip

Thumbnails & CCs

The final step for this video process is creating a thumbnail and getting CCs (closed captions) for the video. The thumbnails for the client testimonials use a template to create consistency for our brand across our channel. Previously thumbnails weren’t added to videos consistently so we wanted to make sure all of them would have them moving forward. This made our YouTube channel look cohesive compared to how it was previously.

Final Videos

Each video had a 45 second and 30 second version for each story that is told. On top of that I made a compilation video that is 1 minute long that merges all 4 stories into one video that tells their experiences switching from another HCM provider to Paylocity.

A spreadsheet was created by Client Advocacy to keep track of all the videos. I maintain it for the team and share it with all the parties so they can blast the videos out on both paid and organic social.

These videos were a major hit among the sales team. It helped them give solid evidence that Paylocity is a great HCM platform and it helped alleviate hesitation prospects were feeling by either moving to Paylocity or picking an HCM software for the first time. This was a huge project within our larger campaign and it put a huge spotlight on the Marketing department as a strong contributor that supports the sales team.