Ever thought about how you get drawn to a product or service that your friend or acquaintance also uses or recommends? Well, you are only one of the many people who base their purchase decisions on the opinions of the people who have already used a product or service. We all look for and act on any social proof that we can find to make sure that we’re making the right decision. That's where the magic of customer testimonials comes into play.
Positive reviews and testimonials can boost your sales and help you expand your reach to a wider audience. In this guide, we will talk about what customer testimonials are and the different ways you can collect and use them and extract maximum benefit from them.
Table of contents
What are customer testimonials?
Customer testimonials are the experiences shared by people who have used and benefited from a product or service, endorsing and appreciating the quality of the offerings. A customer testimonial increases your brand’s trustworthiness and gives potential customers the confidence they need to go ahead and purchase from you.
These small tokens shared by your happy customers can help you build a loyal customer base as well as bring more people close to your business. They also help you back your claims when you present your product to your customers.
How do customer testimonials benefit your business
Customer testimonials are very important for your brand. They give your brand a second voice apart from your brand’s own voice to appeal to potential buyers and talk positively about your products and services. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits it provides to your business.
1. Adds credibility and trustworthiness
Every brand says that their products or services are the best and that they are the best players out there. However, it becomes very hard to believe in the same if your claims are not backed by facts or statements from a third party. Customer testimonials are the testament of how your customers are really satisfied with your services, proving your claims about your services or products to be true.
2. Engages more prospects
Customers who share their memorable experiences through testimonials also share them with their friends, relatives, and acquaintances, as well as in the form of social media posts, which can become your voice for reaching out to more prospects.
3. Gathers feedback to help you improve
Honest customer testimonials and reviews not only improve your credibility but also provide you with insights into where your services or products are lagging or which features are more popular among your customers. This helps you improve your services by putting your effort in the right places and moving in the right direction.
4. Establishes emotional connection
Customer testimonials are words coming directly from people who have experienced the usefulness of the product or service and voluntarily wish to share their experiences. It is more personal as everyone has a different way of expressing and it is not as filtered as some corporate messages, setting a natural tone of language that easily resonates with the audience which creates an emotional connection.
5. Provides content for marketing campaigns
The testimonials serve as great marketing content and provide your marketing campaigns with more authenticity. They make people aware of experiences that other customers have received while purchasing your products or services and are a representation of real-world use cases.
6. Improves SEO
A customer testimonial naturally contains more keywords that similar people might be searching for. Due to their high relevance, they can act as great means to boost SEO. They also provide backlinks to important product pages and help you rank on search engines.
Types of customer testimonials
Let's look at the types of customer testimonials. Decide which ones suit your business the best. Experiment with different types to get the maximum benefits.
1. Quote testimonials
Quote testimonials directly quote the positive experiences and reviews shared by the satisfied customer in their own words. They increase trust and are probably the most authentic form of testimonials.
2. Video testimonials
A video that shows a customer talking about the great experience he had with your services is called a video testimonial. It is a great way to share the positive remarks given by your happy customers and is more engaging.
3. Social media testimonials
Social media testimonials are positive feedback and experiences your satisfied customers share through their social media channels in the form of a post, video, or a positive comment that mentions you. It can help you connect with the real people in the network of your satisfied customers.
4. Customer interviews
Customer interview testimonials are snippets of interviews where customers talk about their positive experiences. Interview testimonials can be put on your website or social media handles in blog, video, or audio formats. You can ask your delighted customers a sequence of questions related to your service, covering the important aspects that made the experience of your customers satisfying.
5. Case study testimonials
A case study testimonial or a success story testimonial is a detailed account of how a particular customer benefitted from one of your products or services. It gives your new customers a deeper understanding of all the features and functionalities that could be beneficial with a real-life example.
How to collect customer testimonials
Explore the different strategies that you can leverage to gather your testimonials and use them to expand your reach.
1. Incentivize feedback
Encourage your customers to share their experiences and return the favor with exciting rewards and benefits like free trials, subscriptions or discounts. Create a personalized promotion plan and maximize engagement.
2. Collaborate with influencers
Collaborate with influencers who belong to the same industry as you are playing in or have the same target audience as you, to get their expert reviews and feedback by presenting them with your products. Giving away products to influential personalities or your community and asking for a review is the best way to attract new potential leads and connections.
3. Utilize email marketing
Integrate your post-purchase emails with messages that persuade your buyers to share their honest opinions about the services they received. Allow your customer to provide feedback and suggestions for an improved service or comments related to their experience.
You can use an ESP like Mailmodo that allows you to automate your email marketing campaigns and create AMP-powered interactive emails so that your customers can provide feedback within the email itself.
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4. Utilize social media
There are plenty of customers who like sharing their experiences with people around them through social media platforms. Encourage your audience to generate content related to your products and services and showcase user-generated content on your social media channels to attract more audience. You can encourage them by having a special hashtag for them to tag when they’re posting about you.
5. Embed a form on the website
Embed your website with a customer feedback form to receive honest opinions from the customers and share their experiences. You can embed these forms on order summary pages or product description pages to collect different customer experiences.
How to display customer testimonials
Effectively display testimonials using various channels and formats to get the maximum visibility with your customer testimonials. Here are some channels you can use.
1. Email marketing
Include customer testimonials in your marketing emails to present your leads and potential customers with authentic accounts of the instances where you have served the current customers with superior service.
2. Newsletters
Keep your audience updated on your achievements by presenting customer testimonials with newsletters and letting them know that you are adding more and more satisfied customers inviting them to try your services.
3. Website product pages
Show your viewers the real stories where the product they are exploring has been useful to the other customers who bought the product. Authenticate all the product features with real examples.
4. Website homepage
Website homepages can give the maximum spotlight to customer testimonials and help you gain the highest traction out of them. You can highlight the positive feedback of the customers to build your brand name and reputation.
5. Social media
Narrate the stories of your best performances by producing content and publishing it on your social media channels, letting it spread through your followers.
6. Online ads
Customer testimonials can become great marketing copy for your paid ads also. They will help you connect with your customers better and get better conversions.
Best practices for using customer testimonials
- Choose testimonials that talk specifically about the helpful features that solved their challenges.
- Use conversational language, and keep your testimonials natural, simple, and easy to understand for your audience.
- Add data points and statistics with your testimonials to make them more precise.
- Add calls to action with your customer testimonials to get more leads and better conversion rates.
- Never stage your customer testimonials and stay honest with your customers showcasing how your products are performing.
Conclusion
Use customer testimonials to increase brand awareness and enhance brand image. This helps you communicate your expertise with the help of tangible proofs that are shared by your customers. They are a great and powerful tool to expand your customer base and gain the trust of your prospects to get better conversions. You can follow the different strategies as discussed in the guide to collect and use customer testimonials for maximum effectiveness. You must also use a combination of different types of customer testimonials to make sure that your efforts don’t seem monotonous. Using them in the right way and following the best practices will help you achieve the right results.
