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Testimonial Strategy - A Guide to Increasing Your Conversion Rates.
A great product or service that people need and a good website are not enough. Prospective buyers are brutally skeptical. Use customer testimonials to build credibility to create trust with prospects and turn them into customers.
More and more prospects rely on testimonials and reviews to help them make buying decisions. People look for social proof to make sure they make the best buying decision. No one wants to find out after they have a problem, that they could have bought a better product or service.
You already have customers who tell you what they love your product or service. It’s time to leverage that into a testimonial strategy that will build trust with new prospects to help you close deals. The following steps will help you gather quality testimonials and implement for your brand.
Creating Customer Testimonials that Convert
It is not about having tons of testimonials with no substance behind them.
Focus on powerful stories that resonate with prospects’ wants and needs.
Your Testimonial strategy needs to plot the journey from the problem the client was having, to the day they found your brand and show the prospect how your product or service solved their biggest pain point.
A Testimonial Strategy - Which Customers to Approach
Quality testimonials tell stories that target the prospects that you want to sell to need to hear in order to make their decision. Be specific, make sure you only use testimonials that speak about what you want to offer. If a client offers a long testimonial about how great you are and one-sentence packs the most punch remove the rest. As you are doing your day to day work, look for positive responses from your clients. When they praise you in any way ask the magic question, “Thanks so much for your feedback, is it ok if I use this to help our new clients understand what we do?”
Customers that you want to target for testimonials – They share the same problems as the prospects you are trying to reach.
Customers who match the persona of your target audience – If you are targeting a specific niche like executives, you want to feature testimonials by people in similar positions. It creates a relatable story.
High-profile individuals or brands – People trust authoritative figures or brands, so if you have a large well- known person or company that can give a testimonial get it.
Believers – Customers who believe in the product or service and have had great success. Emotional stories – The more emotional the story the better the testimonial.
The Structure of the Testimonial Strategy
Capture the emotional details when possible, don’t just ask for a review. Guide them with key questions and capture what you need. You will be using their words to create a high impact testimonial. Here are some things to keep in mind if the client volunteers a testimonial.
- What was the biggest pain point that drove them to contact you?
- What specific feature benefited them and/or their team the most?
- How did the product or service solve their problem?
- How do they feel about their decision now?
How to Best Use Testimonials
Once you have powerful testimonials share them in every channel you can. Email, Website, Blog, be proud of your service, and give prospects lots of ways to find your social proof. Get eyes on them. There are several strategic ways to use a testimonial.
Case Study – Showcase the results in a case study. Provide a detailed description of how your customer achieved success by using your brand. Then add them to a dedicated page on your website.
Social Media – Turn the testimonial into a visual story. Add graphics or videos to reach out to your audience. Adding a face to a story or visuals creates a stronger reaction.
Video Testimonials – Videos build a personal connection with viewers and builds more trust then content alone. They are highly effective on social media platforms as well as on your website and marketing landing pages.
Landing Pages – What says more to a prospect than your words to a prospect? The words of a happy customer. Every landing page should show client testimonials above the fold.
Dedicated Webpage – Most brands have a dedicated webpage for testimonials. These testimonials showcase how the product or service has helped their clients and thereby how it will help the prospect.
Rethink Your Testimonial Strategy
Your testimonial or review strategy should be more than just asking for a quick one-liner from a customer. To convince a prospect they need more thought and effort. More is not always more.
A handful of strong testimonials will establish credibility.
Testimonials will help you convert prospects into customers and increase sales exponentially.
