Customer testimonials are a key content element that will increase both your credibility and your sales. Using testimonials in text, audio or video formats on your site, on social media, in print, will help you to you produce content that will promote your business services or product range exponentially.
By using real people to show success in your product or service, they are subtle indicators that your product or service DOES produce the required results. Testimonials work because they aren’t strong sales pitches, and come across in an unbiased voice that establishes trust with the reader, listener or viewer.
Ultimately, testimonials will serve to convert more prospects into customers – as long as you use them correctly.
Six Tips on How to Use Testimonials to Drive Sales
Be Choosy
The key to the effective use of testimonials is to choose those that actually describe the benefits of using your service. Instead of a testimonial that says ‘company x are great’ instead choose one that describes how the product or service really benefitted the end user. Addressing ‘pain point’ issues resonates with the reader and they can visualise how the product or service can similarly benefit them! Testimonials that highlight product or service benefits will lead to more sales.
Add Some Personality
Grab the visitors eye by including an image next to your customer’s review. Research has shown that adding a picture significantly increases your chances of a client moving to the order stage.
People like to put a face to a name; it reinforces their feeling of security and adds confidence in what you are claiming. Not only that, it reveals that the testimonial is coming from a real person.
Be Ubiquitous
Once you get great testimonials it’s vital to show them off.
Make sure to add them, wherever appropriate – across your website, on your literature, on your Social Media, on any directories you are listed in, on Google My Business – everywhere a potential client visits.
Identify Your Clients’ Pain Points
When gathering your testimonials, it’s important to make sure you’re hitting all the pain points your buyers.
Your prospects are looking to find something that has resolved problems similar to theirs that they can relate to; stories that show others like them having their problems successfully dealt with.
Be sure to feature customers from a range of demographics and needs that you’re trying to attract. Focusing on just one in your testimonials won’t get you the range of clients you are aiming for.
Be Truthful
The golden rule in sharing testimonials is to use real testimonials from real customers. Fake news won’t hack it – even Donald Trump knows that!
Testimonials are there to provide credibility and establish trust. If you are providing fake testimonials, how are your prospects supposed the build a healthy relationship with your company?
Faking testimonials can put your reputation on the line and even if you do win some new business, your customers are likely to have unrealistic expectations.
Get Video
As video increases in use and popularity, using it to create testimonials is something you should definitely consider.
Seeing and hearing a customer talk about your product or service resonates more than just reading about it.
Get some of your more personable customers to create a short (30 to 60 seconds) video testimonial sharing how your company has helped them. It will work like crazy!
Now to the crux of the email. Having banged on about the power of testimonials, it is something that we haven’t exactly done ourselves, but our new piece of business software is about to change all that.
I have already told you all about the new tool we developed. A tool that adds your business details to the top 20 business directories on the internet, simply by adding your details ONCE.
We have developed the software further. Now you can update all of the directories form a single point too AND be notified when a review has been posted on any of the 20 sites, so you can respond appropriately. This has been one of the most commonly requested services from clients – a single point monitoring system that enables you to respond immediately to any reviews you might receive.
But we have taken this a stage further – requesting a review has always been, for most, a back-burner, do it later action. Now our software has been improved with a system that will request a testimonial from a client – and if the testimonial is four or five star, an autoresponder will direct the client to leave a review on a pre-chosen site (Google normally!) three stars or less will ensure that the response is sent to you for further action so you can find out why they are unhappy.
We are trying this feature out now, so expect an email very soon asking how we performed. It is a simple ‘click on the stars’ system and should take you a couple of seconds to fill in.
Try it out and if you like it, why not consider having your own system to manage your reputation online.
Call us on 01091 516 6262 for more details – but watch out for the survey coming your way in the meantime.