“I don’t know how I ever managed without this before” — Charlie Customer
Quotation marks, a few words and a name, and you have the most powerful ad any copywriter could create. And it's done by your own client!
That’s the genius of customer testimonials: powerful words from jamaica phone number list customers themselves that are believable thanks to social proof.
Customer testimonials are your chance to let your customers do the marketing for you.
And it's not just words. It's also videos, five-star ratings, before-and-after photos. There are formats to suit all tastes. And they're proven to work.
In this guide, we'll walk you through a series of testimonials and explain how to use them effectively instead of just posting your best client's company logo on your website.
Read on to learn:
What is a testimony?
Why Testimonials Work (with Evidence to Prove It)
How to use video, audio and photos to boost your website's success stories section
How to generate and use them
Let's get to it.
Table of Contents
Definition of Testimony
Importance of Testimonies
How to Collect Testimonials (with Examples!)
The Best Ways to Use Testimonials in Marketing
Using Testimonials in Sales
Frequently Asked Questions about Testimonials
1. Define Testimony
Customer testimonials are the actual words of your satisfied customers telling others why you're great.
Customer testimonials tell their real stories. Stories of someone just like you who once had a problem, searched for a solution, found a product, took a risk, and ended up falling in love with it.
More technically, a testimonial is a piece of text, video or audio used for marketing purposes in which a satisfied customer shares his or her experience with a product or service and recommends it to the reader/viewer/listener .
Let's take a look at one:
Click here to watch a testimonial video on Youtube.
testimonials-example
Let me ask you something. How did you feel when you saw it?
I guess: fine, but with the informality of everyday life. That's exactly why testimonials work so well:
Sincere words of praise sound natural, informal, and approachable . These are the main ingredients of an effective testimony.
A copywriter wouldn't get away with it: his words would be unreliable. But because testimonials are from real customers, they inspire greater trust. In fact, 72% of people say they trust a business more after reading positive testimonials and reviews about them.
This is known as social proof. It is people's natural reliance on the judgment of others to show them how to act in new situations. We wrote an extensive article on social proof, read it here .
Testimonials vs Reviews
Are testimonials and reviews the same thing? Not exactly. There is a big underlying difference.
Reviews are honest reflections from customers about their purchase, positive or negative, that they spontaneously share. You know, the ones you see on Google Maps for restaurants or on Amazon on any device.
Testimonials, on the other hand, are exclusively positive customer stories collected specifically for marketing purposes . They can simply be chosen from a bunch of reviews or requested from customers on the company's own initiative.
example-of-testimonials-and-reviews
This example is from Acon's website . It's an excellent example of how reviews can also be testimonials. However, the last one written by Benjamin counts only as a review, as it contains some negative aspects as well.
Testimonials are much more than just positive words from your customers. In fact, they are incredibly versatile. Let's take a look at them below.
Different Types of Testimonials
When we talk about testimonials, we tend to think of glowing reviews alongside 5 stars in some lower corner of a website. In the B2B context, testimonials are mostly quotes from customers accompanied by their name, photos, title and company they work for.
But they are actually much more than that. They range from a few words to longer testimonials.
Testimonials can be:
Videos
In-depth case study
Specific cases
Interview testimonials (can be podcasts, articles, or part of a webinar)
Social testimonials (tweets, videos on Youtube or TikTok, posts on Facebook and Instagram)
Influencer testimonials (=paid collaborations)
Textual quotes
Or a combination of all of them
Here is an example of a Staria testimonial page :
example-case-testimonials-page
When you go to their “Clients” page, you can see that they have included the logos of their most important clients to increase trust. Additionally, they have segmented their ideal target market sections and allow you to easily filter the relevant one for each user.
Did you see that green “Videos” CTA? If you have video testimonials, highlight them because they are probably your best testimonials in terms of conversions. According to Forbes , in 2010 videos were already starting to become a decisive source of information for senior executives.
In 2022, this is even more important as we don’t have the same face-to-face access to people as we used to. Give your potential customers the information they expect – show them they can trust you.
Place your best testimonials everywhere: on your cover pages, home pages, testimonial pages, exit pop-ups, blog posts, broadcast emails, social media channels, with a QR code on a street lamp, or even on your physical marketing brochure.
There are numerous ways to use testimonials. They can be used in both marketing and sales at any point in the sales funnel. They can be the first thing that catches your potential customers' attention, and they can also be the deciding factor in their final purchase on your website.
If this doesn't convince you of the importance of testimonials, let's take a look at some statistics to reinforce their relevance.
2. Importance of Testimonials
Here are some compelling facts to convince you that you need to start using testimonials.
92% of consumers read online reviews and testimonials when considering a purchase.
95% of consumers say that reviews, both negative and positive, influence their purchasing decisions.
88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a friend's recommendation.
What do marketers think?
