How to use website testimonials to boost engagement
In This Article
One aspect of marketing that is increasingly influencing people’s thoughts is social proof. Customers are giving their peers’ opinions more weight due to the growing number of social media platforms they regularly use.
According to studies, 91.1% of review readers are influenced by customer evaluations before making a purchase. Given this startling figure, it’s obvious that having testimonials on your website is essential. Having a plan in place to gather testimonials for your business is just half the battle. The other half is how you present them to prospective customers.
The process of gathering testimonials involves:
- Identifying satisfied customers
- Requesting their feedback
- Ensuring they consent to public use
In this blog, you’ll learn techniques and strategies to make the most of customer testimonials and offer social proof on your website.
Let’s dive in.
What is a customer testimonial?
A testimonial is a review from a customer about your product or service, sharing their experience in their own words. Celebrities and other influencers can provide testimonials, but most prospective buyers believe everyday people’s opinions.
Testimonials are proof that a real customer has used your product and is sharing their experience with others. They offer genuine reviews of people using your product.
Why are testimonials important?
It’s important not to minimize the psychology of customer testimonials. They significantly impact the purchasing decisions of both new and current customers. The following are some of the key justifications for the significance of client testimonials:
- Building dependability and trust
- Verifying claims
- Making a human connection
- Helping with word-of-mouth marketing
- Developing a favorable reputation
- Giving constructive criticism to make improvements
Customer testimonials are a powerful marketing tool because they provide prospective buyers with peace of mind. They’ll feel more at ease spending their hard-earned money on a high-quality product or service rather than one that their peers haven’t approved.
Types of testimonials
Let us examine five distinct types of testimonies. These should help you stay current and efficiently use social proof across many platforms.
1. Video endorsements
A video testimonial is a type of multi-media marketing tool in which a current or former customer provides an in-person account of their experience with your brand. Videos should generally be brief. If you have a lot of information to provide, you can make a series of short movies.
To get the most trust from your viewers, source genuine customer testimonials. If you’re unsure, use A/B testing to determine the ideal movie length.
2. Quotes
Quotes are just a real user’s expressed opinion about your service.
The ease of obtaining quotes is one factor contributing to their popularity. You can use a survey or evaluation form to invite clients to provide a review of your service. Or approach them and get a quote.
3. Blogs
Many marketing teams now rely on blog posts that use customer reviews. Blogs are an excellent approach to boosting customer retention and engagement before, after, or between visits. You can also use these blogs to educate customers about how your brand can benefit them.
4. UGC
Any content produced and shared by a user in any format with or without the involvement from the business they’re talking about is considered user-generated. User-generated content is possible for several of the formats covered in this section. The most common categories are:
- Customer reviews in any format
- Blog posts
- Industry-expert product or service reviews in any format
- Posts on third-party review sites like Yelp
For example, the image below features user-generated content created by customers of SKNZ, an activewear brand. This content is displayed on SKNZ’s official page to highlight how real people incorporate the brand into their daily lives, showcasing its durability and reliability for various everyday activities.
5. Case study
A case study examines a single user’s experience with your product or service across every stage of the customer journey. If your work is complicated and it could help clients watch it in action, this testimonial format might be a good choice.
Additionally, case studies are usually more detailed than quotations or interviews. To sway other customers, they provide unbiased information about your product or service along with satisfied customers’ reviews. Since case studies only look at one client and reflect their whole experience, it’s critical to pick an engaging project that best represents company skills.
Where to add testimonials on the website
Persuade your customers to take action by strategically placing testimonials at key points in their browsing journey. Here are five places you should not miss:
1. The homepage
Many testimonials are often featured on the homepage and for good cause. If you put your positive customer reviews on the homepage, visitors can notice them. People who search for your brand or company name will see this place, and anyone who is directed to your business will also see it.
Your homepage usually receives the most traffic on your website. Reading encouraging comments frequently encourages people to do further research. For example, Elantis Healthcare features their client testimonials on their homepage:
2. Customer success stories
Creating a dedicated testimonial page is a good idea if you have a sizable amount of testimonials. Establishing an area where you showcase the businesses themselves can entice customers to provide you with more engaging endorsements.
A clean layout is essential for a testimonial page.. Khoj, for instance, has a dedicated webpage for ‘Happy customers’ to display great testimonials.
3. Key landing pages
A testimonial could be the final push a consumer needs to buy one of your items if they’re interested. 88% of internet users place equal trust in reviews or testimonials as they do in recommendations from friends or family. Post good reviews on your product or service pages when customers choose what to buy.
In addition to information about their services, Square Trade’s service pages provide a section with client testimonials that showcase their positive ratings and exceptional service.
4. Contact pages
Including a testimonial on your contact page or checkout page may be the last convincing you need. This might be precisely what you need to convince someone to purchase your goods or services. Save your most extraordinary testimonials for this page to maximize effectiveness.
5. Checkout or pricing pages
A wary visitor might not easily request a purchase, but they’re likely to click it if they see another client had a great experience. One excellent illustration of this tactic can be found near the bottom of HubSpot’s product pages, where two of the most significant call-to-action buttons are positioned directly behind some encouraging comments.
Best practices to follow while using customer testimonials
1. Contact recent customers
Begin by contacting your current clients to request a testimonial. Sending an email to your list of previous clients is no harm, even though it’s more convenient to ask them personally after working with them.
To streamline this process, you may always send it out as a brief survey asking clients to remark on certain features of your product or service. These answers can serve as brief testimonial quotes you can post on your website.
2. Choose your best clients
You want to choose clients who highlight your accomplishments for the best testimonials. Choose delighted customers who appear to be extremely happy with your work. These clients are likely to be motivated to write a positive personal recommendation.
Customers with the most intriguing and distinctive issues should also be included. Demonstrating that you can solve unconventional situations can prove to your target audience that you have more experience than your rivals. Additionally, it can help you find other clients who may be experiencing similar odd issues.
3. Address different buyer personas
Choose a range of customers who embody every buying persona in your intended market. Examine the buyer personas you have developed for your marketing campaign and select a happy client who can offer a use case for each. Be sure to choose for each type of business, industry, and role.
4. Give a summary
Nothing is worse than an ambiguous testimonial that only mentions the wonderful experience. Testimonials that precisely describe what you did and how it resolved an issue are what you want. Don’t be hesitant to provide your client with an outline or screenplay to work from; an example would be as follows:
- Briefly describe your business and its goals
- Describe your business issue
- Describe the solution
- Enumerate the advantages of that solution
- Make an explicit endorsement of the brand
This gives clients more confidence when filming a customer testimonial video and helps them organize written testimonials.
5. Provide verifiable information
A potential customer won’t believe a testimonial from ‘Jess B.’ They want photographs, work descriptions, genuine names, and corporate profiles.
Although 37% of respondents think testimonials work better than a company’s pitch because they are more genuine, a testimonial devoid of genuine qualifications is unreliable.
Display testimonials on your website with Idukki today
Testimonials are a vital resource for increasing user engagement on websites and fostering customer confidence. With Idukki, you can efficiently display customer testimonials on your website in an efficient way. Idukki enables you to automatically collect, filter, and manage testimonials from social media review sites, saving you time and guaranteeing quality.
