Ways to get Testimonials and Use Them the Right Way

Posted on Posted in Blog

Testimonials… It’s an age-old method that’ s already been working in marketing for many years.

Why? Because it gives potential prospects a reassurance that your product or service actually really does what you claim it will.

Testimonials are so effective that whenever a visitor countries on my recommendations page, they are 218% more likely to convert in to a lead.

On top of that, those prospects are 190% more likely to convert into a compensated customer.

So , how can you go about getting recommendations and, more importantly, the ideal ones?

To answer that question, I’ ve created an infographic that covers this topic below and I have also included seven more tips on how to use your testimonials the right way below.

How to Receive Great Testimonials

How to use testimonial the particular correct way

When i hope I explained in the infographic above, testimonials can do miracles for your business as long as they are used the correct way.

testimonial

The main reason for using them is to help set up credibility. Testimonials provide you with the opportunity to prove states about your product or service. The end result is that they can assist you convert more of any visitors into customers if they are used correctly.

Before we all get into how to use recommendations correctly, let’ h review first exactly what not to do.

Don’t create fake testimonials!

The largest mistake you can make is certainly create fake recommendations. Why? It’s not just because they aren’t believable. It’ ersus because if you get caught, it will ruin your own credibility.

You are better off not having any testimonials in any way than creating bogus ones. And if a person truly have a great product or service, sooner or later your customers will start giving you real testimonials.

All right, with this out of the way for the rest of this post I am going to break down the things i think the ultimate formula for creating a super persuasive testimonial is.

I’ll quickly touch on the basic principles and throw in a few other angles you might not possess thought of.

Here we move.

1 ) Use images

I won’ t bore a person with a long-winded description of the importance of images.

This is usually one of the first bits of advice you will hear.

But they really are a essential element of a strong report.

Actually

65% of senior marketing executives think that visual assets are core to exactly how their brand tale is communicated.

image5

Not only do images make testimonials look more professional, they increase “truthiness, ” understood to be a subjective feeling of truth.

This is what you are looking for when trying to create a connection and persuade leads to buy.

2 . Include specifics

You probably understand I’m a stat guy.

I love stats!

For me, information is the perfect method to help prospects connect the dots and understand why your brand is worth doing business with.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to include concrete numbers in your testimonials.

Don’t just feature recommendations that say your product “is good. ”

Give prospects real data.

Here are a couple of samples of testimonials I use.

There’s 1 reason I use these specific testimonials.

They work.

image8

Seeing that Timothy earned $15 million in revenue plus received 26% more traffic is much better than stating something like, “Neil really assisted my company and you ought to work with him. ”

It is the same story here with Gawker Press:

image9

Here’s how Freshbooks utilizes this technique:

image6

The point here is to be able to crystal clear what outcomes your prospects can expect.

Demonstrate to them how you can help them in a tangible way.

And here’s another quick suggestion.

Attempt to stay away from round quantities, like 20% and 30%.

Consumers tend to prefer exactness, and using only perfect numbers may raise suspicion.

3. Show the good and bad

When there’s one mistake I see brands producing time and time again, it’s using only rosy testimonials.

Don’t get me wrong: you obviously want to sell yourself and be sure that prospects look at you in a good light.

But you don’t want to go overboard and feature testimonies that offer nothing but compliment without any negatives in any way.

This could kill your trustworthiness, and it tends to make website visitors more skeptical.

After all, any charlatan can slap up some fake reviews and create themselves look like a st.

What people are looking for is authenticity.

They would like to see your brand regarding what it really is, imperfections and all.

In fact , studies claim that bad reviews can actually be good for business.

Research from social commerce company Reevoo found that

68% consumers trust evaluations more when they notice both good and bad ratings, while 30% suspect censorship or faked reviews when they don’t see anything unfavorable at all.

Just think about it.

Have you ever done study on a product plus seen nothing but great reviews, with each and every testimonial giving it 10 out of 10?

To me, that’s a red flag. I feel something is definitely up.

This is not to say you should consist of testimonials that bash your company.

That would be foolish.

But displaying a flaw or two can actually function to your advantage.

4. Make recommendations traceable

Anyone can state a testimonial has been written by “Jack Watts. from Orlando. ”

Yet how do your prospects know it’s genuine?

These people don’t.

I’ve realized one of the best ways to quell skepticism is to make your testimonials “traceable. ”

By this I mean including a link to the person’s website, portfolio, Tweets page, etc .

It doesn’t really matter if you can prove that the individual giving the review actually exists and that the testimonial is not fabricated.

And here’s another idea.

Create an entire web page that thoroughly clarifies how your product/service helped the person and contributed to their achievement.

Here’s a nice example from Kissmetrics:

image2

By clicking on the hyperlink, prospects are delivered to a page where they could learn more about the company (Mention) and how Kissmetrics assisted it improve its performance.

They’ll instantly understand the testimonial is real, and it can provide even more incentive to purchase.

I got full advantage of this tactic where I feature a case study of Timothy Sykes.

Here are a couple of screenshots:

image14

image4

I have found this to be a tremendous help, plus it’s helped me fishing reel in several big name customers.

five. Target heavy hitters

I am going to preface this by saying this is not applicable to every brand name.

Should you be coming from relative obscurity, it may not be feasible to get testimonials through big name celebrities and industry experts.

But if you can property even one “heavy hitter, ” the rewards should be plentiful.

Here is a good example from Help Scout:

image3

It’s safe to express Gary Vaynerchuk is really a pretty big deal.

Here’s another one, featuring Seth Godin:

image12

Just imagine the impact of getting someone prominent giving your brand a nod of authorization.

It could make all the difference.

Have a look at this resource for a few pointers on landing this type of testimonial.

6. Experiment with a long-form file format

If you listen to standard advice on testimonials, you’ll probably hear that you should keep them short and fairly sweet.

Nevertheless , this isn’t always the very best route to go.

In fact , lengthier testimonials are often a lot more persuasive than standard, short ones.

Why?

Think about it.

Long-form testimonies allow you to explain the ins and outs of your product and provide specific types of how it has assisted your customers.

You can effectively cover multiple aspects of your product and tackle any concerns your prospects may have.

One of the best illustrations I’ve seen of long-form testimonials can be Noah Kagan’s landing page for Make Your First Dollar course.

Here’s exactly what I’m talking about:

image11

It’s incredibly in-depth, and I’m sure many of the individuals reading this testimonial can put themselves in Bryan’s shoes.

Now, I’m not saying long-form is the right method for every single brand name, but it’s definitely something to consider.

If you zig when your competitors zag, this could be your window of making your brand name stand out.

7. Experiment with video

Who else says a testimonial has to be a conventional text-based snippet?

There are no rules.

I am a fan of experimenting with different mediums, especially video clip.

Plus quite frankly, video is never hotter than it really is right now.

Here are just a few interesting video marketing statistics:

  • “45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week. ”
  • “85% of the US Internet audience watches videos online. ”
  • “51% associated with marketing professionals globally name video because the type of content with the very best ROI. ”
  • “Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video customers. ”

If you’re crushing it with video clip in other areas of advertising, why not incorporate it into your testimonials?

One organization in particular that draws this off flawlessly is Codecademy:

image7

They provide a great real-life example of how one of their users elevated his profession and created one of the top 50 internet sites in 2013.

It’s very compelling, and I’m sure it’s motivated many “iffy” leads to go ahead and sign up for Codecademy.

Unbounce did A/B testing on the homepage to see what impact video testimonials would have.

Here’s page The, featuring traditional textual content testimonials:

image15

It looks good enough.

But here’s page B, featuring a video:

image10

This led to a 25% transformation lift!

If you’re looking for motivation and ideas for creating video testimonials, have a look at this post from HubSpot.

There are a bunch of great good examples.

Bottom line

In its core, a testimonial is a very easy thing.

It’ s

a formal declaration testifying to someone’s or a brand’s character and qualifications.

But the way you go about creating a recommendation and the elements you incorporate can make or break it.

The more tried-and-true tactics are alright, and I’m certain they will have some effect.

However the tactics I described in this post should increase that impact.

Following these guidelines should enable you to make a highly persuasive testimonial your prospects may eat up.

This should make it possible in order to quickly gain their particular trust, squash any skepticism they may have got, and ultimately motivate them to buy.

Spread the love

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *