[Guest Post] 6 Ways to Improve Your Customer Testimonials Today

Today we welcome a guest post by Sam Johnson. Sam is the Founder at Feedback Loop – An Australian Software Company that helps businesses get the best testimonials on their website.

Extending your customer feedback process to also capture testimonials is a relatively simple task. You already know which customers are advocates of your brand from the feedback. Now all you need to do is ask them for a testimonial.

I’ll let Sam take it from here on some great ways to improve your customer testimonials.

Customer testimonials are one of the most powerful forms of marketing yet there are a few common mistakes that you can fix to quickly increase sales on your website.

1. Put Testimonials Near a Call-To-Action and Test

A great customer testimonial is one of the most powerful forms of content you can put near a call to action as it shares a success story that your prospect can look forward to.

Michael Aagard at ContentVerve did a simple test where he moved testimonials from below the call to action to above the call to action to buy an ebook and he saw a 64.53% increase in conversions.

Feedback Loop recommends testing which location testimonials work for you and you can use services like Visual Website Optimizer to quickly play around with different arrangements.

2. Share and Track Your Customer Testimonials on Social Media

Testimonials shouldn’t be trapped on your website. A simple social media share can lead to free traffic for your website and more mindshare from prospects. You can generate sharing links that are tracked in your google analytics by using the Google URL Builder and bit.ly.

Depending on the segment and the social network, a single testimonial share can get around 10-70 clicks even on B2B networks like Linkedin.

3. Don’t Just Ask for a Testimonial via Email

Quite a few businesses use email to collect customer testimonials. However, one of the problems with just asking for the testimonial via email is that the writer doesn’t see what others have written.

People tend to do what they see others are doing. When customers view previous testimonials before writing theirs on site we have seen the testimonial length increase 3-5x.

These longer testimonials are more engaging, and provide more reasons for prospects to buy now. See this example of testimonials written about PC Matic using two different systems:

4. Use Photos, Videos and Social Profile Links

Testimonials are most effective at converting prospects into customers because they build trust with your business. This means, the more authentic those testimonials are the better. In one test published by marketingexperiments.com, a video testimonial increased conversion rates by 201%.

5. Don’t Fake Testimonials

With all the value testimonials can add, it can be tempting to take a shortcut and fake them. Don’t risk it.

First, people can spot fake reviews and if they suspect it is fake it will hurt your company’s reputation as well as your conversion rates.

Secondly, you can face massive fines if you are caught out. Australian courts issued $145,000 in fines in 2014 to a company that published fake testimonials. In 2013 in New York, 19 companies were caught faking testimonials and reviews and were fined over $300,000 in total.

6. Remember to Ask Clients For Testimonials

Given all the possible benefits of customer testimonials, many still fail to collect them.

Research from Nielsen and surveys of B2B marketers indicate they’re one of the best ways to make prospects choose your business. Yet we encounter many businesses that don’t ask for testimonials as part of their customer journey. Businesses that don’t collect testimonials not only miss out on marketing material, they miss out on constructive feedback, and reinforcing their customers’ memory of (and likelihood to recommend) your business.

Like any type of sales, the more personable, relevant and persuasive you are the more likely you are to get a testimonial. In our free 7 day course we explore how to ask for testimonials and some of the issues in this blog post in more detail including:

1. The value testimonials can provide to your business (with cases studies)

2. How to get outstanding testimonials

3. Proven techniques to amplify the power of testimonials