Businesses love testimonials. You can see them in TV commercials. You can see them in print ads. Of course, you can see them in online advertising as well. Testimonials can have a measurable effect on your business – some studies are showing that they can increase conversion rates by up to 34%, and that’s not a small number. Customers singing praise about your products resonate with people who are yet to become your customers.
Getting customer testimonials and including them into your online advertising strategy might be well worth the effort. However, you’ve probably noticed that there are several different types of customer testimonials. Each of them tells a particular thing to potential customers, and each one of them is an option you should explore.
Social Media Testimonials
From time to time, your business might get testimonials written by your customers and posted on one of the various social media channels. These testimonials are great because they usually are not solicited by you. They are a genuine product of a satisfied customer’s desire to share how much they enjoyed your products or services.
However, social media testimonials come with a downside. Because they are posted on social media channels, places that have millions of snippets of content posted each they, they can be drowned by the noise very easy and quickly. And you know what that means – as soon as you see a social media testimonial, you need to take a screenshot of it, and do whatever you can to promote it while it’s still easy to find. You can have a feed set up on your website showing the latest testimonials you get. You can share them on your social media profiles. But whatever you do, you need to make sure other people see the testimonials, because if they don’t, the only good thing that would come out of them would be your personal sense of satisfaction. And that won’t do wonders for conversion rates.
Quotes
Quotes are the usual type of customer testimonial, the go-to option for any advertising. They are usually short praises to your business, your products or your services. Quotes might not be the most solid type of customer testimonial, but using real quotes from real people and adding their names to the quotes will give them enough credibility.
You can use quotes on your website, that’s a given, but you shouldn’t use them only there. Any social media channel your business has can use to publish a quote from a happy customer. You can add photos with quotes to your business’ Instagram profile, you can tweet them or post them on Facebook, and you can even incorporate them in YouTube videos. You’re only limited by your creativity. And tech-savviness, of course.
Influencer Testimonials and Reviews
Your customer will use the information they get from influencers to make decisions about the products or services they use. That’s why influencers call influencers – they are the people who have the reach and credibility they can use to help promote your business. The most important thing when using influencer testimonials is determining who the influencers are – you need people who are expert in the type of business you’re in, or with the kind of products or services you provide. It can be doctors, dentists, but also bloggers or people with a strong social media presence.
Success Stories
Success stories are the type of customer testimonials that give a lot more context than a customer quote. They still paint your business in a flattering light, but they do it by showing the real impact your business had on someone’s life. They show real struggles from real people, and they show how your business helped them overcome their problems.
Success stories allow your potential customers to identify with your existing customers. To see how your business built a relationship and impacted the life of a real person. They make it easier for prospective customers to imagine themselves as someone who would use the products or services from your business, which brings them closer to transitioning from prospective customer to an actual customer.
