Testimonials are the complete marketing tool

There is only so much self-adoration a potential client can take, directly from a business, before they need to hear it from someone else. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how good your products or services are, no amount of spruiking will convert into a sales conversion.

While a carefully considered brand, a beautifully designed website and a strategic presence on social media all work toward building trust within your business, often potential customers only want to hear from an impartial third party. In fact, as far as sales pitches go; positive, honest and meaningful client testimonials may be the perfect strategy for content marketing.

How to create a compelling testimonial

Well, the first step is fairly obvious: build an excellent rapport with your current clients, right from the beginning. Testimonials presented by long-term customers are more likely to provide the necessary details and insight that a potential client is seeking. Then from there, it’s down to content. Here are three tips on creating the ideal testimonial.

1. Firstly, if possible, have the client share their name, their age, a high-resolution photo and their history with your business. Customers are looking for genuine relationships; provide as much credibility as possible.
2. Have the client mention how your products or services have benefitted them, by solving their various problems. Be specific, be informative, tell a story, but most of all engage the viewer.
3. If time, money, and the platforms you are using, allows film key testimonials. Genuine emotions and reactions go a long way to engaging the viewer and helping them digest all of the content on offer.

Where to use testimonials

Testimonials are less aggressive than cold calling and more appealing than a simple list of services, but how do you expose clients to this magical sales tool? Plant them everywhere. Whether it’s on your website or social media accounts, it’s worth keeping the use of testimonials front of mind.

The most compelling snippets should start on your website homepage. Here they will be most likely to be viewed, in the early stages of a client/business interaction. Viewers can then follow this initial ‘taster’ through to a linked testimonials page unveiling the rest of your testimonials.

Our Studio Director Jason recently starred in a testimonial for Global Business Camps. They use these clips as a successful marketing tool to engage potential attendees.

By this point, we are all aware that social media is a powerful tool. But this marketing behemoth is made even more effective with the implementation of testimonials. In particular, video testimonials attract fast-moving viewers as they whizz through their feeds. Encourage your most dedicated customers to film a short clip for you.

Integrating testimonials into case studies

Case studies, or portfolio pieces, showcase your business better than any other medium. They demonstrate your capabilities and performance within a real-life project; this is a whole other blog post in itself (stay tuned). So there’s no better place to integrate specific project-based testimonials than within this format.

Due to the information and exposure of the case study/testimonial duo, we recommend all businesses, that are in a position to utilise their powers, do so. Yes, they both take a little longer to research and set up, but it’s well worth the effort in the long run.