When you buy any product or use any service, many companies prompt you to leave a review, feedback, testimonial or case study. These different methods of asking what your customers think of you can be very useful to your business. How you use them to their best effect will depend on your business:
Reviews
These are used by companies providing a service or a product. This is something that’s great for an “impulse” buy for a product or service (low cost) and reviews are generally short, succinct and received in a high volume (think Amazon reviews). Reviews are a great way of getting others to convince other people how great (or not – there is always a risk!) your product/service is.
Feedback
This style is generally used after receiving a service across any sector. A common example of this would be a Customer Services call (you may get directed to an automated service), or an email after a fitness class about an instructor. Feedback from customers are used for improving a service, or looking for a need so you can enhance your offering.
Case Study
In order to present what you do in more detail, there could be a requirement to showcase a case study of a particular project, service or campaign. You will typically find case studies in the home improvement sector, marketing services or companies who provide a “considered purchase” ( a purchase that is high value and takes a while to convert). These are great and are best used on a website, in a sales brochure or even as a link on your email signature.
Client Testimonials
Testimonials encompass all of the above. And when used correctly, they can really supercharge your lead generation and show the world that you are doing a great job. But once you have these, how can you use them to help drive your business forward?
Social Proof
Most people are on some form of social media, if not all. However, regardless of your business (or personal preference), it is important to put your Client Testimonials out there for the world to see. Social platforms are your 24 hour sales team, and quite often the first place people will look for proof that you’re doing a good job. But it’s important to remember that how you present your testimonials will depend on each platform. For example, be more visual on Facebook and Instagram, whereas using more words is perfectly acceptable on LinkedIn.
Be trustworthy
People are naturally sceptical of testimonials. Make sure you have references to not only the company giving the testimonials, but if you can, the person. Even better, get them on video! Link back to their website, an email or LinkedIn profile to the person.
Speak to your Target Market
The customer who has given the testimonial is typically your target market. They approached you, you did great work and they are happy. So make sure you use your testimonial to resonate with more of them. Hopefully, the client testimonial will cover four key things:
- Pain points
- When they decided to reach out for help
- The reason for choosing your services/products
- How brilliantly you solved the problem
Repurpose
So now you have this great testimonial, you need to shout about it. One piece of content can go a very long way if you’re smart about it. Here are three of my favourite ways:
- Once you have more than five client testimonials, create a website page to showcase them. This way you can share the link on social media and on emails
- Use snippets of the testimonial on social media. “Example Limited were fantastic to deal with, I will use them again” can be used as a quote on a really nice and engaging social media graphic
- Create an ad – using either the snippet or the link, create a Google or social media ad
Client testimonials, when used in the right way, are a great way to generate leads for your business. Often the hardest part of this is to actually ask for them, but if you don’t ask, you probably won’t get!
