Do you want to earn the trust of your website visitors? While traditional marketing strategies are important for getting people to your site, credibility is often what creates the sale. And in today’s digital world, one of the most effective ways to build trust with your users is customer testimonials.
You have a great product or service. The benefits for your customers are exceptional. Your website content is amazing – you have videos, quality copy, and top-notch images – what’s missing? Your customers want to trust what you are saying, but they trust other customers more. Think about your last important purchase. Did you blindly select the product, or did you do some research, read a few reviews, and check out the website for honest feedback? Customer testimonials can make or break a sale – but they need to be used strategically.
What is a customer testimonial? It’s a positive review of your service, product, or business that is unbiased and written by a past customer.
Here are 3 tips on how to use customer testimonials on your website.
1. Be Specific
Nobody wants to read a generic testimonial from Susan or Jim. Vague statements like “I love this product” aren’t going to cut it for your potential customers. Carefully choose your testimonials, be picky, be intentional. The more specific the better. “This product increased my team’s productivity, cut back on costs, and doubled our sales,” is going to be much convincing then “This is a nice product. Glad I bought it.”
2. Short and Sweet
Who has time to read a 4-paragraph testimonial? Keep your text blocks short by highlighting the main points. Be sure to let your clients know you may edit their testimonial before it gets published – be clear you want to feature their main points, not change what they have to say. Also be sure that your testimonials sound like a real person. People know when other people have been paid for rave reviews or when they have been tweaked to make a company sound more favorable.
3. Strategically Place Your Testimonials
While homepages are often a great spot for customer testimonials, it’s important to collect some data before you make your final decision. Landing pages, blog posts, and contact pages can also be ideal locations, but first, data. User behavior tools are perfect for tracking how users move throughout your website. These tools allow you to see what pages were visited, what people clicked on, and how they engaged with forms and other interactive content. It’s smart to test a few different testimonial locations and take another look at the data before settling on your final place.
If you want to build more trust and credibility with your users, customer testimonials are the way to go. Everyone wants to read a glowing review about a product or service they are thinking about purchasing, and nobody wants to miss out on a product or service that is loved by many. Need help getting started with customer testimonials? We’ve got you covered! Contact us today, we’d love to help you increase your trust (and sales) with your website users!