As customers lose their trust in brand-generated content, customer testimonial content is where it’s at.
Essentially, customer testimonials are a type of peer recommendation. As such, they’re one of the most trusted sources of information for prospective customers.
B2B buyers, in particular, rely on testimonials to influence their purchasing decisions. But regardless of your industry or target audience, testimonials are potent drivers of business growth.
So, let’s discuss why customer testimonial content is so critical to generating leads and conversions. We’ll also give you some tips on how to use testimonials to their fullest potential.
But first, what exactly is customer testimonial content?
A customer testimonial is an authentic endorsement of a company from a satisfied customer.
In their own words, customers describe how a brand’s product or service delivered value and solved pain points.
Unlike customer case studies (which are created by brands), customer testimonials are entirely user-generated. Brief and to-the-point, testimonials are designed to give prospective customers immediate insight into your brand’s value.
Testimonials can be delivered in written or video format as part of your user-generated video content strategy.
Video testimonials are particularly effective at engaging and converting customers. A case study by Trustmary found that video testimonials can increase conversions by 32%.
So, customer testimonials can drive business growth by directly increasing sales. But there’s more to it than that.
From establishing credibility to instilling confidence in purchasing decisions, here’s why testimonial content is so important.
Customers trust user-generated content (UGC) more than almost every other type of content.
This includes your advertising materials, your sales representatives, and the information on your company’s website.
In fact, 49% of customers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations from friends and family. This is according to recent research by BrightLocal.
Building a credible reputation is particularly crucial if you’re a B2B company.
One bad purchase can cripple your prospect’s company. This means they’ll only do business with companies they trust 100%.
Leveraging high-quality testimonials from reputable sources is key to establishing trust with hard-to-win B2B buyers. If other respectable companies trust you, why shouldn’t they?
Social proof is why we trust brands with many social media followers over brands with few followers.
It’s why we’re more drawn to full restaurants than empty ones. It’s why we buy the products that our friends swear by.
Customer testimonials are one of the most potent forms of social proof. They tap into the social phenomenon of herd mentality by implying the popularity and authority of your brand.
B2B buyers especially, it helps them feel more confident in their decision.
Customers are more likely to convert after reading testimonials. 35% of B2B buyers say they’re more likely to buy from businesses that share customer reviews on their websites.
Also, buyers are more likely to avoid brands that don’t display customer testimonials.
Use customer testimonials to nurture buyers down your sales funnel. Display them on your website as evidence that you can help them meet their goals.
This leads us to the next benefit of testimonials: addressing customer pain points.
Customer reviews and testimonials are particularly useful for identifying and addressing common customer pain points.
A positive testimonial that explains how you helped solve a customer pain point offers value to your business and potential customers.
For you, it verifies the value of your product and helps generate marketing campaigns centered around this pain point. For customers, it validates that your product can successfully meet their needs.
Neutral and negative reviews can illuminate pain points that were previously overlooked, driving crucial product and service improvements.
To effectively utilize this data to address your customer’s pain points, you need an ERP system. ERP system implementation enables you to centralize customer data, giving everyone from product production to sales teams easy accessibility to pain points and concerns.
As a result, company-wide strategies can be aligned to resolve pain points and improve customer journeys.
Positive customer feedback lets you know what you’re doing right. You can use positive customer testimonials to inform your business strategies.
Negative feedback is invaluable, too. It provides necessary insight into how you can improve your products and services.
How you respond to feedback is also important.
BrightLocal found that customers favor businesses that respond to reviews over those that don’t. This goes for positive and negative reviews.
In fact, 57% would avoid the latter entirely.
So, don’t be afraid to respond to negative feedback courteously. It demonstrates your willingness to listen to and learn from your customers, traits that prospects will favorably consider.
When you reach out to a customer to ask if you can feature their testimonial, you’re showing your customer that you value them.
Showing appreciation to your valuable customers goes a long way. Customers who feel respected and satisfied are more likely to become loyal customers and brand advocates.
And what do brand advocates do? They participate in important growth-driving activities.
For example, they:
There’s a right way to gather customer testimonial content. Here are some tips to help you do just that.
There are lots of different formats you can use to display customer testimonials. We’ll discuss the main ones here.
Quote Testimonials
Quote testimonials are the easiest to receive from customers. These short, positive statements can be displayed on your website or social platforms.
Include an image of your customer alongside the quote to help prospects identify with your buyers. Use a quote maker to create eye-catching testimonials to share on your social platforms.
Social Media Testimonials
Social media is the place to increase brand awareness and build credibility.
Share testimonials on your social media platforms and embed them on your website to drive social proof. Here’s an example of how Offeo does this using tweets.
Video Testimonial
Video testimonials are particularly powerful. They have the biggest chance of going viral on social media and are seen as more authentic than any other type of testimonial format.
This is because prospects can be sure they’re receiving information directly from the customer’s mouth rather than through your brand.
However, video testimonials are the hardest to receive. Direct your customers toward a high-quality video creator to increase your chances of obtaining video testimonials.
Offeo’s user-friendly online video creator empowers your customers to create compelling testimonials in minutes. No video editing experience is needed!
According to Gartner, B2B buyers are overwhelmed by the information they encounter during the purchase process. This can lead to confusion and inaction.
However, customer testimonials are a key influencer in the purchasing decision. The solution?
Personalization.
Using your CRM data, only highlight the testimonials relevant to your prospect’s goals. This limits their exposure to irrelevant information and prevents churn during the buying cycle.
As a rule, avoid choosing testimonials that don’t go into any detail.
Sure, you want customers to say how much they love your company/product. But the real value is in why they loved it and how it helped them meet their goals.Feature testimonials that specify how your client applied your product to help them achieve their goals. This lets prospects visualize how your brand’s offering might similarly help them.
Let’s cycle back to the earlier mention of an ERP system.
A common pain point solved by ERP for small business use is the complexity of standardizing accounts across remote teams.
A high-quality testimonial for ERP would specifically address this problem and how your brand solves it.
Consider the below example from Sage:
This testimonial provides value to a prospective customer. In just a few seconds, they can validate that the brand is equipped to help them meet a specific goal.
Prospective customers want to know who’s behind a testimonial. Seeing real faces helps the words feel real, too.
Include sources for all of your testimonials by linking to your customers’ websites or social media pages.
Fake testimonials do nothing but ruin your brand’s reputation. They sever your loyalty with current customers and instantly turn off prospective buyers.
At worst, fake reviews don’t just restrict growth but thwart it completely.
Honest, fair reviews hold immense value, making authenticity crucial..
Embrace the sincerity of your real customers and maintain your authenticity.
If you want to grow your business, regularly and proactively collect customer testimonial content.
Customer testimonials are foundational to building a credible reputation and illustrating your brand’s value. So, the more positive and authentic testimonials you collect, the better.
As the most impactful testimonial format, encouraging video testimonials is the way to go. Video content drives visual engagement, directly influencing conversions and helping your business grow.
But of course, those small snippets of customer praise on your website are just as invaluable. Use relevant, specific written testimonials to highlight the value of your product or service.
.jpeg)
