In the hands of the right hunter, a cap can kill an elephant. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration but have you not heard about the story of how a catapult killed a giant? You might however ask, where am I getting with all of these? It is the fact that while a pen knife might look like a piece of cutlery, in skilled hands it could be a weapon of mass destruction. It however boils down to awareness of the person holding the tool. As a brand owner, this is very important to know especially as it concerns testimonials. This is why in this article, we are going to do deep dive into the different things that you can do with your testimonials. From the pretty obvious like including them on your landing pages to the lesser-known methods.
What are Testimonials?
No doubt, these are different from the official document issues at the end of primary school. A testimonial is a piece of evidence from your previous customer expressing how your brand has helped them meet their needs. This can be in any form ranging from videos to text. It is important to talk about testimonials because it has been shown that they are very effective at influencing buyers’ decisions. A study shows that 95% of the people sampled agree with this. So what are the different ways you can use this versatile tool as a brand?
Different Ways to Use Testimonials
Identification of Brand Ambassadors
A lot of brands put a lot of focus on the process of acquiring new customers but pay little attention to the people that keep coming back for patronage. This group is the MVPs of customers; they are the ones that will brag about your brand and you should give them the royal treatment. The Pareto Principle which states that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts also applies here. What testimonials does is help you identify that 20% of your customer base that needs your attention more. How is this possible? In the process of encouraging your customers to send you testimonials, only the ones that have bonded with your services or product will easily grant your request. With this, you can get insights into the identity of your customer base.
Promotion of Healthy Communication with your Customers
In a survey of 2000 customers, 86% of them said they would leave a brand they trusted after just two poor experiences. This underscores the importance of understanding your customer in order to give them an impressive customer experience. Except you have a magic mirror in your workstation that helps you spy on their activities, your best bet at understanding them is by initiating conversations with them. Fortunately, testimonials are good conversation starters. Even the act of simply reaching out to them makes them feel special and heard as against you just forcing your ideas down their throat.
As a Boost for Affiliate Program
Affiliate marketing has been shown to be one of the biggest drivers of e-commerce orders. In fact, it outperformed display advertising and social commerce. If you are looking at starting an affiliate program and don’t know where to start, testimonials can be a great pointer. It all boils down to relationship and identification. It is easier to get better results when you speak to those that are already your brand ambassadors than handing affiliate links to random strangers. These are customers that are ready to share testimonials about how your business helped them so sharing your affiliate link will be no hassle.
As Social Proof
While it is hard to talk about testimonials without mentioning social proof, a lot of brands don’t fully understand how it really works. Even fewer understands the psychology behind it. You won’t get the full breakdown into the psychology here but it is essentially what plays in our subconscious as humans where we tend to look unto others to form opinions on the things we have limited knowledge about. For your potential customers, such a scenario is the buying process as it can be one with a lot of dark spots and indecisiveness. So the more your potential customers see the beautiful things people have been saying about your brand, the more convincing your brand seems, and the greater the chances of converting to paying customers.
Conversion to User-generated Content
In the age when testimonials have grown to be more than just texts to include videos as well, it opens an opportunity to turn them into user-generated content. With customers having little trust in messages from brands, marketing strategies are exploring using mini influencers to reach their target audience. Rather than limit your testimonials to what exists only on your landing pages, you can encourage your customers to share them on social media. A good tip is to have designated hashtags to go along with these posts so you can easily track them. You can throw in some incentive, contest, or reward in the mix to encourage them to participate.
Conclusion
Just like Dunlop slippers are merely footwear to us but turn into a guided missile with a GPS locator in the hands of African mothers, testimonials have many potentials. To maximize these potentials, it however takes the ability of brands to open their minds to the possibility they hold. Custimony also opens your eyes to a universe of possibilities when it comes to transforming your testimonials into money-making machines. Look up our subscription plans to see which one fits your budget.