POWERFUL TOOLS FOR GROWING YOUR BUSINESS: CUSTOMER TESTIMONIALS AND REVIEWS

According to research from TechValidate, 94% of B2B marketing and sales professionals rated content sourced from real customers (testimonials) as “very effective” or “extremely effective.” 

• Before you purchase a new product, do you check out its ratings online, and read customer testimonials and reviews?
• If you’re choosing a restaurant to dine at, do you check Yelp first? Do you refer to Trip Advisor before booking a hotel?
• Before purchasing from a company for the first time, do you look for feedback or testimonials from other buyers?

Most likely you do. You do your homework because you want to trust that you’ll be satisfied with your purchase. You want assurance that the product or service you’re buying will do everything it says it will do, and be everything you need it to be. The same holds true for b2b companies before making a big purchase or supplier decision. As a matter of fact, reviews in the b2b space have become more important than ever: “If you aren’t capitalizing on feedback from online reviews to boost sales and expand your brand, you are truly missing out.”

BUT here’s the $10,000 question…

On your own company’s website, are you providing your customers with the testimonials and reviews they need in order to develop trust in you and your products and services? And are you peppering them throughout your collateral sales and marketing materials, as well?

If not, you’re wasting a prime opportunity to empower your brand. Think of using these tools as an important part of your content marketing strategy.  Depending on your specific goals, you may also want to consider an eye-catching series of testimonial print and digital ads.  They can be an effective way to attract and motivate customers to seriously consider your product or service.  Click here to view a case study which describes how Turchette helped one of its clients build trust via print and digital testimonial advertising.

Empower Your Brand

If used correctly, testimonials and customer reviews can be very persuasive. Third-party endorsements build credibility and trust. They tell us how people really feel, what their real-life experiences have been, and let prospective customers know what they might realistically expect from future buying experiences of their own.

Powerful testimonials aren’t written in a salesy tone.  Comments from actual customers are written in their own voice, not yours – allowing them to stand out as candid and unbiased.

Tips for making client testimonials a valuable part of your content marketing strategy:

Be aware.  Do some research into who your buyers are. Find out what motivates their behavior and how they get their information. Learn what their pain points are. Then, when you seek out testimonials, you can aim to reach a variety of buyer personas. Testimonials offer you the chance to connect with potential customers by showing that you have already worked with people like them. Get quotes from the right variety of demographics.

Be credible. Provide the person’s full name and company name. Just using Bob R. from Kentucky is not going to cut it. It’s not believable.

Be real. Make sure the quotes are not too generic. Vague testimonials sound like marketing “fluff” that the company made up and asked the customer/client to sign off on. People are skeptical by nature.

• Look for quotes that describe the specific benefits of your products or services.
• Choose statements that use actual facts, figures and situations. How much money did your customers save? How did it solve their problems? Make their lives better? Increase their site traffic?
• Seek out comparisons. Select testimonials that show why your product/service stands apart from the competition.

Last but not least, augment the power of your testimonials by including customer photographs and videos, if possible. Real faces and voices speak volumes. If photos and videos are not an option, use company logos with names and titles.  Click here to view the client testimonial page on Turchette’s website.