Nowadays, customer acquisition is getting more difficult than ever. That being said, you need to make sure to take advantage of every tool in your arsenal – one of the most powerful tools being testimonials (and the testimonial questions behind them).
Obviously, there’s no great wisdom in telling you that testimonials are the driving force behind bringing your prospects a step closer to making a decision to purchase. They really are money in the bank.
That being said, collecting testimonials and using them in your future marketing efforts is nothing short of smart business. According to a BrightLocal survey, “88% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.”
Of course, in order to create engaging and trustworthy testimonials, you need to ask all the right testimonial questions. But first, let us examine the most common and most effective types of testimonials.
The 6 Most Effective Types of Testimonials
1. Quote Testimonials
There are three main variations of quote testimonials:
- Quote
- Quote with a hero image
- Quote with a hero image and a CTA
Quotes are one of the oldest, most commonly used, and easiest to acquire types of testimonials.
Just like they’re easy to acquire, quotes are easy to fabricate too. That’s why many companies add a hero image (basically, an image of a person being quoted) to their testimonials to add additional credibility.
Let’s take 161 Driving Academy as an example. When they replaced their stock images with real hero pictures, they managed to increase conversions by 161%.
What may even further increase your conversions is using a relevant CTA next to a quote and hero image. This way, your prospects will be one click away from taking the desired action.
2. Influencer Testimonials
Top-notch influencers are like the best NFL quarterbacks – extremely popular but almost impossible to pin down. Sure, everyone would like a testimonial by a Tom Brady of their own niche, but that’s not going to be always possible.
Still, depending on your product or service, you can try contacting the authorities in your niche and ask if they’d like to try your product for free in exchange for an honest testimonial.
3. Social Media Testimonials
Social media has completely changed the way we observe the world around us and the way we express ourselves.
People share everything on social media nowadays – from photos of lunch they’ve just eaten to their opinions on favorite products and brands.
The main advantage of social media testimonials over simple quotes is that it’s possible to learn more about the person you’re reading about with just one click. In fact, that’s what makes social media quotes so effective – they feel more like a real-life testimonial from a real person living real life.
4. Consumer Reviews
Without enough social proof to support your offer or message, your landing page will be viewed as nothing more than an advertisement.
That’s why consumer reviews are so important in the world of online business. According to a study by Deloitte, 60% of people consider consumer reviews to be as trustworthy as the information they get from their friends and family.
5. Case Studies
Case studies are a perfect medium for showcasing your company’s success and guiding your readers through the transformation a previous customer had made. According to the Content Marketing Institute, case studies are the 5th most popular marketing technique, right after social media, e-newsletters, blogs, and website articles.
Why are case studies so effective? It’s because they don’t tell, they show.
For example, telling you that you can generate lots of leads using LeadQuizzes is fine. You may believe it, but you don’t have to. But, showing you how GothRider, an e-commerce company similar to yours, profitably generated 75,813 leads using LeadQuizzes leaves a much stronger and more credible impression. Doesn’t it?
If you’re using case studies to promote your product or service, it might be a good idea to have a dedicated case studies page on your website.
6. Video Testimonials
According to a Statista, 51.9% of marketers all over the world consider video to be the type of content with the largest ROI. Many brands are leveraging video for marketing purposes – Dollar Shave Club, for example, managed to go viral overnight thanks to video.
Why is video one of the most powerful testimonial tools?
As Ryan Klein of Market My Market wrote in Forbes, a video testimonial is “more impactful than anything written by your company or any commercial you may have produced in the past.” This is due to the fact that “It shows your company’s capacity to benefit the lives of people just like your prospective clients: It is genuine, heartfelt, and evocative.”
Neil Patel once said, “If a picture’s worth a thousand words, then video is priceless.” And here’s what he has to say about LeadQuizzes in this example of a video testimonial.
13 Testimonial Questions to Ask in Your Testimonials
1. What was life like before you started using our product or service?
The “before” question. In most cases, also the first of the testimonial questions to ask. It enables you to paint a picture of how bad their situation was before they decided to use your product or service.
2. What was your greatest problem before you bought our product or service?
This question is expected to narrow the previous state of their business down to the actual problem. That being said, the main purpose is to get your reader to identify with a similar obstacle to the one your customer had and get them to turn to you for the solution.
3. What results did you get/are you getting from using our product or service?
One of the essential testimonial questions. It enables you to showcase the effectiveness of your product or service – whether it had helped your customers generate more leads or revenue, save time, hire more staff, or achieve other specific goals. If the results are noteworthy, your potential customers will want to achieve something similar, too.
4. Where did you start your search for the solution? (aka. How did you find us?)
By telling the story of how they found you or explaining the process behind their search for a solution, they may subconsciously lead someone else to do the same.
5. What was your main concern that could have prevented you from buying our product/service, and what reassured you?
It’s not always easy to make that final decision to purchase. If you get your customers to share some of the objections they had (and how they overcame them), it may encourage other potential customers to do the same.
6. What made you choose our product or service over our competitors?
This will clearly identify your product or service’s “X-factor” to your potential customers.
7. What exactly did you like most about our product or service? (What features sold you on buying this product or service?)
Narrowing down to the most useful features of your product or service can help potential customers consider their priorities.
8. What are the three benefits you’ve experienced as a result of using our product or service?
Get them to list at least three benefits. Of course, the more the merrier.
9. Why would you recommend this to someone who might be on the fence?
It all comes down to this. What’s the bottom line when deciding whether to make a purchase or not?
10. If you were to recommend our product or service to your friend or colleague, what would you say?
Try to get them a bit more descriptive about why they would recommend you to other people.
11. What is life like now that you’ve experienced our product or service?
The “after” question. It enables you to paint a picture of how their situation changed for the better after they started using your product or service.
12. What made you the happiest about buying our product or service?
This will highlight the most positive thing about working with you. It may be the fact that your product is user-friendly, or that you offer a variety of payment options to choose from, or that you provide high-quality customer service, and so on.
13. What has exceeded your expectations since working with us?
In many cases, customers will be positively surprised by the quality of your service. In such cases, you need to let them express their delight through the testimonial.
What Not to Ask in Your Testimonial Questions
It’s easy to tell when a testimonial is forced, particularly when it comes to video testimonials. When preparing your testimonial questions, keep in mind that you should never ask your customers to repeat information from your website or in your product literature.
Moreover, you don’t want them talking about how your product is superior compared to other solutions on the market either. It just reeks of forced. Actually, most experts recommend that you completely abandon scripts and pre-prepared testimonial questions. This way, your testimonial will sound genuine and natural.
Build Your Email List By 100K This Year Using Quizzes
