A testimonial is a written or recorded statement that supports your company’s credibility and level of expertise. When testimonials and reviews are correctly executed, they increase responses for a business. Testimonials from your customers play a critical role in the presence of your business as well. Any time you have a positive interaction with a customer and they express an interest in your business offerings, that is a good time to ask them for a testimonial. Testimonials are not only about selling your product or services, they are also about your successful, positive interactions with people.
The important role testimonials and reviews play:
If you can assemble a group of people who want to rave about you, you build credibility. Credibility is important in a business because people tend to believe what other people believe. This concept is incredibly important when it comes to marketing.
Remember that testimonials are not an either/or proposition. You, as a business, will still want to show your body of work or your portfolio on your website. Keep in mind that potential prospects don’t really know the difference between a good portfolio and a bad portfolio. Portfolios are more about you as a business than the client.
When you have a testimonial on the top of your home page, it will immediately draw the reader in. This is especially true if the testimonial is from a recognized opinion leader, if you include a thumbnail photo of them, if you give their quote a headline that captures the essence of what they are saying, and if you include their full name, title and company.
Testimonials that are sprinkled throughout the website get better results than one single page listing all of the testimonials as well. If you add in audio and even video feeds, that increases your responses even more!
Also, DirectiveGroup can create a function that allows you to store all your testimonials in a secure DB, review them before allowing them to be shown on your website, and then automatically place them on various pages. Ever more important, our custom application uses microdata to show the accumulated stars from reviews for various products and services on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), which gives your website greater SEO value in Google’s algorithm AND it increases click through rate on your listings by giving you a stronger reputation in the eyes of consumers.
Keep all of these ideas in mind when you are thinking about testimonials for your company. Strategic and intelligent use of testimonials can go a long way in promoting your business. Your business in the end will become stronger with the more visibility and stronger reputation you have.
