What is testimonial advertising and why use it?

If you’re looking for ways to increase sales and foster brand advocates, you may want to consider the many benefits of testimonial advertising. It is a form of social endorsement that backs up your brand’s claims about itself, boosts credibility, and creates a sense of trust with those new to your brand. Up to88% of consumers put as much trust in online testimonials as they do recommendations from friends and family. It’s a way to let your satisfied customers sell your products and services for you.

Testimonials tell people that your product works the way it should. In this article, we’ll guide you through the ins and outs of testimonial advertising, what it is, the different types of testimonial advertising, what it can do for your business, and the steps you can take to harness customer testimonials for your business.

What is testimonial advertising?

Testimonial advertising uses experiences and recommendations from customers to promote a product or service. It plays an important role in content marketing as much consumer decision-making is now heavily influenced by other consumers. For instance, more than93% of consumers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by online reviews. Companies have started to increase their use of testimonial advertising across their websites, social media posts, and email campaigns.

Different types of testimonial advertising

Here are some examples of the different types of testimonial advertising and the benefits for your brand.

Quote testimonials

Quote or text testimonials are a common type of testimonial advertising as they are quick, easy to receive, and cost-effective. Quote testimonials can be acquired via email and quickly added to your testimonial pages, homepage, or product pages. The form may range from just one sentence to a short paragraph and can add extra credibility to your marketing.

It’s often a good idea to accompany a quote testimonial with the customer’s name, link to their website or social media, and photo. A plain text testimonial without any accompanying photo or other details may lack authenticity and look fake. Another drawback of quote testimonials is that they can be hard to check authenticity and can be subject to manipulation.

Video testimonials

Video content is rapidly overtaking written advertising content and creates the most authentic and engaging type of testimonial. Viewers canretain as much as 95% of information seen in a video compared to 10% when reading. Video testimonials offer a powerful way to share a person’s brand or product experiences, and they can be used on anumber of different marketing channels including brand website and social media channels.

Seenit makes it quick, easy, and cost-effective to collect video testimonials from your customers and employees. As most people have smartphones now, customers can quickly and easily share their thoughts and recommendations. Viewers can also see that the testimonials are genuine and created by real customers like them.

Influencer testimonials

The term influencer has gone from just being a marketing buzzword to describing a key role in a brand’s marketing and advertising strategy. Influencer testimonials are effective because their names are already widely known and trusted. When you share a great review from a well-known influencer, it demonstrates to your audience that you are credible and trustworthy. Influencer testimonials can be a powerful way to promote your business. Up to49% of people rely on influencer recommendations to know what product to buy.

However, influencer testimonials are only effective if you work with the right influencer. Your target consumers should also be a follower of the influencer. Otherwise, they won’t have much (if any) influence over your audience. Influencers can be expensive to hire, and be mindful that their name could be tied to your brand for some time.

Benefits of testimonial advertising

There are many benefits ofusing testimonial advertising in your strategy, including the following.

Builds trust and credibility

Testimonials create ‘social proof’ and show consumers that your business is authentic and other people already trust it. When consumers see others saying that a product or service is good, they are more likely to think of that business and its products as credible and are more inclined to purchase.

Drive sales and increase revenue

Customer testimonials provide a powerful tool for increasing the likelihood of a purchase and increasing revenue. Customer testimonials cangenerate as much as 62% more revenue each time a customer visits your website.

Creates learning opportunities

When you have honest testimonials, including positive and negative reports, much can often be learned in terms of product or service development. Critical constructive feedback like this shouldn’t be hidden. Most customers will think a business lacks credibility if they sense testimonials are whitewashed. A good way to deal with any negative feedback is to take it constructively and show that you are prepared to learn from it and use it to help improve your products and services.

Recognition that boosts employee morale

Customer reviews can play an important role in rallying the troops and boosting employee morale. Testimonials show employees that their work directly affects people’s lives and can make a real difference. Seeing genuine accounts of customer satisfaction helps make employees feel satisfied and appreciated and boosts their productivity.

Improves visibility for a business

Customer testimonials are one of the most effective ways to raise the visibility of your business and put it firmly on the map. More customer testimonials shared on your website or social media means more ways potential customers can learn about you. You’ll also have a better chance of being picked up by search engines, especially if you start regularly sharing video testimonials.

How to excel in your testimonial advertising

Now that we’ve explored the importance of testimonial advertising for your business, let’s look at how to succeed in your testimonial advertising.

Follow up with your recent customers

While your brand, product, or service is still fresh in their minds, get in touch with your customers to ask about their experience. While they can easily drop you an email with some text, take it further and ask if they’d be happy to record a video testimonial.

Just remember, not everyone is comfortable in front of the camera, so it’s generally best to approach those people who welcome the opportunity and would do a great job representing your brand.

Ask good questions

Give your customers some guidance with their testimonials by providing some product or service-related questions, so they know what to talk about. You want them to accurately describe the product or service and not just say it’s great. Consider getting them to answer questions such as:

• What has been the biggest benefit you’ve seen from using this product or service?
• What difference has the product or service made to your life?
• How much money did the product or service save you?
• How much time does the product or service save you every day or each week?
• Would you recommend it to your friends and why?

Before online advertising was born, word-of-mouth recommendations were fundamental to raising a business’s profile and credibility. Testimonial advertising is word of mouth for the digital age.