Rounding up testimonials to supercharge your marketing

No doubt you have seen the recent commercials of Keanu Reeves for Squarespace. On the grandest stage of them all, the Super Bowl, they launched a commercial of the famous adrenaline actor standing on his motorcycle while riding it down the road. He defies gravity.

What does Keanu Reeves have to do with Squarespace? Well, the company managed to get him to build his website on the platform.

Now, I know what you are all thinking. You are all thinking, “I can build a better website in my sleep!” Apparently, he made it while sitting by a fire pit.

I think Jefferson Graham is on to something when he wrote at USA Today,

Perhaps he really did make the site. It is bare bones, with video on the front page, a few photos and a contact page, but consider us skeptical. At least from the five YouTube clips, there are certainly no tutorials of Reeves showing step by step how a website was created via Squarespace. We’re guessing that if Reeves did work on it, he had some (considerable) help.

Call me skeptical too.

Why would a company hire Keanu Reeves to show that he uses their platform? One simple reason. It works. It’s called social proof and the kingpin of social proof is testimonies.

Celebrity endorsements are fantastic to quickly spread your message, but the average user wants to see good testimonials.

Testimonials can add authority and help build trust.

I decided to ask the entrepreneurs in my Facebook group what techniques they used to gather testimonials for their business.

The number one answer from members of my Facebook group was, ask. Imagine that, ask. Asking takes on many different forms, but it came back to asking your clients.

As Frederic Sune of WP Expert said,

Asking client after each project. We have always gotten one…

Consider what writer Daniel Mattia said, “I just ask my clients if they wouldn’t mind writing a quick testimonial for me.”

Finally, Rishad Quazi says,

Ask the clients, once the project is completed, up and running, AND they’ve paid up in full, if they’d be willing to write a testimonial for your website, or else act as a referral client.

But, this begs the question. How should we ask? Well, today, we are going to look at four ways you can ask for testimonials from your highly satisfied clients.

In an Email

Email is a great way to gather testimonials. At least two of the entrepreneurs in my group mentioned using email. Cheryl Kerr is a personal development coach in the UK and entrepreneur. She offers different kinds of services including workshops.

I ask them if they’ll email me a review, or if they would write a review on my Facebook page, and I ask if I can also use it on my website. Cheryl Kerr

Rajendra Zore runs a blog hosting & WordPress support company, Host My Blog, and he is a MainWP fan. Email is his last step in collecting social proof

My clients usually leave a positive tweet & review on Facebook. Asking testimonial over email is the last thing I do. Rajendra Zore

If you are struggling to come up with a script for sending your email, Boast, a testimonial management service, has 5 examples of email scripts to send to your customers.

Online Review

The power of online reviews to make or break a business is seen every day. When you get a stellar review online, it is important to take advantage and capture that moment in time for your company’s social proof.

Rajendra says it like this,

I usually wait for few weeks & check with my clients if they can leave an honest review on my official Facebook page.

Online reviews helps a lot & the same can be utilized on website etc..

There are several ways to capture online reviews. Check out this blog post at Kissmetrics where Kriti Hines mentions seven ways to find online reviews.

Form

Using a form can help take some of the burdens off of the client. It helps make things easier for your client.

I provide a form to help them if needed – just basic form with name, title, company name and URL then testimonial. Make their life as easy as possible by getting all the info I need but I prefer that they do the referral on LinkedIn then I can copy it on my site… Frederic Sune

Call it a client feedback survey. This allows you to invite your client to help you in your process.

Celine Roque points this out,

We should be asking for regular feedback anyway. Clients are also more likely to respond to you if there’s something in it for THEM. In this case, they get an opportunity to request improved service.

The important thing is to use the best questions to get what you need for a good testimonial. As Roque mentions,

Use different questions tailored to your field or clients, such as “Did your sales improve based on my copy/design/etc.? If so, by how much?” Just make sure they are open-ended questions that require the client to come up with specific answers.

Forms can be helpful. If you are discussing a testimony with a client, having a form to use can make taking that next step a breeze saving them time.

If you speak with a client who is willing to write a testimonial, this form can also serve as a useful next step. Rather than having to continuously follow up with a client, direct them to the form where they can quickly and easily leave their feedback. MBO Partners

Using a form can be as easy as creating a Google Form or taking advantage of something like Gravity Forms. Additionally, services such as Typeform and SurveyMonkey can do the heavy lifting for you. There are several different form services as well as form builder WordPress plugins.

Third party tools

There are several third party tools you can use to help make gathering an easier task. In this article, we are going to take a quick look at three of those tools.

Grade.us

One of our group entrepreneurs, Ed Holtman, who runs Artful Pussycat, uses Grade.us to help with their testimonials.

Ed Holtzman We are a Grade.us partner so we use that for ourselves as well as our clients

Grade.us is a software as a service platform that allows you to gather an monitor testimonials.

Thrive Ovation

I came across Thrive Ovation in a blog post by David Risley at Blog Marketing Academy. Is it possible to automate testimonial and social poof gathering? Risley seems to think so with the use of Thrive Ovation, your automation sequence, and automation software such as Drip, Active Campaign, ConvertKit, or ConvertFox.

Thrive Ovation is from the makers of Thrive Themes.

Boast

Boast is a software as a service platform to help you collect testimonials. There are four price points. With Boast, you can run campaigns and collect testimonials throughout the year (almost) automating your testimonials gathering.

Wrapping it up

Testimonials give proof of your company’s reliability. It helps people to make the decision to hire you and your team. Having this kind of social proof is a very important part of your marketing.

Undoubtedly, we need to create a workflow for acquiring testimonials and implementing them in our marketing materials including our websites. Do you have a strategy for collecting and implementing testimonies?