7 Ways to Generate More Leads with Customer Testimonials, with Examples

Customer testimonials can be a powerful tool for boosting lead generation. Recent research found that a whopping 46% of consumers feel that online business reviews are as trustworthy as personal recommendations from friends or family. 

This article will talk about 7 ways to leverage customer testimonials that can help you boost your lead-generation efforts and drive business growth.

The power of social proof: why customer testimonials are effective for lead generation

Testimonials provide real-life examples of how your product or service has helped others. They lend themselves to social proof — an idea that people are more likely to trust and follow the actions of others who are similar to them. 

In other words, when potential customers see positive reviews and testimonials from people like themselves, they are more likely to trust your brand and consider doing business with you. This means reviews generate more leads — they are more trustworthy than traditional advertising because they come directly from existing and satisfied buyers.

By using customer testimonials on your website and in your marketing materials, you can show potential users that your product or service is reliable, effective, and worth their investment. This can help you stand out from your competitors and convince more people to choose your brand over others.

One tool that can help you collect and manage customer testimonials is HelpCrunch, a chatbot software that provides an easy way to interact with customers and gather feedback. By using HelpCrunch, you can streamline the process of collecting and displaying more and more customer testimonials on your website, which can help boost your lead generation efforts and drive business growth.

Using customer testimonials for lead generation

When using customer testimonials for lead generation, it's important to choose testimonials that are relevant to your target audience and highlight the key benefits of your product or service. 

You should also ensure that the testimonials are genuine and not overly promotional or exaggerated (in fact, exaggerated reviews will only result in disappointed buyers who got their hopes too high from reading the reviews). This will help you establish trust and credibility with potential customers, rather than coming across as pushy or insincere.

Feature testimonials on your website

There are many ways to leverage testimonials on your website:

• Add testimonials to your landing pages.
• Feature them on your home page.
• Consider creating a dedicated customer testimonials page where you can feature reviews, ratings, and case studies.

Time Doctor, a cloud-based time-tracking and management solution software, features customer testimonials on their home page, and many other landing pages across their website. 

Using testimonials in advertising

Consider using feedback and reviews in your lead gen tactics by writing them into your ad copy or featuring customer reviews in your ad creative. This can help to establish social proof and build trust with potential customers.

Computer Graphics, Inc. (the Philippines’ leading distributor and authorized service provider of printers and print-related services) has done exactly this: run an ad featuring a testimonial from a satisfied customer. They also chose one detailed enough to show what that customer bought and what exactly they liked.

Sharing testimonials on social media

Consider creating social media posts that feature quotes or reviews from satisfied customers. Sharing customer testimonials on social media helps you to:

• Build trust. When people see positive feedback from existing customers, it reassures them that the business is reliable, trustworthy, and delivers on its promises.
• Increase credibility. Testimonials showcase real experiences and opinions of customers who have already used the product or service. This adds credibility to the business's claims and demonstrates that it has a satisfied customer base.
• Enhance brand image. Positive testimonials can create a favorable impression and attract new customers.
• Engage with the audience. Customers who have had positive experiences may comment, share their own stories, or ask questions, leading to increased engagement and a sense of community around the brand.
• Drive conversions. Testimonials act as persuasive tools, influencing potential customers to make purchasing decisions. When people see others who are satisfied with a product or service, it can motivate them to take action and become customers themselves.

Using a branded template (like what Computer Graphics, Inc. above did for an ad) will make it recognizable to your audience and simplify the process for your marketing team.

At the same time, you can always use social media platforms to obtain more customer testimonials. For example,  if your posts provoke discussing, you can pay attention to the comment section and find customer reviews. The more comments you get, the more customer testimonials you can obtain. Win-win.

Using testimonials in email marketing

Consider including quotes or reviews from satisfied customers in your email messages. 

Review sites like Trustpilot, Clutch, GoodFirms, and others make it easy for people to leave a review and evaluate a business in the easy-to-understand form of stars — from the worst rating of one star to the “best of the best” five stars.

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 You can use these in your email campaigns to build trust and credibility.

Here are multiple ways to include customer reviews in your email newsletters organically:

• Product review emails, where you share a product review with your leads base, and include short quotes from reviews alongside the product rating. 
• Case study emails, that could look like an infographic or a short summary and lead to a page on your website with a full detailed case study story.
• Direct quotes in emails, which can be used to bolster many types of emails (i.e., new product launches, trial upgrade offers, and even new customer onboarding emails). 
• User-generated content, where you share a newsletter with content generated by customers. I.e., customers’ own posts, video reviews, or social media posts relating to the product or service you provide (the famous example of this tactic is a GoPro marketing strategy, that primarily used social media and user-generated content as their promotion approach).
• Storytelling emails. They differ from case studies since the latter focuses more on facts and some precise analysis of what happened. Stories however show the experience through the eyes’ of people, their needs, feelings, and the places where the story happened. It has a plot and brings emotional context.

Here is how Everlane, an American clothing retailer, used direct quotes to enhance their message, followed by more comments from their customers in the email body itself.

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While testimonials are a great addition to your email marketing, your customers may not appreciate getting too many of these. Avoid overcrowding your audience’s inboxes and making them consider how to stop spam from your brand by using testimonials in conjunction with other email marketing strategies.  

Using testimonials in sales pitches

Strategically adding testimonials to your sales pitches or proposals is an effective way to generate business leads for a B2B business. 

Select specific and authentic testimonials that showcase the results of using your product or service. Use relevant testimonials whenever possible when pitching potential customers: give examples from the same or similar industry clients, and consider if they both have similar target audiences. Pay attention to the businesses’ sizes: i.e., for small businesses, testimonials from other small businesses would look more relatable. 

Creating case studies and success stories

Consider creating case studies or success stories that feature satisfied customers and their experiences with your product or service. 

You could also go the simple way and display only the most important numbers like it was done by the team behind the popular SEO tool Ubersuggest. 

Leveraging video testimonials

While written reviews can be effective, video reviews are even more powerful in communicating authenticity about your products or services. They lift a veil of online privacy, letting your audience see the faces of actual people and hear them speak. 

Because of this, video testimonials may be very effective — in fact, 77% of people who have watched a brand's testimonial video say it has played a part in convincing them to buy their product or service. 

If you're looking to differentiate yourself from competitors, utilizing video as your primary tool for showcasing positive reviews and recommendations is highly recommended. 

Encouraging your customers to submit their own video reviews or sending a video crew to them are both viable options to consider. And while video testimonials may be harder to arrange for, Testimonial Hero can help take care of the task with their  100% done-for-you filming and editing process (and, it would only take 30-45 minutes of your customer’s time).  

By leveraging the power of video, you can showcase the quality of your offerings and attract more customers to your business.

This is what AuthorityHacker, one of the industry-leading online marketing education companies does to persuade people. Their flagship course’s price is around the $3,000 mark, and they’ve been successful selling it for years. 

Key takeaways

Customer testimonials are a powerful tool for generating leads and building trust with potential customers. By showcasing the success of your existing customers, you can demonstrate the value of your products or services and position yourself as a trusted authority in your industry.

To get the most out of your customer testimonials, it's important to:

• Use testimonials strategically throughout your marketing and sales materials, including your website, social media, and email campaigns.
• Ensure your testimonials are authentic and credible by including the customer's full name, photo, and company name (if applicable).
• Showcase a variety of customer experiences and use cases to appeal to a wider audience.
• Make it easy for potential customers to contact your existing customers for more information or to ask questions.

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