The best way to convert prospects is by including a testimonial landing page in your sales funnel. But before we get to that, let's take a step back.
If you've recently bought anything online, you likely saw a testimonial from a satisfied (or unsatisfied) customer.
Everywhere you look online, businesses are making use of testimonials—in advertising, social media, and on their websites.
But how can you more effectively incorporate testimonials into your sales funnel?
Where do you put a customer testimonial? Should you use them in your ads? What about your landing pages? Will they really improve your conversion rates?
We'll answer those questions (and more) in this article.
Read on, and we'll reveal the best place to include testimonials in your sales funnel to drive more conversions, generate more leads, and grow your business online.
What Is A Sales Funnel?
Before we dive into incorporating testimonial landing pages into your sales funnel, let's back up a step.
What is a sales funnel?
A sales funnel is a way to model the buying process of your potential customers. Wide at the top, it is a visual representation of a large number of people becoming aware of your business and, through marketing and sales strategies you implement, a smaller number of them completing a purchase or subscription (at the bottom of the funnel).
A fully optimized sales funnel is designed to cover all phases of your buyer's journey.
Despite the monumental changes which have affected the buyer's journey over time (especially the introduction of ecommerce), the AIDA sales funnel model (which has been around since the 19th century) is still as relevant as ever.
AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action)
In marketing terms, a sales funnel is also known as a conversion funnel. You probably use more than one in your business because most conversion funnels tie to particular marketing campaigns.
A fully optimized funnel maps the flow of your potential customers into actual customers.
It's a representation of the marketing tactics your business uses to turn website visitors into paying customers.
The exact composition of your sales funnel will depend on your business goals, but all share these necessary steps:
- Awareness: It all begins with a problem. Your prospect realizes that they need help, but they're not sure how to solve their problem. The aim of your top of funnel (TOFU) content is to raise brand awareness, provide educational content, and offer information designed to answer a visitor's questions. In other words, be helpful.
- Interest: At this stage, you offer prospects more detailed information and content, e.g., blog posts, and resources such as case studies and webinars. This is where potential customers do their research and evaluate their alternatives. Your prospects want to verify that you're an expert in what you do and determine why they should consider your solution.
- Desire: At this point, your prospects may desire your product but still need convincing of its merits. It's here that we recommend using content like video demonstrations and webinars. These resources must be tailored to your potential buyer's situation because they need to address - and show how to solve - a particular problem.
- Action: This is the final step in your sales funnel. Your prospect might have made a decision, but sometimes they need a final push to get them over the line. At this stage, you must remove any barriers by making it easy to signup, and by inspiring confidence in their choice.
What Is A Conversion In Marketing?
In simple terms, a conversion is getting someone to respond to your call to action (CTA).
For business-to-business (B2B) enterprises, that single decision is expressed in numerous ways online.
Here are a few examples of sales funnel conversions which indicate someone is interested in completing a purchase.
- Signup to a newsletter
- Download a whitepaper or case study
- Register for a webinar
- Book a demo
- Start a free trial
Since the B2B sales process is usually longer and more complex than business-to-consumer (B2C) sales, your goal is to get a steady stream of lower-funnel conversions.
These steps aim to lead your prospect to the ultimate conversion - a purchase.
The graphic below illustrates the type of content commonly used to drive conversions throughout a B2B sales cycle.
Conversions matter because that's how you gauge whether your sales funnels are working correctly.
Very few people purchase the first thing they see, so to secure conversions, you must set multiple touchpoints and analyze the results of each one. This method allows you to determine who is interested in your products and services - a lead - and who is not.
Of course, the conversion rate also helps you to identify problems with your sales funnel and to see what is or isn't working. This is why A/B testing is crucial to your marketing success.
Where To Use Testimonials In Your Sales Funnel
There is a common misconception that B2B buyers only use reviews in the awareness stage of their journey.
A 2019 report from TrustRadius, however, showed that a hefty 73% of tech buyers sought input from others in the evaluation stage, and 33% seek the opinions of their peers and existing users when they are ready to make a selection.
The opinions and experiences of like-minded buyers are useful to many enterprise buyers throughout the entire sales funnel.
Let's take a quick look at some examples.
Using testimonials in the awareness and discovery stage of your sales funnel.
In the discovery stage, your TOFU (top-of-funnel) content is not overtly promotional. Visitors find your SEO content via organic search and discover your posts and discussions on social media.
Your customer testimonials will create awareness of—and inspire confidence in—your brand.
Here's an example of a testimonial post from Facebook:
Using testimonials in the interest and evaluation stage
Now we reach your MOFU (middle-of-funnel) content.
Once you have captured a lead, it's time to keep your prospective customers engaged with your blog content, email sequences, webinars, and case studies.
Your case studies don't have to be large blocks of text. Try breaking them up with images and selected testimonials from the client - like this one from Asana:
Use testimonials in the action stage of your sales funnel.
Now your prospect is ready to take direct action. That action might be a free trial, a subscription, or a purchase.
We strongly recommend incorporating customer testimonials on pages such as product landing pages, pricing pages, free trial offers, and any of your current special promotions.
For instance, here's a snapshot of the "Customers" page on the InsightSquared website, featuring multiple customer testimonial videos:
And here's the video on the right side there, from LeanPlum:
The Best Place To Use Testimonials In Your Sales Funnel
The majority of B2B buyers look at testimonials in the evaluation stage of the sales process.
Software buyers want to see what their experience will be like with your product, and they actively seek the informed opinions of other users in similar industries.
At this point in your marketing funnel, a quick quote - or a couple of sentences - isn't sufficient evidence to set you apart from your competitors.
And that's why your sales funnel's landing page presents the best place to use client testimonials.
What Is A Sales Funnel Landing Page?
In marketing terms, a sales funnel landing page is a standalone page that is separate from other pages on your website.
You drive traffic to these landing pages from outside sources like a Facebook business page, a Google search, or from your paid advertising.
Here's an example from Facebook, which sends visitors to a free training course—on a testimonial landing page.
You will notice that a relevant client quote dominates the text.
Of course, it is possible to create a testimonial landing page within your existing website. Visitors who click on certain links from your product pages or blog posts redirect to a landing page specific to that link.
The number of landing pages you use in your sales funnel is entirely up to you, but each should focus on promoting a single offer. Never divert your prospects from your main goal!
Types Of Sales Funnel and Testimonial Landing Pages
The only goal of a landing page in your sales funnel is to drive a conversion. The desired action your visitor takes on these pages is up to you.
The two most common landing page goals are:
- To collect qualified leads: this is where you offer some form of lead magnet, e.g., an ebook, to obtain a prospect's email address. These pages are often called lead capture or lead generation landing pages.
- To sell your products or services: Your target audience will be not only prospective buyers but also your existing customers. This page is where you promote your tripwire offers, special promotions, and subscriptions to both warm leads and repeat buyers.
We call these landing pages "sales pages" because they are BOFU content.
But, the testimonial landing page remains underutilized as a marketing tactic.
According to Marketing Sherpas' Landing Page Handbook, 44% of clicks for B2B businesses end up directed to their website instead of to a dedicated landing page.
The point is that you must create different landing pages for various sources of traffic and make them relevant to where your prospects are in your conversion funnel.
Always use a separate landing page design for your ad campaigns on social media, for any gated content, and for the individual tools you offer as a SaaS company.
Your testimonials will help increase conversions if they:
- Are used in proximity to sources of anxiety. Place them near your CTA button.
- Include specific details. Use your client's full name, photo, title, and company name.
- Feature high profile clients, e.g., lead with known brand names, those who are industry leaders, or businesses that have won awards.
- Provide proof of results. Use numbers and results that prove a return on investment.
Using A Testimonial Landing Page in Your Sales Funnel
Testimonial landing pages are your secret weapon to drive more conversions.
That's because your landing pages are more specific and relevant to your prospect's needs than that of your homepage or the product pages on your website.
As part of a digital marketing campaign, your landing page is usually situated between a paid ad - or links from social media marketing - and a thank you page.
If you have warm leads, then your visitors are ready to take action on your free trial and demonstration offers, or they've decided to purchase.
Remember the 73% of B2B buyers who sought out testimonials in the evaluation stage?
When prospects are in the desire and decision phases, they seek "substance" to help them choose one product or service over another. That "substance" is often a client testimonial that helps them feel more confident in their decision.
But, here's the surprise:
76.8% of marketers have no social proof on their landing pages.
The statistics are clear: incorporating customer testimonials and other social proof into your sales funnel landing page will drive more conversions.
What's not clear is why B2B businesses are ignoring this data.
There is an opportunity here.
If you're a B2B company, then an even greater opportunity exists for you to get ahead of your competition.
While 3 out of 4 executives find value in reviews, only 43.2% of B2B vendors utilize them as part of their marketing mix.
Use this chance to strengthen your credibility by giving people a reason to believe in your brand.
B2B buyers want to know who else is using your products and how they have benefited from them, so that's a great reason to add testimonials to your sales funnel landing pages.
Incorporate some text or, even better, testimonial videos.
Video Testimonial Landing Page
We recently wrote about how video testimonials boost conversions.
Video has emerged as an incredibly powerful content format, especially when used in the mid to late stages of the sales cycle.
Consider these numbers:
- 80% of video marketers say video has directly helped increase sales.
- 74% of people say they were convinced to buy or download a piece of software or app by watching a video.
You may get away with having mediocre—or no—testimonials on your newsletter signup form. That's not going to be enough on your sales pages.
At the least, you need to feature testimonials that include your client's names, headshots, titles, and company information.
Now is the time to flaunt as much positive feedback from successful clients as possible because it increases your chance to gain new customers.
While recorded webinars have climbed in popularity, jumping from 39% up to 55% in only two years, landing page videos are used only by 57% of marketers.
As you have limited fields to work with on your landing pages, try adding a short customer video. Show your prospective buyers how real customers use your product to solve their problems and why they chose you over your competition.
See how that drives your conversion rates.
Conclusion
The market today is exceptionally crowded, and your offer and prices might be similar to those of your competitors.
If that is the case, incorporating a testimonial landing page or two could make all the difference to your conversion rates.
Even if your current sales funnel provides a positive return, why not augment your results by securing some video testimonials for yourself?
Let's talk about how your business could harness the power of video to create effective and affordable client testimonials.
