Don't Be Shy. Ask For More Testimonials.

In today’s newsletter, I want to share 3 tips for collecting more (and better) testimonials for your product or service.

Video and text testimonials have helped me add an additional 1% point to my landing page conversion rate. That means hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra revenue.

And that shouldn’t be any surprise given 54.7 percent of consumers read at least four reviews before buying a product. (source: Oberlo)

But getting testimonials can be challenging, especially if you don’t have many (or any) customers.

Use these 3 tips below to ramp up your testimonial game, and start making more sales.

The Barter Method

If you’re just getting started with a product or service business, it can be difficult to land clients without great testimonials.

An easy way to acquire some is to help a few people at a much lower rate than you plan on charging in the future, in exchange for a testimonial.

If you have a small email list, send out a simple email to drum up a little interest.

If you don’t have an email list but you have a small social media following, share your new service or product in a post.

The goal is two-fold:

1. Get people to respond via email and start a conversation.
2. Move all social conversations to DM where you can pitch your idea.

Let them know that plan on charging more in the future, but you are offering a lower-cost cohort/product/service in exchange for a strong testimonial if you deliver on your promise.

Be Hyper Specific

I’ve worked with a lot of business owners who are great at asking for testimonials, and they end up getting tens or even hundreds of them.

But there’s a difference between a generic “I loved this product!” and testimonials that move prospective customers to purchase.

Here are 3 rules for great testimonials that convert:

Let prospective customers know the product works:

Nothing is better than reading a testimonial that tells the prospective customer that another person has achieved the desired result from your product. So when you ask for testimonials, ask for proof that what you’ve done has actually helped.

Here’s an example from my course, The LinkedIn Operating System:

Answer your prospects’ objections:

Ask your customers to talk about a specific objection they had before buying your product, and how they felt about that objection once they’ve completed it.

For example, was someone worried that your product was going to be a scam, or not helpful? Or maybe they’ve tried several other products like yours without success and were worried.

Testimonials like this one help dramatically:

Shine a light on unique differentiators:

Often, a few of your customers will talk about something in your product or service that really surprised them, and surprise you too!

You should absolutely take the time to shine a light on the unexpected benefits of working with you.

Like this:

Automate the Process

If you’ve landed a few customers, delivered on your promises, and acquired some specific testimonials, you’re off to an incredible start.

Rather than continue doing this manually, it’s time to move to a much more automated system of collecting testimonials.

There are a few different ways to do this effectively:

Use Email Automation Triggers

This works well for a service business, an online course, or even a SaaS product.

For example, if you’re a consultant who provides a service, you can set up an email trigger that fires off 48 hours after your retainer ends.

If you host an online course or product, you can use email automation to email students upon completion of their last module.

Or if you have a SaaS product, you can use milestones inside of the product to prompt an email asking about your experience.

Two weeks after students enroll in my course, The LinkedIn Operating System, I send them an automated email asking for a testimonial, leading to 1,200+ testimonials and 4.98 out of 5 stars for the course!

Use a Collection Widget

When you email a client, make it really simple for them to send in their testimonial in the format of their choice.

You can link to a collection widget inside of your email automation, or you can even embed the collection widget inside your course or SaaS product.

You can design custom language that prompts the user to share specific highlights like the 3 I listed above in the “Be Hyper Specific” section.

For my courses, I use the collection widget to ask for testimonials at intermission, and again at the conclusion of the course.

To improve the likelihood that I get video testimonials, I let customers know that I’ll feature the best ones, plus a link to that person’s social media, at the top of my landing page.

This is one of the major reasons that I’ve been able to collect so many testimonials for my product, The LinkedIn Operating System.

Automatically Send To Your Landing Page

If you end up using Testimonial.to, you can also automatically pipe those testimonials directly to a landing page or website of your choice.

You just simply review the testimonial, select it as a favorite, and it will appear on your landing page in seconds.

One thing I’ve done is split my testimonials into two distinct sections, so I can feature them in multiple places throughout my website.

I highly recommend putting your outcomes-based testimonials near the buy button, and your “objection handling” testimonials near the details of the course. That helps match each group of testimonials to the appropriate section of your website for maximum impact.

More testimonials. Better testimonials. Presented in a relevant place.

More sales.

Mission accomplished.