Word-of-mouth marketing is the most powerful form of advertisement. You can be talking about your great services and incredible products all day, but any amount of self-promotion can’t come close to instilling the kind of credibility and authority that comes from customer testimonials and stories.

Here are just a few reasons why customer testimonials are so great.

It’s Not Obvious

Testimonials are a great sales technique to put to use, without making you look too pushy or desperate. Of Course you’re trying to make sales, but testimonials don’t make it too obvious. Instead, they bolster confidence in potential customers that the purchase about to be made is the right choice.

Showcase Product Benefits

Products and services often aren’t one dimensional, meaning there isn’t just one benefit to be obtained from them. Customers can have different needs from the same product which makes them appreciate different aspects of it. Positive reviews from customers can showcase a multitude of these benefits and appeal to more than one type of potential customer.

Create Credibility and Trust

The right testimonials and reviews can assure your potential customers that your ultimate goal is not just to make sales but to help them and you’re committed to it. 

Reading a positive testimony by someone who’s already used the product brings a sense of comfort to the audience when deciding whether or not to invest in your product.

Now you know why you should optimize the use of customer testimonials. Next question is How?

Tackle a Specific Issue

The right testimonials can address your potential customer’s most pressing concerns about signing up for your content or buying your product. You can use social proof to tell the story of why your product is specifically good for your customer and put an ease to their objections.

Testimonial Focused Page

Instead of tucking away the testimonials in some corner of the page where the prospects may or may not see it, make it the star of your landing page. This can help you get through to your skeptical prospects by delivering a giant dose of proof.

Authoritative Testimonial

If you have a customer who yields a lot of influence in your niche, grab a testimonial from them and play it big on your homepage or landing page. Your audience will be more likely to trust and believe testimonials from influencers or experts whom they recognize and respect.

The Ultimate Benefit

You’ve probably heard time and again that people don’t buy products, they buy better versions of themselves. By communicating the ‘ultimate benefit’ of your product, you reveal the deepest, most important ways in which a product can improve the customer’s life.

Testimonials provide a powerful and effective way to communicate these deeper benefits as they help the audience visualize this better version of themselves.

Customer testimonials and reviews work because they are real, authentic stories that instantly make a connection with your customers and at the same time provide a compelling proof of the promises you’re making. The more you allow your customers to do the marketing for you through these testimonials, the stronger your conversion rates will be.