Testimonials are all about establishing TRUST. Trust is the greatest single barrier to sales (given that they’ve heard of you at all). And third party endorsements like testimonials are the strongest trust builders there are. Testimonials are IMPORTANT.
But not all testimonials are equally useful.
The best possible testimonial would be a video, accompanied by a transcript, which tells a long story about what was done for them, from someone identified by name and otherwise (such as location or job title). It would be absolutely believable and authentic sounding, and speak with great reality to the person viewing it.
At the bottom of the scale would be a short, made up, anonymous testimonial, with typos, poor grammar and a lack of detail.
Few testimonials are that good or that bad. You aim for the best, and showcase the best you do get. The various factors, more or less in order of importance, from most effective to least, are roughly as follows:
MANNER OF PRESENTATION: Well shot video testimonials are tops. They don’t have to be professionally shot. Nothing beats a handheld cell phone video of a wife showing off and raving about her new kitchen cabinets. PDFs of signed testimonials on the person’s letterhead are excellent. In both these cases, they should be accompanied by transcripts.
LENGTH: A long testimonial that tells a story is most effective. By actual test, a large number of short testimonials are not as effective as a much smaller number of long testimonials.
DETAILS: The more details, the more authentic a testimonial seems. “They did a great job” doesn’t have nearly the impact of “Everyone at the party raved about how great our new cabinets looked.”
IDENTIFICATION: The more definitively the author of a testimonial is identified, the more trustworthy it is perceived. If the person is identified by name, title, company, and location, accompanied by a photo showing them wearing their company name tag – well, that is as good as it gets. Initials are better than nothing.
CARE: Well-written, free of grammatical errors and typos, is best. We will correct typos in written testimonials.
PLATFORM: You are trying to allay people’s natural suspicion. A testimonial on your website could have been made up. Google Reviews are more trusted. Third party testimonials that are processed by actual human beings, services like Clutch, are considered highly reliable.
VOLUME: The sheer number of testimonials makes a difference. If you have 50 Google Reviews, people don’t think you could have made them all up, and you probably aren’t cherry-picking the few customers who actually liked what you did. But as I said, one superb testimonial goes a lot farther than a large number of interior testimonials. And if you looking to put a testimonial excerpt on your website, you want to put your best foot forward – and to have that be a great one indeed.
This is something you always work at. It can take quite a bit of work to get good, usable testimonials, but it is one of the best ways you can spend time working on your marketing.