What Real-Life Testimonial Examples Have A HUGE Impact On Potential Customers?

If you’re here, you’ve probably heard that testimonials are the bread and the butter of marketing these days, so you need to know more about them, maybe some testimonial examples, and why they’re so important.

No matter what kind of business you run, you will always vouch for your own brand and image. You can talk about how good your services or products are and how trustworthy your company is 24/7, but how do your clients feel about it?

They might think, “of course you are saying that your business is “perfect,” but prove it. Make us believe all these claims are true and not just some fake advertising.” Instead of giving the clients a reason to roll their eyes at your affirmations, strengthen your claims with social proof. Testimonials from past clients are the best proof that you are telling the truth about your brand and thinking “what do our customers say about our products?” make them believe you care about their opinion and you’ll do anything to provide them a great experience.

Giving the readers proof of your success is actually what they want, and sharing testimonials on your website is the best way to gain their trust.

This article will show you the best testimonial examples for your website to get your clients’ attention and some tips and tricks you may need.

---

---

Why are testimonials effective

In today’s competitive business landscape, building trust and credibility with potential customers is essential for success. One powerful tool that can greatly influence consumer perception and decision-making is the testimonial. Testimonials, or customer reviews and feedback, have emerged as a highly effective marketing strategy for businesses across various industries.

Here is why testimonials are so impactful and why incorporating them into your marketing efforts can yield significant benefits:

• Social Proof – People tend to trust their peers’ opinions and recommendations more than traditional advertising. Testimonials provide real-life examples that show how your product or service has benefited others, assuring potential customers that they are making a smart decision.
• Increased Credibility – When you showcase genuine testimonials from satisfied customers, it shows that your products or services have a proven track record of providing value. Since consumers are naturally skeptical, especially when making purchasing decisions, authentic testimonials serve as strong validation.
• Emotional Connection – When satisfied customers share their personal stories and experiences, it deeply resonates with others who may be going through similar challenges or seeking solutions. This creates a sense of empathy and trust. Testimonials go beyond rational decision-making and tap into the emotional aspect of consumer behavior.
• Enhanced Decision-Making – Testimonials act as helpful tools by offering valuable insights and perspectives. By presenting a complete picture, testimonials assist potential customers in evaluating if your offering meets their specific needs.
• Positive Reputation Building – Testimonials serve as the foundation for a positive reputation by highlighting the positive experiences of satisfied customers. The positive word-of-mouth can greatly enhance your brand’s visibility and attract new customers.

If you want to know more about the importance of testimonials, read our full article on the benefits of testimonials.

As you incorporate testimonials into your marketing strategy, ensure they are genuine, diverse, and relatable to maximize their impact. Embrace the influence of testimonials and watch as they contribute to the growth and success of your business.

---

How to gather testimonials

To harness the true power of testimonials, you need to proactively gather feedback from satisfied customers. There are many ways to do so:

• Request feedback via email.
• Create an easy-to-use online form.
• Leverage social media for reviews and feedback.
• Offer incentives or rewards for testimonials.
• Engage with customers and ask for testimonials.
• Follow up with satisfied customers for testimonials.
• Seek testimonials from influencers or industry experts.
• Capture video testimonials for added impact.
• Monitor and utilize online reviews for testimonials.

Remember, when requesting testimonials, always prioritize transparency and authenticity. Ensure that customers have the freedom to express their genuine experiences and opinions.

By diversifying your testimonial gathering efforts and utilizing multiple channels, you can gather a range of testimonials that highlight the various benefits and positive aspects of your product or service.

For a complete guide on effectively gathering testimonials across all possible channels, check our guide on the best strategies for testimonial collection.

1. Quote testimonials

Testimonial quotes are perhaps the most beloved and common format, and probably this is the first you thought of. They have been used since the beginning of the customer testimonials era, and it will remain the most common type of testimonial for a long time. Quote testimonials are direct words from clients who were satisfied with the products or services you offer.

These testimonial examples remain famous for increasing conversions, and it’s the type of quote you most often will see on sale pages.

Advice when creating Quote Testimonial

• Place them all over your site — Post the testimonial examples to your sales page, hero slider, content, landing pages, or banners.
• Add a testimonial featured image — To make the most out of these testimonials, include photos of the clients who wrote the testimonial.
• Choose life-changing testimonial examples — Demonstrate how your product/ service changed your clients’ lives. Don’t limit yourself to only a text with kind words.

---

2. Social Testimonials

This testimonial example can take different forms such as:

• Videos on YouTube, TikTok, or Snapchat
• Images of your product on Instagram
• Tweets about your products or services
• Facebook posts on your profile, or on different groups

These reviews are credible and bring another dimension of authenticity to your company to have natural conversations about your business on social media. The main distinction between this and other kinds of testimonials is that the other forms are commonly requested, while social recommendations are often spontaneous.

It’s difficult to dismiss a company’s reputation if anyone likes it enough to promote it on their own social media pages.

Advice when creating Social Testimonials

• Integrate reviews into your website — Taking screenshots of reviews or adding text manually is no longer an option – there are outstanding tools specially made to help you import reviews from third party websites.
• The power of advertising — Paid advertising is not the only option of putting your client testimonials in front of a crowd. Give a like to those great testimonials your clients wrote and share them on your page. Responding to each one individually is also a great way of showing that you care about your customers, and by doing so, your brand will be seen as a friendly one.

---

3. Video Testimonials

The reason why this testimony example is one of the most authentic it’s because it’s hard to fake one. It’s simple to create a text testimonial by making something up and stealing someone’s Facebook photo you knew in college, but how do you get someone to sit down in front of a camera and sing your praises? That’s plausible.

Usually, video testimonials have a customer page dedicated only to them. By doing so, your clients won’t be distracted by something else and can focus on the video presented.

Advice when creating Video Testimonials

• Merge more testimonials into one — This becomes gold if you use a video of a peer, success story, or influencer testimonial. Video allows one to connect with people even more easily, so don’t be afraid to mix testimonial forms with video.
• Do it professionally — While any video testimonial is better than nothing, professional testimonials are always more trustworthy. For example, the video testimonials made with Zoom are extremely professionally taken.

---

4. Interview testimonials

Interviewing the clients or consumers about their experience working with you or buying your products/ services is an easy way to blend the client testimonial with a visual or audio testimonial and a success story.

Oberlo published interviews with people who have had success with the program on their blog. They did a series of interviews with some of their customers about how they got started and how Oberlo helped them succeed in the example below.

Usually, those who are watching an interview don’t even realize it’s actually a testimonial. You know it’s a good interview testimonial when the results speak for themselves, and you don’t have to force it by promoting your product/ service directly. Let it be natural.

Advice when creating Interview Testimonials

• Credibility — By creating a video or audio testimonial, you will build stronger credibility and will be set apart from those text interviews that anyone can fake.
• Asking leading questions is not a good idea — A leading question is when you ask something in such a way as to manipulate the answer to get what you want. Please don’t make your clients feel like they are in an interrogation room. Trust them that they’ll be honest and open.
• Let clients know what they will have to talk about — Most probably, your clients will want to know before the interview what the questions will be — regarding the impact of your product/ service on their lives, or about the quality or simply their experience with your brand.

---

5. Mashup testimonial

This testimonial layout is more and more popular among advertisers. A mashup testimonial example is when feedback from multiple people is linked into an audio or video excerpt. This applies to podcasts, and many have used these testimonies as celebration specials or for the launch of branded packages. You’ve possibly heard this on the radio as social proof: a group of people complimenting the station before a song or when the hosts are introduced.

Advice when creating a Mashup Testimonial

• Ensure all testimonial examples are short — The mashup is a long line of multiple short testimonials, keeping the viewers or listeners focused by changing the testimonials quickly.
• Use video or audio — Text mashups look like enormous Romans that nobody wants to read. Audios or videos are the perfect tools to make a smooth transaction.
• Don’t forget to have a specific topic — Giving a specific topic to the clients to talk about is crucial because, without one, the testimonials will seem out of context and confusing.
• Tell the customer/ client to record the testimonial — The purpose of this testimonial is to make the client record himself, not to read it loud into the mic.

---

6. Peer Testimonial

These marketing testimonial examples are one of the most efficient types of testimonials you can have on your website of Implicit Egotism.

What is that?

Implicit Egotism is when people tend to gravitate toward others who resemble themselves. This is why peer testimonials work. This type usually includes a photo in the form of a portrait.

Probably you realized that but, you are more likely to buy a product if the person from the advertisement is just like you. Also, you tend to trust more a testimonial if given by somebody with whom you can relate.

It will help if you use testimonials that match the audience targeted. For example, if you are trying to sell a product/ service to a young audience, don’t use testimonials from older people because you won’t convince anybody.

Advice when creating Peer Testimonial

• Use details about your clients — Include details about your client in the testimonial such as personal information, link to social media profile, website company, or their profession to let the readers identify better with them.
• Ask for testimonials from your targeted audience — These people are your customer personas and may draw more people like them.

---

7. Influencer Testimonial

Adding influencer testimonials to your website will definitely skyrocket your brand.

Influencer testimonials are so powerful because their names are well-known and trusted. When an influencer gives you a positive rating, it tells the fans that you are trustworthy. After all, the good, service, or job is endorsed by someone they know and respect. Isn’t it true that if it’s good enough for them, it’ll be good enough for me?

Moreover, having influencers promoting your brand on their social media profiles will help you get the exposure needed to increase conversions.

---

Advice when creating Influencer Testimonial

• Choose to collaborate with popular influencers — Ask for testimonials from influencers that are well recognized in your area.
• Work with multiple celebrities — Using more than one influencer testimonial increases the potential of each visitor to know at least one influencer.

---

8. Success Story Testimonials

Few things are more effective than showing obvious outcomes.

The success story testimonial accomplishes this. Success stories take a new customer through a step-by-step transition that another consumer has achieved using the product or service.

For example, using a before and after testimonial template just like SlimFast did to show your possible clients how your product/ service helped many people achieve that Zeus body for the summer season. You can use this testimonial template for your website even if you act in another industry, not just the fitness and health industry.

These testimonials are used for a reason: readers are attracted to them when they see themselves in the success story. It demonstrates that what we do is successful, with evidence to prove it.

---

Advice when creating a Success Story Testimonial

• Show the proof — Try to attach as many screenshots, visuals, or photos of the results on your customer’s testimony. That might be two photos of your client’s body transformation or how much money your client earned with the help of your service.

---

9. Documentary Series Testimonials

The majority of testimonials have a high-level perspective of their clients, as well as the outcomes they’ve accomplished. In the case of a documentary series testimonial, it’s different.

Consider offering the prospects the opportunity to see if your product/service has benefited someone else. People will be able to see how things were before and after and the client’s progress. This also gives the testimonial a more genuine feel.

Filming a documentary is not for everyone, and it might not even be the best kind of testimonial for your company.

However, it’s important to note that, to sell their products, more business owners are turning to professional videography.

What is the reason for this? Because it works.

---

Advice when creating a Documentary Series Testimonial

• Choosing the right topic to talk about — It has to be perfect. The most crucial element is your subject tale, as all that follows will revolve around the topic you’ve selected.
• Make it interesting to watch — Examine your plans, subject, and people you’ll be highlighting to see if they work well together.

---

10. Long-form Testimonials

Long-form sales copy stimulates a response in our brains that tells us there must be a lot of value in the product or service if there’s too much to say about it.

“The more you share, the more you sell,” as the saying goes, and testimonials are no different. Long-form testimonials have more than a few sentences or paragraphs, making the piece read more like a novel. Stories are more convincing than logic, and people are more easily convinced because they are “transported into a narrative world.”

A great example is GoatSonTheRoad. In his case, he uses long-form testimonials in the form of blog posts to prove that it’s possible and anyone can do it.

---

Advice when creating a Long-form Testimonial

• Make your reader interested to read — Make your testimonial just as long as it has to be – not a word longer or shorter. A long-form testimonial aims to put in as much quality and evidence as possible, not to bore your reader to death.
• Don’t focus on your brand — We have quotations and findings in the plot, but the emphasis is on the client’s transition. Readers will see this as more honest and authentic.

---

Now we have seen multiple great customer testimonial examples to add to your business, but the question that remained is “How to add them to your website?” The answer is simple:

Strong Testimonials

Well, Strong Testimonials is the answer if you’re searching for the right balance between usability and functionality.

If you want to try out the paid edition, the package for one site starts at just $49 a year. The most expensive subscription edition costs $149 a year and includes unlimited websites and many other features.

The best part about this plugin is how simple it is to use while still being amazingly powerful. Strong Testimonials is highly customizable and comes with a number of useful extensions, including:

• Shortcodes and widgets functionalities;
• Useful extensions to collect and display testimonials from external sources;
• Many layouts (masonry, grid, columns) and templates available (widget, small, bold, modern, minimalist, card, and others);
• Custom fields (text, email, URL, video URL, video upload).

---

Key takeaways

• Testimonials are highly effective in building trust and credibility with potential customers.
• Testimonials provide social proof and increase credibility by showcasing real-life examples of satisfied customers.
• Testimonials create an emotional connection with potential customers, tapping into their decision-making process.
• Testimonials assist potential customers in making informed decisions by offering valuable insights and perspectives.
• Testimonials contribute to positive reputation building and can attract new customers through word-of-mouth.
• To gather testimonials, proactively request feedback from satisfied customers through various channels.
• Different types of testimonials include quote testimonials, social testimonials, video testimonials, interview testimonials, mashup testimonials, peer testimonials, influencer testimonials, success story testimonials, documentary series testimonials, and long-form testimonials.
• Each type of testimonial has its own benefits and can be used in different contexts to maximize impact.

---

Conclusion

So, these are the types of testimonials you should use on your website to build trust and grow your business. The only thing that remains for you to do is to find out which testimonial type suits your business best and implement them correctly.