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What if I told you you could get 34% more customers from the same amount of traffic you’re getting right now by making one simple tweak?
That’s the power of adding testimonials to your product pages, signup pages, or any other pages you use to convert traffic into customers!
No matter what kind of business you’re operating, you probably have a lot of competitors. In today's global economy, there is no shortage of options for almost anything we want or need.
In this competitive market, simply telling customers your product or service is great isn't enough. They want proof. Testimonials provide that proof, offering concrete evidence of the value you deliver and addressing the skepticism that naturally arises in a world of marketing hype.
In fact, 88% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.1
And an experiment by the conversation rate optimization company VWO found that moving testimonials up closer to the signup button on a WikiJob landing page increased conversion by 34%!2

This is why it’s essential to show positive reviews and testimonials wherever potential customers make purchase decisions.
Eight Ways to Get Testimonials
The good thing is that unless your business is brand new, you probably already have some testimonials; you just don’t know it yet!
Using these eight tactics, it’s impossible not to walk away with testimonials you can use to increase your own conversion rate.
1. Check Your Business’s Communications
Chances are, you’ve already gotten a few informal testimonials in emails or other business communications. Search your emails or customer support chats to find positive feedback about your business. Substack publishers should also check their paid subscriber notes and recommendations from other publications!
When you find something useful, follow up and ask permission to use the quotation. If it’s not long enough, you can even ask the author to expand on their words; it’s much easier than asking them to write something from scratch.
From now on, anytime a customer or client has something nice to say about your business, make sure to save it so you can find it easily in the future.
2. Look at Third Party Review Websites
Third-party websites hosting reviews, like Trustpilot, Yelp, Angie’s List, Google Places, Fiverr, or even Amazon, are excellent sources of testimonials in the form of positive user reviews.

The best part is that they typically happen without your involvement, and since they are already public, you usually don’t need to ask permission from the reqe person who wrote the review. Just cite the website you sourced it from when you quote it.
Reviews from third-party websites are usually considered very trustworthy. To leverage this trust factor, use screenshots or reference the website from which you pulled the review.
3. Search Social Media
Social media is another excellent place to find testimonials. Oftentimes, people speak about your brand without you even knowing it.
Facebook Page reviews, posts about your brand in Groups, and positive comments on your posts.
X/Twitter Tweets and replies to your Tweets.
LinkedIn Recommendations for your services.
YouTube video reviews of your product.
Reddit discussions and recommendations of your brand.
Instagram posts and comments about your brand.
In the future, bookmark any favorable mentions of your brand on social media so you can find them easily later!

4. Get By With a Little Help From Your Friends
Most of us have done business with friends and family; they’re often our first customers! In most cases, your inner circle will be delighted to provide you with an honest testimonial. Don’t be afraid to ask—they want to support you. And unless you share a last name, your personal connection won’t be obvious to people reading your website.

5. Conduct a Survey
Have you ever run a customer survey? It’s a great way to get valuable feedback from your customers, good and bad. There’s a good chance you’ll get some valuable testimonials you can use, but even if you don’t, a survey will help you determine which customers to target for testimonials based on their answers.
There are many ways to incorporate surveys into your business, from extensive annual surveys that include a large cross-section of your customer database to automated surveys sent to each customer after a transaction or anything in between.
Surveys are generally considered private, so ask permission before sharing any responses.

6. Ask Customers Directly
The only surefire way to get great testimonials is to ask for them. It feels scary, but people are usually happy to help businesses they like. The worst thing that can happen is they say no or don’t reply, and you move on to the next person on your list—no big deal.
Those who have already said good things about you online or elsewhere are prime candidates for testimonials, but you can ask any of your customers. There’s no pressure to use it if you don’t like what they say.
7. Give Your Product or Service Away
Sometimes, we need a little push. One way to incentivize more testimonials is to offer your product or service for free in exchange for an honest review. From there, you can take the best ones and feature them as testimonials.

This is especially useful when looking for more in-depth reviews or video testimonials. Since they require more work, customers are less likely to put in the effort, but an incentive really helps give them that push.
8. Run a Giveaway
A contest is another way to incentivize testimonials. Rather than reaching out to customers directly to offer free products or services, you can run a contest that any of your customers can enter for a chance to win a prize.
For example, a tour guide might ask past customers to share their favorite thing about their guided tour for a chance to win a future tour for free. Just make sure you’re on top of the legal requirements for a giveaway.
Testimonials are an extremely powerful way to leverage social proof and supercharge your marketing so you can make more sales from the same amount of effort. Even if you’re not sure exactly how you’re going to use them, start collecting those testimonials now. You’ll be glad you did when it comes time to put them in action!
To endless possibilities,
Casandra
Bonus: Testimonial Request Email Templates
The ideal testimonial is specific and results-oriented. Your customers aren’t just saying that they love your product or service; they’re explaining why and what results they have gotten from it.
You can increase your likelihood of getting useful testimonials by asking for them. Here are several templates you can modify for your business to get the testimonials you need.
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