In a world of many choices, testimonials build your authority and kick off promising relationships with prospects. They’re an excellent marketing tool, and the right one can promote your business farther than you’d ever imagine. 

The beauty about testimonials is that you’re not tooting your own horn – others are doing it for you. While they’re important, it’s not always easy to get them from a client even after delivering good results. 

In this article, we’ll showcase a few of our favorite tips to get the best testimonials. 

Importance of a great testimonial.

Sometimes, simply showing your work to clients is enough to get them to work with you. However, in a lot of cases, this doesn’t happen. A great testimonial can shift things in your favor so you land a deal. The best testimonials are the ones that forge a connection with your prospect by addressing their current situation. Armed with them, a buyer can easily see a beautiful picture working with you.

So, how do you ask for a testimonial and get it?

The right ways to ask for a testimonial from your client.

Getting people to toot your horn the first time can be a bit awkward. If you’re finding it difficult to ask for a testimonial, here are a few tips to guide you:

Keep it easy

Want to increase your chances of  landing a testimonial? Make it simple for a client or customer to give one. Put yourself in your client’s shoes and look for easy ways for them to give a testimonial. You can email or send an SMS with a link where they can type something out. Also, as a general rule, it’s best to provide not more than two options for your client to leave a testimonial. 

Ask questions

This is one of our favorites. Most times we get average testimonials because we don’t know how to ask the right questions. By asking useful questions, we’re able to draw out great testimonials from our clients.

Here are a few to get you started:

• “What made you choose [your name/company] for this project?”
• “What did you find as a result of buying this product/service?”
• “What specific aspect of the service/product did you like most?”
• “Would you recommend this product/service?” If yes, why?

Feel free to add more questions appropriate to your situation. Also, remember to thank your clients for their time and feedback.

Make use of organic praise

Sometimes while discussing with clients, they make remarks or quotes that can serve as great testimonials. If properly worded, these statements can be transformed into testimonials you can paste on your website.

How to use your client testimonials

So you’ve delivered great work, then you’ve used a few tips above to land yourself some testimonials. Now, it’s time to set them off to work their magic.

To do this, you have to paste them where your prospects can actually see them. An obvious place would be your website. However, there are additional places where you can “hang” them so they attract more clients to you. 

They include:

Social media

Leveraging social media is an excellent way to make your testimonials shine and in turn, grow your business. There are various ways to do this like:

• Reposting a testimonial you find on your client’s profile. 
• Designing graphics highlighting a client quote or review.

Business profiles

This is similar to using the social media methods above. You can create or use existing online and offline business profiles to showcase your client testimonials, like LinkedIn, industry forums etc.

Your business cards

Business cards can travel far. And the best part is, they create a top-of-mind experience about your service or product. Ensure to make the testimonial legible on your card.

Email signature

A lot of things can go into your email signature including a powerful testimonial. One good thing about this method is that the signature is one of the last things prospects read. Putting a testimonial there encourages your prospects to contact you so you can work together.

Best time to ask for a testimonial?

Ideally, you want to ask for a testimonial right after sending an invoice to your client. You can still do that later on and get a good response but doing it early increases your chances of landing a great one.