How to Use Customer Reviews to Improve Your Sales Campaigns

Collecting customer reviews isn’t enough to increase conversion; you need to use them correctly to boost revenue.

Customer reviews are high-value social proof. They have the potential to build trust and motivate others to connect with your business. 

Customer reviews can also impact customer decisions and boost your company’s reputation. Around 88% of customers believe online reviews to be just as reliable as personal recommendations. 

In other words, customer reviews can help you improve your sales campaigns. But how do you use them? Here are some of the best ways.

1. Use Infographics

Infographics are a great way to encourage viewers to read, learn, comprehend, and create connections.

When combining infographics with customer testimonials, you can successfully expand your audience and sales conversation. You can also create brand awareness that can make a lasting impact on your business.

Before choosing what feedback to include in your infographics, answer these questions:

Where: You need to consider the format of your platform and create infographics that are correctly sized. Along with the appropriate text, fit your images to the specifications of each platform to maintain quality and avoid a blurred picture.

What: You must specify what elements you should include in your infographic. What kinds of visuals, for instance, are you planning to use? Will you use charts, images, or both? 

For example, the following infographic captures and holds viewers’ attention, compelling the audience to read the product review and learn more about it.

Notice, too, that the review chosen by the brand to highlight in the infographic revolves around the product’s benefits. That’s something potential customers will want to know and might just be what they need to make that purchase.

2. Include Customer Feedback in Your Sales Emails

Including customer feedback in your sales emails can increase email engagement by telling readers what they can expect from your company.  

Segment newsletters based on your ideal customers’ demographics and insert targeted reviews for your various products. Make sure they look like organic plugs.

Consider this email from StoryBrand that features a review from a happy client followed by a call-to-action. It attests to how StoryBrand helped Dr. Proffer’s company grow, and his use of specific results – their lead submissions doubled – lends credibility to his statement.

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3. Use Customer Review Badges

Search engines and external review websites use review badges to create and improve the credibility of businesses and their products. Since customers are more likely to buy from these businesses with credibility, it follows customer review badges can help improve sales. They should, therefore, be part of your sales strategy.

Google customer reviews are one of the most reliable and reputable sources of information for buyers searching for guidance. Just set up and optimize a Google My Business profile. That will allow you to start collecting feedback from your online buyers. 

You can embed a review snippet code into your website to display the number of reviews your business has received. These results will then give you a Google Seller Rating badge that can be displayed anywhere on your website. 

Apollo Glass is proud to show off its perfect 5-star rating on the reviews page of its website with examples of customer feedback. Invite visitors to your website to leave a review, and make sure you reply to them regularly.

Review stars also appear on Google maps and local search results. They help boost your SEO rankings as well. When they appear in your paid ads, they can increase your click-through rates by up to 10%.

In addition to Google reviews, external review platforms such as Trustpilot and Yelp can also work to cement your reputation. 

Depending on your line of business, choose the most appropriate review platform to attract current and future buyers within your consumer base.

4. Leverage Customer Feedback on Social Media

Social media offers one of the best ways to collect and display consumer reviews.

Customer feedback on social media can serve as brand marketing content. Those who manage SEO campaigns can use them, for instance, as engaging website content that can drive traffic and, hopefully, improve SEO. We’ll talk more about using customer reviews on websites later.

Remember those infographics we spoke about? Those are the sort of posts you want to create and place on your social media pages. You can use social media listening tools to look for good customer feedback, which you can transform into those infographics.

With the help of engaging social media tools, you can then monitor the impact of your campaigns.

Take a look at Vision Bank’s FaceBook page which consistently posts customer testimonials in a simple yet effective manner. This testimonial they chose identifies one of the key products and shows the high level of customer service they offer.

5. Use Video Testimonials

Video testimonials are an excellent form of customer reviews as they are more touching and personal. 

Videos put a face to the words of happy customers. They also give you the chance to record a more detailed personal experience.

Don’t be afraid to ask loyal customers for a video testimonial. You’d be surprised how willing they are to share a positive experience they had with your business. 

Alternatively, you can offer them gift cards or coupon codes as added incentives to generate some insightful video consumer reviews. 

Use these easy tips to make the process painless yet effective.

Video Testimonial Tips:

• Provide tangible evidence of product benefits. Use numbers and concrete data to back up the benefits you promise to prospective customers. Include clips of buyers stating the number of increased sales and leads or the reduction in downtime. Viewers will then be curious to know how your products will benefit them. 
• Create an emotional connection. Use tools such as background music to emphasize the feeling you wish to create when customers use your products. Focus on core emotions such as a sense of fun and excitement or a welcoming, comfortable feeling. 
• Incorporate clips of your products or services in action. Use short clips of your product at work to show viewers how happy your customers are. It gives them a glimpse of what they can expect after purchase.  
• Relate to a personal customer journey. Use a storytelling format to share customers’ experiences right from start to finish. That will resonate with potential customers who may see themselves in the same position. 
• Take demographics into account. Generally, we tend to relate to people who are like us. That means that different video testimonials will appeal to different demographics. Therefore, catering to your customer base by producing videos featuring people of various backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, and ages.

Zoom, for example, produces videos of various clients discussing the app. They highlight how Zoom has helped them improve their businesses.

With these reviews, the company can provide concrete proof of the positive impact of their product.

Tip: Grab some psychology-backed tips for connecting and resonating with buyers in your sales and marketing efforts.

Psychology Principles + 13 Power Words for Winning SalesData-backed psychological principles, nonverbal cues, and persuasive phrases to win more deals.

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6. Display Customer Reviews on Your Site

Apart from email and social media, you can place reviews on your website’s most important pages, especially those with a specific call to action. For example, you can add reviews on your product pages or those that request a download or sign-up.

Yesware, for example, displays customer reviews on its home page that can enhance user engagement and boost conversion rates.

7. Turn Testimonials Into Customer Stories

Include narrative reviews by creating a case study from the customer’s perspective. Include everything about the issue and how your products or services have helped them.

You can engage a fellow employee to write your blog posts or hire an external writer who will give an unbiased perspective to readers. Publish these articles on your blog or as a guest post to a popular site in your industry.

Zapier has mastered turning testimonials into compelling customer stories.

They dig deeper into their clients’ journey from beginning to end. By focusing on successful clients, they can speak directly to the reader and hopefully convince them to convert. 

In Closing 

Gaining customer trust is crucial to increasing sales. Testimonials foster trust, which means they can also positively impact sales. For you to achieve these results, though, you need to use customer reviews the right way.

You learned some of these ways. Implement testimonial infographics and use customer review badges. Craft video testimonials and leverage feedback from customers on social. And incorporate customer reviews into your other marketing materials.

If you follow these tips, your sales campaigns will yield better results.

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About the Author: Matt Diggity

Matt Diggity is a search engine optimization expert and the founder and CEO of Diggity Marketing, The Search Initiative, Authority Builders, and LeadSpring LLC. He is also the host of the Chiang Mai SEO Conference.