Using Customer Testimonials In Email Marketing

Want people to fall in love with your product or service? Want people to hear from the people who were satisfied with your brand? Customer testimonials can definitely help with that!

Customer testimonials are when customers are satisfied with a product or service to the point where they decide to recommend it or post about it on a public forum. Public forums can be almost anywhere on the Internet:

• Social media
• Websites
• Forums
• Emails, etc.

The last point stands out in this discussion because marketers and brands are always trying to reach customers as much as they can. Recently, some so-called experts ruled email marketing dead. In fact, email marketing isn’t dead yet, and technology advancements play a major role in that.

Did you know that more than 3.9 billion people use emails? And that that number is expected to rise to 4.48 billion by the year 2024? That goes to show that, despite the evident changes in technology, email still exists.

Now, let’s combine customer testimonials and email marketing together. You’ll get a recipe for great marketing.

Let’s face it: As a brand, people won’t take your word at face value (while that used to be the reality back in the day). Nowadays, they want to hear from real people about how good or bad a product or service is.

This essential guide aims to show you a few ways how to make the best of email marketing using solid customer testimonials.

1. Short Product Reviews

“First, think about what kinds of product reviews you wish to showcase in an email,” says Jessica Winston, a project manager at Elite assignment help and UK Writings review. “Chances are, you’ll have email recipients who won’t have time to read the entire email. They would want something quick and easy to digest once they open your email. Therefore, consider implementing short product reviews. In this way, customer testimonials are to the point, and they explain why other people should try out your product or service.”

With that said, short product reviews can come from various places online:

• Social media postings
• Forums
• On your website
• Google Business Profile
• In search engine results, etc.

Remember: You can also ask your recipients to leave short product reviews, once they try out your product or service. You can boost this trend by encouraging others to leave a quick word about your brand. Whether they want to do a long or short review is, of course, is up to them.

2. Video Testimonials

Nowadays, people are watching videos online all the time. In fact, according to Statista, there will be an estimated 161.4 million live video viewers come 2023. This goes to show how popular video is and will become since its rise in consumer influence. Even watching a short video speaks volumes, as there are so many eyes available to get on your video content.

Long story short: Never underestimate the power of video.

It all starts with a good customer testimonial. With a customer’s permission, you can record their positive experience with your product or service. Here’s a great example from the team at Slack – with a different, humorous spin.

After you film and edit your testimonial video, you can upload it onto your social media – more specifically, YouTube for longer-form videos, and maybe a channel like Instagram for shorter-from content. Afterward, you can embed the uploaded video into your email, provided that the link works properly.

This allows you to add a personal touch to your email. Rather than sound robotic and canned to email recipients, you’re giving your emails a human face.

3. User-Generated Content

People, including those in your target audience, are always searching for things online to help them answer questions and solve problems. And, chances are, they might be looking for something that you might have.

Enter user-generated content (UGC). User-generated content is important in email marketing because it helps impact the buying decisions of consumers. This type of content can come in many forms:

• Images
• Videos
• Social media posts, etc.

These are considered user-generated content because users are posting these media and expressing their likes and dislikes online. UGC adds credibility and authenticity to the reviews that you add to your emails.

Plus, they increase customer engagement by allowing customers to participate in special campaigns and promotions from your brand. You can add the UGC alongside the testimonials, so that you can, again, add a personal touch to your emails.

4. Personalization With Testimonials

“No two people are the same, especially when it comes to having opinions on a brand,” says George Brown, an HR manager at Revieweal and OX Essays. “In other words, while two people might agree with liking a product or service, they still might have their own reasons as to why they love said product or service. The unique part of this is that it allows for personalization to get into the bigger picture.”

Does this idea of personalization sound far-fetched? Check out the following statistics about personalization in email marketing from Campaign Monitor:

• 33% of marketers believe that personalization is going to be most important to marketing in the future.
• 74% of marketers say that targeted personalization increases the chances of customers engaging with your brand.
• Those same marketers have reported an increase of 20% in sales when personalization is involved in email marketing.

“To utilize personalization in email marketing, a company has to look at the demographics of their target audiences,” adds Brown. “That means looking at the people who buy from your brand – who they are, how they’re buying from you, and why. When you take the time to study your target audience, then you’ll know how to better personalize your emails. As you’ll see, when creating buyer personas, it can eventually lead to these customers recommending your product or service to others.”

5. Show Social Proof

Finally, social proof is especially important for your email marketing. When placed alongside customer testimonials, you’ll build credibility and authenticity in said testimonials.

So, how does this strategy work?

Social proof is a phenomenon in which people copy the actions of others based on a psychological reaction to tend to buy in to what their peers are doing. Essentially, social proof works in the following ways:

• Social proof is the public draw. In other words, it encourages potential customers to want to get involved with your brand.
• Social proof adds credibility to your brand. As you know, you can’t sell or promote your brand without some form of credibility.
• Social proof shows and doesn’t just tell. In other words, things like data and numbers – when incorporated properly – can show prospective consumers how successful your product or service is.
• Social proof can also come from the logos and icons of companies, brands, collaborators, etc. that have reviewed your product or service. Their involvement can help your brand big league.
• You can even invite celebrities and social media influencers to talk about your brand. This is another good example of social proof.
• Social proof gives consumers plenty of reasons to buy from your brand. When they see other people buy from you, then they might want to do the same. Thus, this helps them to make more buying decisions.

As you can see, there are many ways that social proof can turn the tables and make your customer testimonials stand out more in emails.

Final thoughts on customer testimonials

Ultimately, customer testimonials can leave a huge impact on your emails. When you have a business to promote, it’s important to incorporate customer testimonials so that your brand’s credibility can stand out.

As a recap, remember these helpful tips:

• Consider implementing short product reviews in your emails. This prevents readers from getting bored of reading what would’ve been a “long, boring” email.
• Video testimonials offer a visual and popular way for email recipients to see your brand’s credibility.
• Don’t be afraid to include user-generated content in your emails.
• Don’t be afraid to implement personalization to go along with your email marketing. AND,
• Show plenty of relevant social proof.

With these tips in mind, you and your brand can build a great customer base. All it takes is building trust and continuing that relationship with customers.

Good luck, email marketers!