Optimizing Testimonial Marketing With Franchise Website Development
Investing in your franchise website development enhances the effectiveness of all advertising strategies, but today’s post looks specifically at what it can do for your testimonial marketing campaigns.
Read on or call 866-311-7189 to speak with a franchise website development specialist straight away.
The Time-honored Tradition Of Testimonial Marketing
The term “testimonial marketing” typically refers to written recommendations from celebrities or satisfied customers that affirm the performance, quality, and/or value of a product or service.
In theory, testimonials act as a kind of “social proof,” an endorsement that boosts credibility and helps form a sense of trust with people who are new to your brand.
In practice, testimonial marketing has an impressive track record—you might even call it a history of success.
“Other creative tactics and techniques change with the fashions of the day,” wrote Advertising Age back in 2001. “But the testimonial is such a workhorse selling tool that it never goes out of style.”
It’s been almost 20 years since that article was published, and by all accounts, it’s still true. Piling onto a huge body of research, a recent analysis of 659 television ads by the Journal of Advertising revealed that testimonial advertising was the third most common advertising tactic used by big brands around the world.
But there’s more to testimonial marketing than copy-and-pasting client feedback onto a lifeless landing page. The sheer number of businesses still limiting themselves to that approach represents a huge opportunity to distinguish your brand in this area. And that’s where we can help.
Breathe New Life Into Testimonial Marketing With Franchise Website Development
Testimonial marketing is good on its own, but it’s great when combined with best practices in franchise website development.
The following section describes how to implement some of Advertising Age’s top tips for testimonial marketing using ClickTec’s franchise website development services.
“Incorporate testimonials into your social strategy” — Advertising Age, 2019
You already know that your social media followers are engaged with your brand, and that makes them ideal targets for loyalty-building testimonial marketing messages.
“It’s a powerful way to connect with your audience and show them that people like them love your brand,” writes Advertising Age (2019).
Social media marketing weaves naturally into every franchise website development plan, with constant interlinking between these two assets being key for optimizing either. To make the most of your social media testimonial marketing, we’ve gathered the following tips from our social media experts:
- Include clear calls-to-action that drive traffic back to your website. Simply copy-and-pasting a testimonial quote might boost your brand’s image, but it won’t lead to sales. The testimonial shows users your business helped readers like them, but they’ll need a link and a description of what’s next in order to take action. Include one even if you’re not pushing a sale (e.g. maybe you’re collecting emails or promoting a blog post)—the link’s click-through rate will give you an idea of the ad’s engagement level and inform your campaign strategy.
- Use esoteric hashtags. While ad copy should be universally accessible, hashtags must be mostly esoteric—that is, intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest. Hashtag specificity keeps your message in front of relevant audiences with clear purchase intent, and they cut down the competition that broad hashtags face. You can sprinkle in more general hashtags if you want to give outsiders a clearer picture of what it is you do, but your social media followers probably already know that.
- Add visual elements wherever possible. Attaching a picture of the individual giving the testimonial or the completed work greatly increases your credibility, and also gets your post seen at a much higher level than text-only updates. If you don’t have one, use any related image—something is always better than nothing.
“Create in-depth case studies from testimonials” — Advertising Age, 2019
Case studies are far superior to one-off testimonials, providing data-driven boosts to your brand value and instantly giving your marketing claims greater substance. Case studies also amplify your voice and authority by giving other companies within your industry something to cite as research in their own content marketing.
If you’ve got great metrics, flaunt them! Using our proprietary FranchiseSoft software solution, we can help you create virtual brochures and case studies for your content marketing strategies, then publish and optimize these assets as part of your franchise website development plan. Get in touch with our team to learn more, or visit the ClickTecs website to view some case studies of our own!
“Turn written testimonials into video content” — Advertising Age, 2019
With the wealth of data now available to us, there’s really no denying the value of visual content as a means of engaging audiences and conveying key messages. For example, one 2018 study by Wistia showed that people spent 2.6 times more time on websites with videos than those without.
It is therefore unsurprising that video content marketing has become ubiquitous, with 92% of marketers saying video played an important part of their strategy in a 2020 Hubspot survey. And yet, while the dual effectiveness of testimonials and video content is well known, few brands are combining the two to create video testimonials.
If you have the resources, creating video testimonials is definitely worthwhile. Nowadays almost everyone has a high-quality video recording device in their pocket, which makes it possible to capture authentic client/customer reactions to jobs-well-done, right there as they’re happening. You can also quickly record testimonials while catching up with clients at trade shows, conferences, or community events—in these cases, whatever you lose in production value and sound quality, you gain in credibility by giving the viewer a glimpse into the “real world.”
Now, some quick tips:
- Keep it short—Each video should be short, one or two minutes at most, getting straight to the point.
- Offer guidance as needed—If your client isn’t sure what to say, ask them simple questions about how your brand helped, how they found you, and why they would recommend you to others.
- Aim for a conversational tone—it shouldn’t look like you’re grilling a witness.
Avoid these mistakes:
- Scripting—Just don’t do it! Even when they’re 100% true, scripted testimonials ring false.
- Failing to optimize—Bloated videos decrease page load speed, which hurts your visibility in all kinds of ways. According to a recent Financial Times Case study, excessive load speed “negatively impacts a user’s session depth, no matter how small the delay”—even a 1-second delay resulted in a 7% reduction in conversion rate. Make sure you’re not burning bandwidth on crisp 4K quality that nobody really needs from a testimonial video.
- Autoplay—Several studies have shown that users find auto-playing videos intrusive, and it can also increase your page load time. Another problem with autoplay is that it muddles your metrics, so that total play count no longer represents user engagement. If users want to watch your video, they’ll click on it themselves.
Video testimonials are easy with ClickTecs. With the help of our franchise website development team, you can create fully-optimized video testimonials of your own—it’s one of our specialities! You can find examples of our work on our YouTube page as well as the ClickTecs Video Testimonial page.
Free Franchise Website Development Quote And Consultation
Call 866-311-7189 or visit the ClickTecs website to learn more how to improve your testimonial marketing and brand visibility with our franchise website development services.
References
Advertising Age. (December 17, 2001), “FTC Target,” Advertising Age, 72. Retrieved from https://adage.com/article/viewpoint/ftc-target/53134
Advertising Age. (July 19, 2019). “How to use customer testimonials to promote your brand.” Advertising Age. Retrieved from https://adage.com/article/industry-insights/how-use-customer-testimonials-promote-your-brand/2183996
Martin, B. A., Wentzel, D., & Tomczak, T. (2008). Effects of susceptibility to normative influence and type of testimonial on attitudes toward print advertising. Journal of Advertising, 37(1), 29-43.
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