How to Ask for (and Get) Optimized Client Testimonials
Client testimonials trip up so many business owners—but they don’t need to trip you up!
My copywriting career began with social proof. I spent lockdown (AKA: March-June of 2020) gathering testimonials from my massage clients & adding them to my website. So… testimonials have a special place in my heart. But not everyone finds gathering testimonials to be an easy or enjoyable process.
If you want to learn how to get good client testimonials, ways to optimize testimonials for SEO, & the different types of testimonials I recommend business owners have—you’re not going to want to miss this jam-packed solo episode!
With this podcast episode:
Learn what a testimonial is & how to ask clients for them.
Discover ways to optimize testimonials for SEO.
Uncover what separates the ok testimonials from the great ones.
Don’t forget you can submit a question that will get answered in an upcoming podcast!
Mentioned Resources:
Related Episodes:
How I Became an SEO + Case Study Copywriter
Connect w/ Brittany:
This episode of The Basic B podcast is brought to you in partnership w/ Leah Bryant Co.! Help me reach more service providers like you by following the show & leaving a rating or review on Apple & Spotify!
The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of The Basic B podcast follows
Welcome back to the Short and Sassy series of the Basic B Podcast. These episodes are meant to be on the shorter side about a variety of topics and really actionable types of podcasts. I'm very much talking with my hands today in case you're not seeing the video. But today, I really want to share all things testimonials. We are going to dive deep. It's going to be a quick hit and like just get in there kind of episode. So
I'm going to start at the beginning because my copywriting career actually started by way of testimonials and social proof. I was at... let me take you back there, shall I? I was at home. It was 2020. I think I dove into this around June, maybe May. I dove into realizing that I didn't have testimonials. It actually might have been earlier. It doesn't matter. The point is...
I realized I didn't have testimonials. I didn't have quotes on my website from my massage clients that future massage clients or potential clients could see and then, you know, feel comfortable booking with me. So I went around and was asking my clients because I wasn't, you know, face to face with them in a massage room with them. I was like, hey, what are you missing about our sessions? What are you looking forward to once we get back in the massage room?
And that was such a perfect way, and I didn't even realize it, that was such a perfect way for me to gather that social proof, for me to collect those testimonials. So accidentally, I stumbled on something that's quite magical. And I want to share that with you today. So let me start now that we have my story out of the way. Let me start with what a testimonial is. It is basically we are going with the simplest form of everything here today. It is
what someone says about working with you. Plain and simple. It is that short and sweet. It is, it sounds simpler than it actually is though, right? Because you have to ask for the testimonial. You have to like know if it's good or not. You have to organize these testimonials and know where to find them. And all of that can feel pretty complicated and feel pretty overwhelming. But I have some tips for you. So that is what a testimonial is. People expect to see them.
Brittany Herzberg (02:25.206)
They want to see them, they need to see them. It does a variety of things. It really supports your SEO because again, you've heard me say this, SEO in my world starts with social proof. Why? We start with what your clients are saying because they are phrasing things in a way that other potential and future clients of yours are going to, it's gonna resonate for them. Those words are gonna be what they're typing in the search bar in order to get to you.
So the words that your existing clients or your past clients are using are a perfect way and it's like the gold standard in order to reach those future clients of yours. So start with social proof. Get the social proof because it's gonna help your SEO. Having those keywords naturally just throughout your website is going to be huge. So it supports your SEO, it builds that no like trust factor quickly.
like very, very quickly. Case studies are like next level testimonials, but testimonials, again, they're still things that people are looking for when they enter your world. Let's think about even like a restaurant. If I want to go out to dinner, if I want to book a date with my boyfriend and go out to dinner and like grab a reservation, I'm going to be looking to see what other people are saying about a place. I'm going to be looking for, you know,
People are gonna look for a variety of things. Was the place clean? Was the food good? Was the staff nice and warm and friendly? Did it feel like it was worth it to go to that restaurant and eat that food? Did it feel like it was worth it to drive a half an hour, wait, be there, eat the food, interact with people, pay the money, drive home? Was it worth that effort and that money and that time?
order to get what you got. Well, people are wondering the same thing about booking a service with you. We're all curious. So testimonials let someone get a glimpse of that real quick and fast. All right. Let me, let me move on. Let's keep this party train going. So testimonials are testimonials are testimonials, but what makes a testimonial a good one or a great one? Really what it boils down to is that it's specific.
Brittany Herzberg (04:44.17)
It's really clear. It's really concise. It includes names, whether that's your name or the name of your program or the name of your podcast, depending on the thing that we want to name, it includes a name. Yours would be lovely. Your program or your podcast or your thing would be lovely as well. It would be great. Also, going back to that specificity point, it would be super magical if that testimonial spoke to a problem.
spoke to an experience or spoke to a result that someone got by way of working with you or interacting with you or collaborating with you. Specificity really is the name of the game when it comes to testimonials. But and that burden lies with you. That starts with you. So we're going to get into that. Let me not let me not jump ahead of myself. Let me not like put the cart before the horse or whatever that saying is. How do you go about collecting testimonials?
When are you supposed to do this? How are you supposed to gather them? I really like to think about my client. I've had the best success with gathering really good to great testimonials when I do it in a way that they feel good about. So here's what I'm talking about. If you have a client that you constantly see putting out YouTube videos and they're on reels all the time, ask them for a video testimonial.
because they clearly are at least okay and comfortable with the camera. More than likely, they're going to want to do that. Especially if you notice them going to video and avoiding emails. If they're just like, video is my jam. And you can tell if you just watch your clients, you can tell what they gravitate toward. Ask for a video testimonial. If you have someone who is living in Instagram DMs and sending you voice memos and they, the rest of the time they're living on Voxer, this is me. Ask them for a
voice memo testimonial. I've done this before. I've done it in Voxer and it is amazing because again, here you are either watching this video or listening to the podcast audio. There is something about hearing someone talk that you really get a clear sense of, you know, this was the magic of Clubhouse. Being in Clubhouse and listening to podcasts, you really get a good sense for if you vibe with someone, if you can trust what they're saying, if they
Brittany Herzberg (07:09.51)
really know their stuff, you get a good sense of that from someone's audio. So anyway, the people who are doing the Voxer memos and the Instagram DM voice notes, ask them for a voice testimonial. You can also always ask for a written testimonial, but here's the kicker. Ask a specific question. I'm gonna lean in. Ask a specific question.
Don't just do the whole like, oh my gosh, it'd be so nice if you had written me a testimonial, slides paper across the desk. Like, you have to prompt them. Because if I just said that line to you and maybe this even popped up in your own head, hey, would you write a testimonial for me? What's instantly going to happen? You, your brain, my brain does this, goes to, cool, is there anything you want me to highlight? Is there anything you want me to mention?
I've done this. I've been the person asking that question in an interaction. So do the person a favor, do yourself a favor, and just go ahead and think of like, instead of asking, hey, would you write a testimonial? What's that follow-up question that you would ask them? What would you want them to point out? Do you want to have them mention like, oh, would you talk about the fact that we had like an amazing asynchronous communication style with our work? And yes, that is very top of mind because I'm writing a-
client case study about this topic. Do you want to call out, you know, hey, this result that you got was incredible. Would you mention that in your testimony? Like, would you write something about that? I'm not coming up with the best answers on the fly at this moment, but that is the kind of thing that you want to do. You want to give them whatever that second question is that you would ask them, whatever that answer, whatever your response is to like, is there anything you want me to call out?
Ask them that question instead of just, hey, will you write a testimonial? All right, so do that no matter what, no matter if you're asking for a video, a voice or a written testimonial. The last option of course is a questionnaire or a form or some survey type of thing. So you have options. If you notice that people like writing, go with that. If you notice that they're on video, ask them for that. If you notice that they're doing voice memos, ask them for that. Be specific, we already talked about that. I'm looking at my notes.
Brittany Herzberg (09:26.342)
Oh, where do testimonials, once you get them, where are they going to show up? Where are you going to put them? Where are you going to use them? Some obvious places, your website. Of course you want it on your website. Of course you want it on the services page. Of course you want it on even a contact page is great. So sprinkle it throughout your website. And yes, let me go ahead and answer this question. You can use the same testimonial in multiple places because here's the deal. As much as we would like to think that people really...
care to spend, I don't know, an hour perusing our entire website. They just don't have that time. So we can't assume that people are going to see every single page of our website. And that's fine. So yes, you can use your, the same testimonial throughout your website. You also could use testimonials and should be using, and I am just as guilty of this as the next person, call out your testimonials, share them on social media. And you could do that, of course, in a variety of ways. And it might depend on.
the format that you got the testimonial in the first place. If it's a video, guess what? You can repurpose that as a reel. You can show it on stories. So you have options there. You can also put it on YouTube. Website, social media. You can also put testimonials. It's a great idea to put it on your media or your press kit, whether that's a page or a PDF that you have. Include it in your pricing guide. I love including testimonials on my pricing guide because that is something that is going out to a potential client.
And I get to be like, hey, look, this person really liked working with me. Look, look, check this out. I get people results and here's what that could look like. Um, so you have a variety of places that you could sprinkle testimonials, go forth and prosper. There's going to be other examples as well. You could even throw them in emails. You could have it in a regular weekly email. You could put it in launch emails. You could have it in your welcome sequence. So again, possibilities are endless. I'm choking myself because I'm so excited.
When should you be gathering testimonials and how often should you be gathering testimonials? People often gather testimonials and social proof at the end of a project, but something I like to challenge people to do is collect it throughout the process. And what I mean by that is as they're coming in the door and they're becoming a client, you're onboarding them, you're asking them things like, well, you're also just gathering this information, but you could even have this in a form format where you're asking people as they're coming in the door.
Brittany Herzberg (11:52.362)
but you want to know what problem were they facing, where were they stuck, what was really causing some frustration in their life, why were they looking for support or a solution, what are they excited about, that kind of thing. Then as you go throughout the experience, you wanna collect some testimonials and social proof there as well. This could even be just like screenshots from emails where you're not identifying them and not spreading their email across the internet, but you could look to gather screenshots.
on Instagram and any kind of communication there, on Boxer if you communicate with clients there, on Slack, like literally any communication channel. If you're just grabbing their words, that's amazing. How often should you be gathering social proof? As often as possible. You ideally wanna be asking all of the clients, especially the ones that you enjoyed working with and that you would like more of.
you want to be tapping those people especially to get social proof and testimonials from them. It's also a great idea to ask people that you didn't enjoy working with so much because then you get a really good idea of what not to put in your messaging and what not to try to attract into your world if that makes sense. Some people go out and collect social proof like a few times a year or specific times a year or like after a launch. After a launch is a good thing to do,
I just like always be thinking about it. It's just like it lives in my brain. It's always something that's going on and I would challenge you and invite you to do the same. Just always think about what people are saying and oh is that is that something I could use? Is that a screenshot I could use to help sell my program or to put on my services page and show people like what results I get for them. So just always be thinking about it. Alright, if you want more, I know that was a lot. I told you it was going to be quick hitting. I told you we were just going to like.
Get in there. But if you want more, I want you to know that there's two resources I have for you. These are paid resources. There is a testimonial template, which is like mad libs meets testimonials. So it's a lot of pre-scripted questions that you can then go and modify for your own business. It's like mad libs, like I said. So you've got like fill in the blank or complete the sentence type of questions where you're really just like.
Brittany Herzberg (14:13.794)
You're being specific, but you're getting those brain juices flowing. You're getting your client to think about, hmm, what was that? What did that look like? How did that impact me? And then I also have that testimonial template plus a video training. So that is a different bundle. I'm going to link both of them below. But if you are looking to gather some really incredible testimonials for your business in 2024 and beyond, my friend, this can really, really help you. These are like.
ready to go. The video training, I think, is an hour-ish, and I give just way more than what I just shared with you. So, I'm not going to spill any more of the beans. Otherwise, look, I'm not going to have business. So, I'll make sure those links are below. And if you have questions about anything, just come find me and I will catch you next time.