Do Testimonials Make A Difference In Conversions?

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The age old question…  Does “proof” with testimonials really make a difference in online conversion rates?

Most people would say a resounding YES!

In all the years we have been marketing we have learned to not assume anything, so instead of assuming the testimonials would work we test it to prove it.

As we were optimizing a clients sales process, we noticed they didn’t have much as far as proof elements go listed across their pages of the funnel.  They were getting a TON of buzz on social media at the time so we thought we would test it out to see just what type of impact this “proof” element had on the sales.

Up until this point they had a pretty basic order form.  In this case the order form actually loaded directly on the same page as the sales video.

What we did was run a simple A/B test here by adding a screenshot of all the buzz/comments happening on Facebook to their order form.

Note:  We used a screenshot and NOT live feed of the comments.  Feel free to test out the live feed if you have a bunch of comments coming in to see if you get a bigger boost.

So we tested the screenshot vs. not having any proof at all.

Nothing too terribly fancy.

But what was fancy is the results that came in after a few days of running the test.
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289.52% increase in conversions by adding the testimonials in the sidebar of the order form.  Talk about a WOW moment.

After this test, we looked for other places in the funnel we could incorporate proof elements.

We added proof to the sales video, the the landing pages, and even on the upsell pages.  The increase from placing proof on these other pages ranged from 12% to 33% increases depending on the application.

To say WOW would be an understatement.

If you have success stories or letters from raving fans, we HIGHLY recommend that you find places in your sales process to incorporate them.  But all I ask is that you don’t assume they will work and just add them.  Setup a test and get the visible proof at the impact they have.

You might just be surprised at the results as I know we have been surprised at such a big impact from such a small change.

Try it out and report back here with your results.  We look forward to hearing them.

If you would like to discuss how we may be able to work together to increase your online results, contact us.