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Customers sit in cozy corners around the world, scrolling on their phones and waiting to be influenced into buying something from someone, somewhere. If you want them to buy from you, unlocking the benefits of testimonials in SaaS is key.

Social bias underlies every facet of modern society. And although we seldom notice, people are hard-wired for it. This makes using social proof like testimonials a marketing game-changer – especially in the SaaS industry!

Why? Because testimonials directly affect purchasing decisions, brand awareness, and credibility. And it all starts with a compelling story of how your product impacted another person’s life.

If you want people to buy into the story, then good testimonials are the way to sell it to them. We’ll walk you through the ins and outs of using testimonials to grow your SaaS business in this piece.

Why Should You Care About Customer Testimonials?

We all know sales are an essential factor in determining the success of your SaaS business. You need to convince people to buy into your brand before they consider purchasing from you. How? By using effective marketing strategies that create leads and increase conversions. This is where customer testimonials come in handy!

Here are some of the specific benefits of testimonials in SaaS:

1. Shows You Who Your Customers Are

Analyzing testimonials helps narrow down who your target audience is and gives insight into what they need or want. You can figure out what kind of people like your product, what kind don’t, and why. This helps you improve your product to keep happy customers happy and expand your reach.

2. Builds Trust With Your Customers

One of the benefits of testimonials in SaaS is the confirmation it gives potential customers. There’s a reason the term herd mentality exists. To an extent, our brains are wired to seek validation from those around us.

People are more likely to trust testimonials because customers, unlike sales representatives, don’t have a vested interest in whether or not a product sells. They have nothing to lose, so why would they lie? The more people rave about your products, the more trust others will have in making new purchases.

3. Highlights Your Brand Identity to Customers

Helping craft a strong brand identity is one of the critical benefits of testimonials in SaaS. They help people see your business through the eyes of happy customers. Further, testimonials zoom in on your brand’s identity, highlighting its positives. They show potential customers who you are, what you offer, and why you’re the best. They give your brand a personality, and it’s this personality that connects with people.

4. Testimonials Show Benefits of Using Your Service

Another benefit of testimonials in SaaS is showing your product’s unique selling proposition. They convey what sets your product apart from your competitors. Testimonials document how well your product has worked for customers, the benefits it’s given them, and why they’d recommend it over others.

5. Testimonials Help Improve Sales

Leveraging testimonials in marketing is a great sales tactic. When exploring a new product, most people do some research to make sure it’s legitimate. Reviews are a go-to place for this information and can make or break the buying decision.

One of the main benefits of testimonials in SaaS is converting potential customers to paying customers. Providing unbiased social proof upfront that your products are what they say they are, convinces people to buy.

What Kind of Testimonials are There?

Now that we’ve discussed some of the benefits of testimonials in SaaS, let’s look at the different kinds of testimonials out there. Testimonials can take on a variety of formats and come from multiple sources. Let’s dive in!

Case studies can provide verified proof that showcases the reliability of your product. You’ll have a record of research showing how your customer used your product and how it transformed their lives.

Testimonials can also take the form of stand-alone quotes from happy customers. Quotes are simple but powerful. They convey their point quickly and concisely and actively convince people to purchase.

Peer reviews are a great form of testimonials made by experts – people with specific qualifications in your niche. A peer testimonial is evidence from a professional that your product is reliable. Using these types of reviews adds real credibility to your product.

Interview testimonials are testimonials taken from interviews between your team and customers. They are handy as they come from specific customer questions about your product. If you want potential customers to know about a particular product benefit, you can request a question that elicits that answer.

Testimonials can come from well-known influencers with an extensive audience reach in their industry niche. You can offer influencers free access to your product in exchange for them sharing a review.

• Social Media Testimonials

Social media is everywhere – it’s the modern method for communication and connection. This has led to the popularity of social media testimonials. Happy customers post about products they love and share their positive experiences. This ‘sells’ the products appeal to their followers. You can reshare these responses on your product pages so potential customers can see how the product is used.

Blog posts are a versatile form of testimonials. They can be short and to the point or an in-depth read on customer stories. Businesses can use their voice to frame and promote what customers say, and it’s this personal quality of blogs that sets them apart from other testimonial formats.

Testimonials don’t have to be in writing – they can be in video format. Seeing a face and hearing a voice adds weight to your testimonials and appeals more to viewers. They make information more relatable and entertaining which improves engagement. And today, video creation isn’t expensive – they’re low-risk, high-reward testimonials.

Typically, long-form testimonials are articles around 1000 + words and document quality interviews or case studies with your best customers. Typically, the focus is on the benefits customers have gained by using your product and how great their customer experience has been.

Finding Ideal Testimonial Content

We’ve covered the benefits of testimonials in SaaS and what they can look like, but how do you get testimonials? Or tell if they’re good or bad? And if you get one, and it’s good, where do you put it? We suggest these three steps for finding the ideal testimonial for your SaaS marketing.

Step 1: Asking for a Testimonial

You can’t access the benefits of testimonials in Saas without asking for them. But it can seem quite daunting to ask for a testimonial. Sometimes it’s difficult just to get customers to provide a testimonial, but as with most things in life, your success rests in your approach.

So what’s the best approach? It depends on the type of testimonial you’re after, how much detail you want, and who you’re getting the testimonial from. You could reach out to your customers directly via email with a list of specific questions.

In which case we suggest you:

• Provide clear instructions to avoid confusion or irritation.
• Use a clear subject line, so receivers know your intention.
• Greet politely and stipulate how long the process should take.
• Make sure they know their feedback might be used.

Starting a conversation with customers is another, more personal approach to get a testimonial. This allows you to gather the information you need while saving the customer time and stress. The more comfortable your customer feels, the more likely they’ll provide quality testimonial content.

For the conversational approach, we suggest you:

• Always keep a record of customer testimonials obtained via phone calls.
• Don’t post anything without express permission from your customers.
• Ask for a testimonial at the end of a conversation.
• Ask the right questions – questions need to be targeted and aimed toward getting a specific answer.
• Make customers more comfortable by requesting their work history and background first.

Step 2: Choose the Right Testimonials

So you’ve taken the plunge and asked for your testimonials; how do you know which ones to use for marketing? The testimonials need to be the right fit to get the benefits of testimonials in SaaS strategies. You want a testimonial to paint a compelling picture of your brand that shows customers the benefits of supporting your business.

Which testimonials you choose depends on what you need that testimonial for. What’s ideal content for another SaaS business might not work for you. But there are some basic tenets that all good testimonials have to some degree.

To receive the benefits of testimonials in SaaS, choose testimonials that:

• Use detailed, expressive, or descriptive language.
• Include visual elements like pictures or videos.
• Contain key information about the product but tells a story.
• Reveal the problem that the product helped to solve.
• Emphasize your main value proposition.
• Are less than 50 words in length.
• Focus on a success story – happy endings inspire new purchases.

Top tip: Avoid anonymous testimonials! People like to relate, so without any relatable label, the testimonial is ineffectual. Make sure you include the person’s name, title, company, link to their company website or logo, and a picture if possible. The more professional information you have, the more credible the testimonial appears.

Step 3: Choose Where to Display Testimonials

Once you’ve chosen your testimonials, it’s time to put them on your website and platforms. Clever positioning is essential to reaping the benefits of testimonials in Saas. Some testimonials will work better for different spaces. And placing yours perfectly to boost sales and encourage conversions requires careful planning.

Here are a few examples of where we’d suggest displaying testimonials:

Homepage

A great place to display testimonials would be your site’s homepage. Ensure the testimonials are accessible to new visitors by placing them on the sidebar or above the headline. You could also scatter excerpts from the testimonials around your site to entice visitors to click and read more.

Landing Page

Landing pages are specifically designed to convert customers from visitors to leads. What better way to encourage this conversion than by showing them how happy your customers are? As this page aims to sell your product, feel free to show many testimonials to draw the user in.

Testimonial Page

A testimonial page is specifically designed to feature testimonials. People like to do loads of research before making their purchases, so it’s helpful for them to have one place to get all the information they need.

Social Media

As we mentioned earlier, almost everyone uses social media. Social media platforms are ideal places to share testimonials. User engagement helps to create excitement for and interest in your product. Whether it be liking, commenting on, or sharing the testimonials – a social buzz is good for business!

Paid Ads

You should include testimonials in your paid ads when possible. It’s a great way to encourage customers to click as it makes the ad seem less sales-y.

Features Page

You could include testimonials on your features page and position them next to their reference products. Testimonials on features pages add more detail about the product, like how the product solves problems for customers.

Bonus: Our top Tips on Dealing With Negative Reviews

It’s generally good to focus on the positive and ignore the negative, but that’s not true of testimonials. If you want to access the benefits of testimonials in SaaS fully, you need to be prepared for managing negative feedback. Bad testimonials can derail even the most robust marketing campaigns – don’t ignore them!

When dealing with a negative review, we suggest you:

• Respond quickly
• Take responsibility where necessary.
• Greet politely and stipulate how long the process should take.
• Ignore the time-wasting trolls.
• Repair any damage to your brand’s image.