Customer testimonials are still effective marketing tools. Given Americans’ increasing reliance on others’ opinions when buying everything from lipstick to enterprise-level software, testimonials may be more important than ever.

Customer testimonials are still effective marketing tools. Given Americans’ increasing reliance on others’ opinions when buying everything from lipstick to enterprise-level software, testimonials may be more important than ever. Here’s what you need to know to generate customer testimonials with maximum marketing impact.

How to Create a Customer Testimonial Strategy

The goal of customer testimonials is to help convince prospective customers to take the next step — in other words, to overcome objections they may have to doing business with you. Get started on your testimonial strategy by pinpointing the most common stumbling blocks that prevent prospects from going further.

For example, obstacles that could keep people from using a personal trainer include beliefs like, “Personal training is too expensive, ” “I’m too out of shape to work with a personal trainer, ” or “I don’t have time to work out every day.”

Once you have a list of common objections, your goal is to find customers who had those same concerns. This will help you get testimonials from a wide range of customers that your prospects can relate to.

What to Include in Customer Testimonials

Good testimonials should be authentic and relatable. Explain who the people giving your testimonials are. If you sell B2B, that could include the person’s name, company and title. If you sell to consumers, it could include demographic information, such as the customers’ age, city, job, marital status, whether they own their own home, and if they have children — whatever is relevant to your business. When prospects see people like themselves in your testimonials, it puts them one step closer to doing business with you.

Good testimonials should also be specific about how your…

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BONUS: How can advertisers select the right ad platform?

The most important criteria when choosing the right ad platform is identifying who your buyer persona is and tailoring the ad accordingly.

• Where do they spend their time?
• What devices do they use?
• How do they search for answers to their pain points?

It would help if you answered all of these questions before deciding on a specific platform.