Today’s topic — Using Testimonials Effectively — has inspired a lot of great questions from our audience.
I can already tell we won’t be able to get to them all, so we’ll try to pick some of the best and get our analysts to provide answers here on the blog over the next few days.
Be sure to check back if your question wasn’t answered live by our team …
Also, interesting note from our poll on which types of testimonials our audience of marketers is currently using:
- 72% — text
- 23% — none
- 14% — customer ratings
- 13% — video
- 6% — audio
More to come. Thanks to all of our attendees for joining us today!
In the last example from the audience – Quick Start Training, they had used yellow as a background for the testimony. Is this good or is there a better color and/or style? Is it important to have a box around the testimony?
Great questions, Joyce. In terms of site usability, the best color combinations are high contrast yet easy to read. Black text on a white page is still as good as it gets, but if a site’s design doesn’t allow for that, you might test using other dark hues (like navy blue) on unobtrusive light backgrounds (off-white, very light gray, etc.).
Strong testimonials don’t need a box or sidebar to stand out. Other design treatments may work just as well or better because they are fresh and a break from the norm. Examples: using an image, graphic quotation marks, drop caps, pull quotes or blockquote style, or breaking up a long copy block. These are some ways to get around “testimonial blindness” caused by using all-too-common treatments.
Whichever design treatments you decide to use, be sure to focus on the quality of the testimonials first and foremost — and keep testing different content and applications. Let us know how it works for your site.