Customer testimonials are reviews and recommendations by existing customers about a brand and its products. These testimonials play a major role in the marketing process as they can influence prospective customers to buy the brand’s products. A good customer testimonial is highly valuable for an organization. Once you have a customer testimonial with you, it needs to be used effectively.

This is known as repurposing. It involves the use and re-use of existing customer testimonials in the most effective way to reach out to prospective customers so that they would be convinced to buy your products.

Customer testimonials may be obtained in the form of written reviews or recorded as video testimonials. Generally, video testimonials are more effective thanks to the visual effect they create. They are also more credible as the viewer can see and hear a real customer provide the testimonial, compared to a website review that may be from an unknown source. If you have testimonials from your customers, you can repurpose them in the best possible way by following the tips given below:

1) Repurposing written testimonials

Written testimonials may be obtained by customers as a comment on the feedback form or as a response to a mail you send. It is also obtained when the customer writes reviews of your product either on your website, on Google, on e-commerce sites like Amazon, or any other review website, or on their blog. These written testimonials can be repurposed to showcase your credentials. Re-use the testimonials on your website and on promotional material in the form of quotes by customers.

You need to scan through the testimonials to select the ones favorable to you. They must be written by customers who have used your products regularly. Most importantly, you need to take the customer’s permission before repurposing it in other places. One of the effective ways of doing this is to place quotes in your promotional material featuring the testimonial from the customer with his/her name and photo. This is the best way of reusing written testimonials.

2) Repurposing video testimonials

Video testimonials are the most effective type of testimonials. They can be used in the most effective way to influence potential customers. The following tips explain how to do it:

a) Once a video testimonial is created, teaser videos can be created using these testimonials. A full testimonial may be many minutes long and customers may or may not see it. A teaser video of half a minute or a minute can be prepared with the highlights of this testimonial. This can be created in a professional way and the teaser video used for promotional activities.
b) The teaser video featuring customer video testimonial(s) can be used in advertisements to enhance its effectiveness. With the right use of captions, it can be very effective in reaching out to existing customers.
c) The video testimonials can be shared on top video sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and other such platforms. If the video is prepared in an effective way, it would generate a lot of viewers who would like, comment, and share it thereby increasing its reach.
d) Video testimonials can be played on a TV/laptop kept at stores or other places visited by customers. If your company uses kiosks, you can play these teaser videos to attract the attention of customers.
e) If your company participates in exhibitions and trade fairs, you can repurpose the video testimonials to attract customers. You can create banners and brochures with quotes from customers.

3) Share on social media

In today’s digital world, social media is where all the action is. Top platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have millions of potential customers whom you can reach out to. This is the best place to repurpose your testimonials – text as well as video. This is how it can be done:

• Ask the customer who provided the testimonial to share it on his/her social media page. You can then share it on your page allowing it to spread.
• Using the right hashtags and getting the testimonials shared by influencers can help in making your testimonials go viral very fast.
• When you share testimonials on social media, not only do they generate likes but also get comments. These comments will give you a chance to engage with potential customers. You can respond to the customers, answer queries, and share information to ensure conversion.
• You can create images using the testimonials and share them on sites like Instagram and Snapchat. The images can have links to your website.
• When you repurpose part of a testimonial, you can share the link to the full video testimonial for use.
The above tips would have helped you understand how to repurpose testimonials. You can now use your existing testimonials and get the best returns from them by following the tips listed here.