How to Increase Email Reply Rates Using Customer Testimonials

The race to recipients’ inboxes is getting more and more competitive by the minute, causing diminishing response rates. 

Despite the rise in social media usage, emails have stood the test of time and remain the key go-to-market method to reach out to business owners, marketing folks, and salespeople.

This competition comes with added pressure to differentiate one’s messaging. 

But there’s a little-known hack that not many businesses use – social proof with customer testimonials. 

This practical guide walks you through the entire process of increasing email response and click-through rates using customer testimonials. 

Before that, take a look at the current trends in email responses for sales and marketing use cases.

Average sales email campaign response rates 

The average cold email response rate across industries is just 8.5%. And only about 23.9% of sales emails are opened. 

This shows that prospects and customers scan through emails and only open the ones they find relevant. For example, unlike clickbaits, a direct subject line and an engaging email copy persuade readers to read through emails and take the necessary action.

In sales emails, nurturing emails like follow-ups tend to have a higher response rate of about 21% for the first follow-up and an awesome 25% for the second one.

However, the use of user-generated content and social proof elements like testimonials, product ratings, and reviews has significantly increased email marketing campaign performance.

Businesses recorded a 15% rise in open rates and a 80% higher conversion rates by including customer reviews. Also, integrating customer testimonials within cold email campaigns resulted in a 29% rise in click-through rate!

The role of testimonials in email marketing

Amidst the digital noise, customers’ voices stand out as the most influential way to convince prospects and improve your email performance.

Think about it. The first thought that crosses your mind before purchasing a product or a service or even interacting with a business is to read through customer reviews. That’s the power testimonials hold.

Let’s break down some sales and marketing use cases of using this much-needed human element in your email campaigns:

  • Converting potential customers in the decision stage

Potential customers who are in the decision stage may still be skeptical about whether or not to do business with you. That’s when social proof can come in handy.

For example, you can nurture a group of prospects after they’ve attended a product demo or sales presentation by sending them a post-event follow-up email.

That’s common, but what’s new?

Your follow-up email can contain customer testimonials, such as embedded video testimonials or product reviews to give prospects a push towards conversion. 

  • Validating marketing claims to boost your email response rate

Prospects are swamped with marketing ads and promotional emails day and night. Marketing folks can give them some respite by replacing claims with social proof.

For example, customer testimonials in marketing emails like product offers can add the right dose of credibility that someone (other than the company folks) vouches for the product and recognizes its benefits.

Source: Really Good Emails

  • Shortening the sales cycle

Sales cycles can be long and complex, especially in B2B. 

However, using selective customer video testimonials within sales material like presentations, pitches, and outreach emails  helps sales reps move prospects quickly down the sales funnel by letting the prospects grasp confidence in the solution. 

For example, sales reps can end their outreach emails by embedding a testimonial video where the customer addresses some common challenges people in the niche face and how your product helped solve them.

  • Differentiating your offer

There’s a high chance that a high-intent prospect is looking at your competitors’ solutions as well

So, what differentiates your offer from those competitors? 

Tell it through customer testimonials in your email content. It’s also the best way to stand out in a crowded inbox. 

For example, start your subject line with something like: “[Customer_name] has a message for you” and proceed to embed a video testimonial snippet into the email body.

4 tips to improve your overall email response rate with customer testimonials

Here are four unique and promising testimonial tips (with steps to implement them) to boost your email response rates:

1. Use testimonials that highlight very specific outcomes

Numbers can speak volumes. Using numbers to specify customer outcomes helps prospects paint a picture of the tangible benefits they can experience.

For example, encourage your customers to record a testimonial video where they highlight their results after using your product through numbers. It can be a 20% reduction in production costs, a 35% improvement in customer retention—you name it.

How to implement this?

Using Trust – a simple and extremely user-friendly video testimonial software

Trust offers a clean method to collect customer text or video testimonials via its Interactive and Smart forms.

These are ready-to-edit forms where you can add specific step-wise questions that your customers can answer by writing or recording a response. Here’s what a typical Interactive form looks like:

So, for our email use case where we want to add a testimonial that highlights specific outcomes, you can use this Interactive form and add specific questions, such as:

  • Tell us how much time you saved using [solution_name]
  • After switching to our product from the competitor’s, what percentage reduction in operational costs did you notice?

They record a response to these questions and submit the testimonial, and you can use the same in your email body. If it’s a video testimonial, you can quote the customer’s response (wherever you spot the quantifiable result) to the specific question. 

A testimonial example in an email that discusses a quantifiable result:

2. Embed a video testimonial in a nurturing email sequence

A customer video testimonial makes for a great follow-up email in your outreach process. 

Say you’ve reached out to a group of dream prospects, but failed to receive a response. Wait for a day or two, and frame a nurturing follow-up email where you embed a video testimonial to highlight your solution’s credibility. 

How to implement this?

Step #1: Request a video testimonial from a recent happy customer

You can use Trust to set up a testimonial request in under two minutes. Sign up for the all-access free trial here. Create a Smart or Interactive testimonial request form on the Trust dashboard

  • Edit the required fields to create a personalized request to make the customer’s submission process a breeze
  • Copy the request form’s link and send it to your customer. They can record a video testimonial without having to log in or install the Trust app.

Step #2: Edit and download the received video testimonial 

Trust has a built-in editing tool called Video Studio. It helps you trim videos, add intros/outros, generate auto-captions, add branding, and much more.

Post-editing, you can download the polished video testimonial into your local system as an MP4 file.

That’s how simple it is!

You’re now free to add this crisp video testimonial to your outreach or promotional emails and make them more engaging. 

Here’s what a video testimonial embedded within an email looks like:

3. Keep the testimonials concise  

Remember, emails should be precise so prospects don’t get tired from scrolling and forget to reply.

Also, short testimonials and product reviews are more impactful at conveying value than longer ones.Here’s an email example from a brand that uses a brief quote to hit the key points of the customer testimonial:

Source: Really Good Emails

Pro tip: While using Trust to collect video testimonials, you can try the built-in video editor to generate video transcripts and look through the script for high points that can be converted into a text review.

4. Leverage star ratings 

Did you know using product ratings in email campaigns can boost email click-through rates by a massive 73%?

So, the next time you send a first-touch or follow-up email, don’t forget to sprinkle in star ratings for an extra dose of social proof.With Trust, you can easily collect star ratings along with your video or text testimonials using the Smart testimonial request form:

Pro tip: Have reviews lying around on sites like Google, Product Hunt, or Capterra. Well, Trust has a way to import them into a single space to keep reviews more organized. Read this guide on how to connect external review platforms with Trust. 

A brand email that uses star ratings along with customer reviews:

Sales email template with social proof to boost conversion rate

Here’s an email template you can replicate for more replies by leveraging social proof:

Subject line: How to improve [prospect company name]’s website visitor experience 

Hey [first name],

[Icebreaker] – {example: “I was on your site and noticed it lacked smooth navigation.”}

As a leading company in [industry], I understand you folks have a lot on your plate.

At [my company name], we’ve worked with dozens of brands, like [brand name 1], and [brand name 2], who saw an increase in their visitors’ time spent on page – by X% within the first few weeks.

Here’s what a CMO had to say:

[Insert founder’s text testimonial with their profile picture and a link to their socials] – {Note: You can use Trust’s testimonial forms to collect this info!}

I really believe your company could be our next success story! Will you be available at [time & date] for a quick catch-up?

[Email signature]

Best practices for incorporating social proof for trust-building emails 

The ultimate goal of using social proof like testimonials in nurturing emails is to see the best ROI, and response and conversion rates. So, keep these best practices in mind to make the most of them:

✅ Highlight key phrases and testimonial high points

Most recipients skim through email content. So, the best way to grab their limited attention is to highlight the key parts of the testimonial.

For example, it could be phrases or words that discuss your product’s best benefit, like so:

✅ Use customer pictures to enhance the impact

Let prospects know that testimonials are coming from real people. Use customers’ profile pictures and links to their socials to add an extra touch of credibility to your email sequences.

For example, your embedded video or text testimonial can have a picture of the submitter and a clickable link to their name that takes readers to their respective social profiles like LinkedIn or Instagram.

✅ Add a personalized email subject line 

Using an overly promotional subject line can cause your email to end up in the “Promotions” tab, or worse, in the Spam folder. 

Every email that leverages testimonials must have a personalized subject line that gets recipients interested to open and read through the content.

Examples include:

  • How [customer name] solved [pain point]
  • This customer increased his retention rates by X%
  • [Customer name] has a message for you
  • You can be our next success story – here’s what [customer name] has to say

✅ Get more conversions with well-planned CTAs

CTAs, or calls to action, help readers take the next step and move down the sales funnel. So, it’s best to align your CTAs with the email content.

Since we’re using customer testimonials within email content, add custom CTAs to help readers make the next move.

For instance, add a CTA button or a text message, like so after the video testimonial:

“Try [Customer name]’s exact roadmap to [outcome] with [Product name]”

Wrapping up

It’s high time emails turned persuasive and stood out of the crowded inboxes. 

Customer testimonials will always be the most persuasive yet the safest elements to use in high-converting emails.

If you’re in search of a one-stop solution where you can collect, curate, and edit testimonials for your upcoming sales and marketing emails, look no further with Trust.

Try the all-access 14-day free trial today!

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