How To Get Real Estate Testimonials

One of the biggest problems in real estate marketing is that your audience may find it hard to believe what you have to say. Fortunately, there is a solution for this issue. Real estate testimonials are what make you more trustworthy as they come from someone other than you. Someone who has already tried your services and is happy. Real estate testimonials are one of the best ways to establish credibility and authority. If you need to level up your game in lead generation, you had better focus on your testimonials. Once people start speaking up for you, your audience is more likely to submit their contact information.

You might be really good at what you do, you might even be the best real estate agent in your farming area but all that is hard to believe unless your clients start sharing their stories. If the voice behind the compliments is unbiased enough, your audience will find it easy to believe and you have got yourself some new leads. After all, testimonials are the most effective factor in content marketing. Let’s see how you can get yourself some great real estate testimonials.

Why Agents Should Use Real Estate Testimonials?

Client referrals are known by all agents to be one of the most powerful avenues to get leads and new clients, after all:

Testimonials are so powerful they can make or break a deal.

Most people would not even spend $10 on a small item on Amazon without reading the reviews first and making sure the product is okay. How do you expect people to choose an agent for a big transaction like buying or selling a home without looking for reviews? Testimonials for the clients seem like a decisive and definitive factor in choosing an agent but let us see what testimonials have got to offer agents.

Increase Conversion

You might have done a great job of getting visitors to your website through different methods and channels like social media, SEO, SEM, etc. but how do you convince these visitors they should trust you? This is where testimonials show you their magic. If you have enough convincing testimonials on your homepage, you can get your visitors to watch your past clients say how happy they are to have worked with you. Then they would know they can be one of the people happy to have chosen you.

Build Trust

When people want to buy something, they look at it with a skeptical mindset and wonder if the product or service:

Is worth the money?

Works?

Is better than other products or services?

Then they go through a process where they try to dig up information that will help them find clues to answer these questions. The first thing they find is what you have to say about your products and services. Buyers usually find your claims hard to believe or at the best-case scenario find them yet-to-be-proven. In order to direct them towards your sales funnel, you need convincing content. Testimonials act as the unbiased source of information needed to answer the questions above.

Trigger Emotions

Humans can be emotional or logical when making decisions. With emotions often overriding logic. That’s why many brands aim at connection with their audience at an emotional level. Testimonials include your past clients talking about how happy they are working with you. Regardless of the details of the process and what you did to help with what problem, the overall satisfaction and sense of happiness makes your audience desire the same level of contentment. This is a strong factor in turning your audience into leads.

How to Generate Great Real Estate Testimonials

Real estate testimonials might seem like a piece of cake. You ask your clients to say nice things about you and then you post them. However, there is more to testimonials than you think:

Efficient Questions

Your happy clients would love to start talking about you and say how great you are. However, you need them to talk about specific points that will convince and encourage others to work with you. Points that your audience can relate to. A mere account of how great you are is not very convincing. Ask questions that will show your audience how you managed to help the client, what issues you solved, and what they got out of working with you. Here a few questions to help you find inspiration:

Why did you choose me?

What did I mainly help you with?

How did I exceed your expectation?

How could I have helped you better?

Would you recommend me to your friends? What would you tell them?

These are all suggestions to help you find ideas. The key point here is to get your client to come up with that key message that will separate you from other agents. You want to show prospects how you will help them and what problems you can solve for them.

The Perfect Story

You might have heard it a lot that content marketing as a part of digital marketing is done best when you become a storyteller. When you fascinate your audience with the stories you tell them and teach them through the process. Your testimonials, like any other piece of content, can benefit from a great story. A story about some CHARACTERS who had a SPECIFIC PROBLEM and a hero managed to offer a SOLUTION and solve the PROBLEM so that the main characters are HAPPY now.

We all love a good story. You can talk about one of these three focal points:

The Result

The outcome of your efforts for the client.

The Character

A story of your personal traits that helped the clients.

The Situation

A story on a specific situation the clients was in and how you helped with it.

The Right Moment

The best time to ask your clients for a testimonial is right after a deal has been closed. At this point, they are still in the moment and will have a lot to say. The more you wait to ask, the less willing your clients will be. Do not wait too long. Ask them right after the deal is closed. It goes without saying that calling your client for a testimonial after two years, sounds weird and is not recommended.

The Right Format

Getting the testimonials is one thing but showing them is another story. How you present testimonials is just as important as getting them.

Text

The most basic version of testimonials is done through text.

Videos

videos have a greater impact on your audience because:

Emotions

Your audience can see the person speaking. This will have a greater impact since the speaker’s emotions and sense of satisfaction is more tangible. The body language of the speaker, the music, etc. helps with targeting the audience’s emotions.

Convenience

Videos are easier to watch. Chances are more people watch testimonial videos than read text versions.

Storytelling

In order to maximize the impact of testimonials, videos offer better presentation for great storytelling. Afterall movies are easier to watch than reading books regardless of which you consider more enjoyable.

Roomvu offers video creation services where you can get your testimonial video with your client. Book now and create your testimonial video to impress your audience and provide the social proof they need to trust you.

The Right Medium

Where you use your testimonials also matters. Getting a ton of testimonials won’t matter if you do not use them properly. Here are a few ideas:

Your Website

Your own website is the first place you should present testimonials. As you make your way through marketing and attracting visitors to your website through social media and ads, you need a solid measure to keep the visitors on your website and gain their trust. Testimonials on your homepage shows your audiance you are capable of what you claim you are.

Roomvu Agent profile offers all the necessary features real estate agents need including client testimonials.

Social Media

Due to the visual nature of social media, it is one of the best places to show testimonials, especially in video form. Furthermore, you can ask your clients to leave feedback on your different social media account like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. For Instagram, you can post videos of your previous clients with their positive feedback.

Business Platforms

Yelp and other platforms are great places to search for any kind of business. Your clients can write reviews and rate you. These can be linked back to your website.

Tip: Your testimonials on these websites can be licensed and you cannot simply copy and paste them on your own website. In this case you need to link to the site’s page where the real estate testimonials appear.

Additionally, your profile on Zillow and Realtor.com are two places people will have a look at to try and validate you and see how you have done so far and what your previous clients have to say. No review on your profile is probably a bad idea.

Read More: Add Real Estate Testimonials to Your Roomvu Profile | Personal Branding

Ads

Testimonials can make ads more credible and increase their efficiency. It is a great idea to use them on your Facebook, YouTube, etc. but make sure you always ask for permission before using your client’s feedback for such purposes.

Emails

You need to make testimonials part of your email marketing strategy. Regardless of the content of the email, it is a great idea to include a text or even better a video testimonial in the body of the email. Just pay attention to who you are sending the email to. If you are sending emails to a buyer lead, sending seller testimonials will not be very effective and also will not make sense.

Email Signature

When you are sending emails, you can add a link below your signature that links to the testimonial page on your website. The title can be something like: “Check out my latest reviews”. As a real estate agent, you should be sending quite a few emails every month. This way you can get a lot of exposure for your testimonials.

Presentation

Once you have collected the information and have chosen the format and the medium, you need to present the testimonial in an eye-catching and effective way.

Text

If you are going with the text version, make sure you present your clients’ feedback through beautifully designed images that are shareable across different platforms. Use eye-catching fonts, colors, and designs to further increase the impact. Make it as interesting as possible but always keep it professional. Avoid intricate graphics and fun designs.

Video

Videos testimonials convey the greatest impact, and you need to pay special attention to their production. While you might be tempted to use your own phone and sit with your clients, we believe it is a bad idea as the result will not look professional. We recommend that agents invest in professional testimonial videos to make the most out of the effort. Professionally designed and produced videos show you are a professional agent who does what is necessary for the business and values their clients.

Sharing

Once you post your testimonials on different mediums, you can always reshare them on other platforms as well. Video testimonials can be shared across your website and social media like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. You can even add them to your own emails and impress your leads.

Encourage Your Audience for More Feedback

Although you will get occasional feedback from your clients and can ask your recent clients to leave feedback and comment or sit with you for a video testimonial, it pays to ask your audience to leave reviews if they have ever worked with you at any level. You can also motivate them to do so by giving out discounts for local businesses, small gifts, etc.

Takeaway

Social proof plays an important role on how prospects evaluate and pick an agent. When people want to spend $10 online, they try to make sure the product or service they are buying has been tested before and previous buyers are happy. Something big like buying or selling a house is far more important and people will not approach an agent before making sure they are capable. Make sure you make real estate testimonials an important part of your marketing plans. If you get bad reviews once in a while don’t take it personally. Focus on how you can make your clients happy to get more and more positive feedback. The ultimate goal is to make your clients happy.

What questions should you ask your real estate client for a testimonial?
Why did you choose me?
What did I mainly help you with?
How did I exceed your expectation?
How could I have helped you better?
Would you recommend me to your friends? What would you tell them?