Case Studies vs Testimonials vs Reviews

Case Studies vs Testimonials vs Reviews: Which are better?

As a business, you want your audience to fully understand what you do and what it’s like to work with you, whilst building up a certain level of trust. This is why case studies, testimonials and reviews are an important aspect of any business, but which is better?

After all, you want to attract an audience and potential clients, so choosing the right way to communicate your work and reputation is important for success and growth.

What is a case study?

A case study is a qualitative research technique that looks at a project as a whole. It will generally include an in-depth description of the client’s situation, any challenges, the process and the outcome. (See example)

What is a testimonial?

A testimonial is a statement made either verbally or in written form to testify a business’s services. (See example)

What is a review?

A review is someone’s evaluation of a business or product whether their opinions are positive or negative. (See example)

When deciding what is best to use for marketing your business, the answer is it all depends. Case studies, testimonials and reviews are all useful in their own way and can each provide a different level of communication about a business, product or service.

It all comes down to what the customer is wanting to gain, for example, if someone wants to understand a particular service in detail, they may find a case study extremely useful and informative. However, for someone wanting to find out ratings and reviews, a case study may be easily dismissed due to the amount of content and detail included.

When is it best to use case studies?

Case studies are great for websites as information can be conveyed in an engaging way and also include links to projects you’ve worked on. If someone is taking the time to look through your website or even a brochure for that matter, they are generally looking for an indicator that the work you offer is what they are looking for. They may also want to see the different types of work you carry out and how you have handled past projects.

When is it best to use testimonials?

Testimonials are also great for websites as they convey customer and client feedback in a way that is quick and easy to digest. Testimonials can also be shared across social media platforms as a way to promote your product or service, and even in printed marketing materials.

When is it best to use reviews?

Public reviews are great for any business or service as many potential customers will go there first to see what people are saying. Google reviews and social media reviews are very commonly used as they are as honest as can be, whereas a testimonial has effectively been cherry-picked by a business.

Overall, the power of a case study, testimonial and review depends on your target audience, if people are looking for indicators of trust, and how up-to-date the information is. Although a case study seems the best way to show off your service, it might not always have the same pulling effect as a review or testimonial that is quick to read.

Tips for driving more website traffic

The two main things you need to do if you want to drive more traffic to your website are: 1. optimise and 2. be active. Website optimisation helps you attract the customers looking for your services and being active helps you find them. How?

 

optimise

Optimisation

Optimisation covers several aspects and involves website optimisation, content optimisation and mobile optimisation. All three are equally important and help your website be better ranked on search engines, easily found and readable for visitors.

Content optimisation covers keyword research and targeting, which enable you to write readable and well-targeted content that complies with SEO rules. Effective website content needs to be written for both search engines (the right keywords and keyword density) and for the visitors (again – the right keywords used in well-structured sentences that convey the right message directed at your target audience).

 

Mobile optimisation is also very important nowadays, which was not the case a few years ago. Optimising your website for mobile devices will help your website get better rankings because search engines rank responsive websites better, but this will also help your mobile visitors access and surf your website easily. One of our clients, Abbey Masterbatch,  approached us recently because they needed to make their website responsive and this helped the increase the volume of website visits by 25%.

 

Website optimisation is a general term and a properly optimized website will be optimized both in terms of content and mobile. However, there a few more things to look at when working on website optimisation – meta titles / descriptions, H1 tags, website speed, etc.. there is a number of useful tools that you can use to test your website and see how much it scores and understand the tests it is failing so you can improve these aspects. The tool I recommend is SEO Site Checkup – it is quite simple and easy to use plus it provides useful tips on how to fix things and make your website SEO compatible.

 

Being Active

Being active in terms of online and offline marketing or social media will give your website (and business) a voice. This will help you be heard or noticed and most importantly, it will engage your audience. More social activity is an effective way of attracting new customers and a great side of it – it allows you to be less formal if you choose that style of communication.

 

 

 

Hope you find my tips useful. If you’d like to read about how to increase online sales, here is an interesting post by Crazy Egg.

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Is a picture worth a thousand words?

According to the age old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

And, in today’s technologically advanced world, it’s a statement that continues to spark much debate as the way we consume information is continuing to change.

For example, the advent of the digital world means that information is now delivered in a wide range of different formats including pictures and videos, which are also prominent across social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

And with more businesses than ever before utilising new media technologies and creating an impact with new communication methods, it has once again raised the question whether a picture is worth a thousand words!

After all… pictures and videos can be far more impactful than text heavy content, especially in the fast paced digital world where content is digested quickly and updated at a rapid pace, leaving businesses little time to make an impact with the content they post and share.

But this is not to say that text is not equally important!

After all, you could have an all singing, all-dancing website or a professional social media page full of engaging content, but if the text accompanying your image is not up to scratch, the image can lose its impact. And remember, hiring a professional copywriter to create impactful, engaging and persuading content that will not only inspire action, but will also increase the credibility of your brand, is always a wise option.

This is because a website that is littered with errors or poor grammar can actually deter people from investing in your product or service!

Research has also revealed that 80% of the activities we do online are text based, so it’s vital that text is not overlooked in exchange for images.

For example although images can bring a story to life, so can words, and the vast majority of information or news is delivered far more effectively with text.

However, it’s important to note that one of the main problems with using text to deliver a news story or information is that the human brain finds it difficult to consume large bulks of text. So, the key is to keep text to a minimum, without compromising on the quality or missing out key details.

With this in mind, there is a clear difference in the way we consume and process both images and text, which is why both must work hand in hand to create an effective piece of content that will engage, inspire action and capture your target market.

And of course, words have been around for millions of years, and universally are understood around the globe. So, it’s highly likely that they will ever be replaced.

Improving Readability on Your Website

In an attempt to create a website that converts, people sometimes focus too much on the design, features, layout and other aesthetic aspects that do help conversions but are not crucial for it. What’s crucial when it comes to creating a website that converts visitors into customers is related to its content and readability.

 

readability

 

Fonts

The most important aspects of fonts are type and size. There are so many interesting font types which are not readable and choosing the font based on the looks while overseeing the readability can cost a business a large volume of sales. The easily readable fonts are Arial, Helvetica, Lucida Sans, Verdana, Trebuchet and they also look amazing.

Paragraphs and Bullet Points

Breaking down large content into paragraphs makes reading more comfortable for your visitors and in case you need to list or itemise certain things, I’d recommend using bullet points. When people visit your website for the first time, they usually just scan through the website looking for the most important information and if your website does not offer this, they will lose interest and leave the website.

To the point

Most visitors tend to be lazy and look for quick answers to their questions and if your website’s content is not concise, the visitors might lose focus and become uninterested in what they are reading. Concise and to the point content is what sells best and it is very important to remember when working on your website copy.

Visuals

Visual elements of a website come in quite handy when you want to draw visitor’s attention to certain parts of your website.  Using interesting images, videos, illustrations or even call to action buttons will help your visitors find relevant information in a matter of seconds and that’s exactly what you need. A website that successfully uses visual elements to draw visitors’ attention to relevant information and headings is ACS Installations, a London based company specializing in air conditioning installations, repairs and maintenance.