You have great testimonials. But when was the last time they actually helped you make a sale?
If they’re sitting on a sales page that gets 10 visitors a month, or buried on a page nobody clicks, they’re not doing their job. Testimonials can be one of your strongest assets for building trust and improving your conversion rate. You don’t need dozens of them to make an impact. A few strong ones in the right places can make a real difference.
Most course creators I work with have plenty of social proof. The problem usually isn’t the quality (though we’ll talk about that). More often, testimonials aren’t being seen, aren’t structured to convert, or aren’t being used beyond the sales page.
In this post, I’ll show you how to ask for a testimonial in a way that gives you something actually usable, where to put testimonials so they get seen, and how to build a simple system so your social proof keeps working without you having to think about it.
What makes a testimonial actually work
There’s a big difference between a testimonial that makes someone feel warm and fuzzy and one that makes them reach for their credit card.
Here’s one that doesn’t work so well:
“Anouska is great! Highly recommend.”
Nice. But it doesn’t tell us what problem was solved, how the client felt before, or what changed after. A potential client reading this thinks: OK, but is this relevant to me?
Compare that to this one:
I was getting overwhelmed with all the tasks for my online course. Working with Anouska has massively eased my stress levels! I’m now able to focus on what I love, coaching and teaching, which has transformed my business and my life. She’s set up platforms and systems that work by themselves, saving invaluable time and energy. Thanks to Anouska, I’ve now had several smooth and successful course launches!
– Rebecca Tolin
That works because it has three clear components:
The before: “I was getting overwhelmed with all the tasks for my online course.”
The how: “She’s set up platforms and systems that work by themselves, saving invaluable time and energy.”
The after: “I’m now able to focus on what I love… I’ve now had several smooth and successful course launches!”
When potential clients read this, they see themselves in the “before” and want the “after.” That’s what a good testimonial does.
How to ask for a testimonial (so you actually get something useful)
Most clients, even happy ones, don’t know how to write a good testimonial. They’ll write something vague and enthusiastic that doesn’t tell the reader anything specific. That’s not their fault. They just need a little guidance.
The most reliable approach is to ask clients to fill out a short questionnaire rather than asking them to write a testimonial from scratch. Ask the right questions, and you’ll get the raw material you need to craft something strong. Always let the client review what you’ve written before you use it.
Questions worth asking:
- What was your biggest challenge or frustration before we worked together?
- What made you hesitate before getting started?
- What’s changed since you started? What are you able to do now that you couldn’t before?
- What would you tell someone who’s considering working with me?
- Is there a specific result or moment that stands out?
You don’t need all of these every time. Even two or three good answers will give you a lot to work with.
A simple Google Form works well here. You can also send a personalised email with the questions written out, whichever feels more natural for the client relationship.
One more thing worth knowing: video testimonials convert even better than written ones, because people can see and hear the emotion behind the words. If a client is willing, a short video (even recorded on their phone) is worth asking for. That said, not everyone has time or wants to be on camera, so always ask for the written questionnaire as the default and mention the video option separately.
Where to put testimonials on your website
A separate testimonials page gets very little traffic on its own, and most visitors never find it. It’s much more effective to sprinkle testimonials throughout your site, with the heaviest concentration on your sales pages.
Anywhere someone might hesitate, a relevant testimonial helps. That includes:
- Your homepage (especially near your main call to action)
- Your About page (helps build trust early)
- Your opt-in landing pages (if you have testimonials for your free resource)
- Product pages if you’re selling digital products
It’s completely fine to use the same testimonial in multiple places. If a testimonial is relevant to your course and your services, use it on both pages.
One formatting note: don’t use sliders or carousels for testimonials. Heatmaps consistently show that most visitors don’t click through, so a big chunk of your social proof stays invisible. Show them all directly on the page.
Why your sales page isn’t enough
A sales page doesn’t get traffic if nobody’s driving people to it. Which is what emails and social posts do.
If your testimonials only live on your website, they’re doing very little of the work they could be doing. Strong testimonials work best when people encounter them repeatedly, in different contexts, not only at the exact moment they’re ready to buy.
This is the part most people skip: testimonials aren’t just a website element. They are marketing content. The same before-and-after structure that works on a sales page works just as well in an email, a social post, or a launch sequence.
How to use testimonials in your marketing (beyond your website)
Once you have strong testimonials collected, here’s how to put them to work:
In emails: Share a client’s before-and-after in your regular email. No pitch required, just share the transformation and link to your sales page at the end. Subscribers who’ve seen the same result described three or four times in different emails are far more likely to trust that it’s real.
In social posts: Turn a testimonial into a quote graphic, or share a screenshot of a client message with a caption explaining what made their result possible.
In launch content: Feature a different client story each day of a launch sequence. Let their words do the selling.
As content ideas: If a client says “I finally stopped second-guessing my pricing,” that’s a content topic. Write about it, and use their testimonial as proof the shift is possible.
The best part: you’re not starting from scratch. You’re sharing what you already have.
The part that most people never get around to: making it a system
Asking for testimonials, collecting them somewhere useful, and actually using them in your marketing all sounds straightforward. And it is, once it’s set up. The problem is that most course creators are collecting testimonials in three different places (email, DMs, a Google Doc from 2022), forgetting to ask half the time, and then spending 20 minutes searching for the right one when they need it.
If you want your social proof to actually do something, it needs a home. That means:
- A simple, automatic way to collect testimonials after each client project or course completion
- One central place where everything lives, organised so you can find the right testimonial in 30 seconds
- A format that makes it easy to find testimonials for emails, sales pages, and social content without having to hunt
This is exactly what I set up in the Social Proof System Setup. I’ll organise everything you already have and build the collection and management system, so new testimonials come in automatically, and you always know where to find them.
If promoting your course feels harder than it should, it’s often because the social proof you already have isn’t working for you yet.
Not sure where else your funnel is leaking? My free Evergreen Funnel Audit walks you through the whole picture in 30 minutes.
