Making your animation clients happy and exceeding their expectations are the best ways to promote yourself as an animator. If you make your client happy, you may be able to gather useful testimonials. Testimonials make you and your animation skills look more valuable and trustworthy.
82% of consumers read reviews online to find businesses they can trust, and 91 percent of people are more likely to use a business if it has positive reviews.
Business owners, animation studio staff members, and other clients are more likely to trust what other customers say about you over what you say about your animation products.
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Asking for testimonials from your customers is easy! Just send them an email, and ask them if they can write a few sentences or record a short video explaining how their experience was working with you.
Using video testimonials is more effective than using written reviews since video marketing is one of the best ways to grab your clients’ attention and easily share your work online.
85% of businesses use video marketing as a tool. Video testimonials can have more of an impact than written reviews because they are easy to share and they are more engaging! They’re also harder to fake, so they create more trust.
Not every client who you ask for a review will respond. By improving your performance and customer service, you will increase your chance of getting more positive and enthusiastic reviews.
Even though testimonials are so important to market your small animation business online, asking for testimonials might be intimidating to you, especially if you’ve never done it before.
In this blog post, we help make this process less scary. Here are seven ways to ask for and use animation clients' testimonials to grow your business.
1) Decide on the Right Time to Ask
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Before asking your clients for a testimonial, first take time to evaluate where your client is in their customer journey with you.
You can’t ask customers for testimonials when you just started working with them or when you are still in the process of finishing the project.
Ask for testimonials right after an animation project has been completed. This ensures your client still has fresh memories of your performance and customer service.
The earlier you ask for it, the more likely you will get an accurate testimonial.
2) Offer an Incentive
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If you want your animation clients to read your email and send a response, you have to give them a reason to say yes.
Your clients are probably busy and have many tasks to do and emails to respond to in a day.
Providing them with an incentive is a great way to encourage your clients to put some time aside for you and write or record a testimonial. For example, you can send your customer a gift card or branded merchandise.
If you don’t have time or a budget for that, make sure you write a compelling email that explains how giving you a testimonial will also benefit them.
3) Provide Several Options
You can ask clients for reviews in person, over the phone, via text messaging, through personalized emails, through an email blast, or with a website reviews page.
Most clients are asked for a customer testimonial in person, via email, or over the phone. You might want to keep this in mind when asking your clients for testimonials.
Some customers prefer writing their testimonials and others prefer filming them. Either way, make sure you create intuitive processes your customers can use to send you testimonials, so sending you a testimonial is easy for your clients, regardless of their preferences.
Other methods you can use to get reviews are survey platforms like Google Forms, Survey Monkey, and Typeform.
4) Give Your Client a Review
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If your client hasn’t given you a review yet, a great way to prompt them to send you a testimonial is by you giving them one first.
For example, if they’re selling food or clothes, purchase from their restaurant or shop and review it. If you’ve already used their product or service before, make sure you leave a review.
Doing this just might make them feel more encouraged to reciprocate the good review; small businesses need to stick together, and by reviewing their product or service, you’re showing them you also value their business.
5) Create Your Own Template
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There are many good templates to ask for customer reviews.
Once you create an email template, you can personalize it or send automated emails for every animation client you request a testimonial from.
No matter what template you use, there are some essential aspects you’ll want to include.
When asking for a testimonial, thank your customer for partnering with you. Tell them how grateful you are to have them as your client. Showing gratitude lets your clients know you are genuine and not just asking them for something.
Next, congratulate your client on the great results from the project. Then ask if they would be interested in sending a testimonial by video, through leaving a review on your website, or through whatever process you’ve set up to efficiently receive reviews.
6) Provide a Set of Questions
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Some animation clients may not know what to say in a testimonial. If they feel overwhelmed, they might not send one at all.
To help clients feel less overwhelmed, you can use a fixed set of questions like the following:
- On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, how would you rate your animated video?
- Why did you choose that rating?
- How would you rate the overall service you received from me?
- Why did you give that rating?
- How would you rate the speed of production?
- Would you recommend my animation services to a colleague? If yes, what would you tell him/her about me?
- What other options did you consider before hiring me as your animator?
- On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, how satisfied are you with your decision to choose me as your video’s animator?
- What are the top things you liked about working with me?
- Would you work with me again on another animation project in the future? Why?
- Do you have any suggestions on how I can improve?
If you have a list of questions, this will also help ensure you get reviews and testimonials with information that is useful for you! These reviews are great for online marketing, but they also help you learn how you can grow and improve as an animator and a businessperson.
7) Follow Up Kindly On Your Request
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If it’s been a week since you sent a testimonial request to your animation client, and they haven’t responded, feel free to send a follow-up email.
Check in with your client. Ask how their business has been doing with the help of the animated video you made for them. Then ask if they would be willing to give a testimonial.
If they still haven’t replied after another week, don’t bother them with another follow-up email. Move on and seek testimonials from other animation clients. You can always ask them again the next time they work with you on another animation project.
Maximize Customer Testimonials
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When you receive powerful customer testimonials from your animation clients, add them to your testimonial page on your website or portfolio.
You can also make social media posts and advertisements with your customer testimonials.
Upload a short video of your client’s testimonial, or design an appealing testimonial on Canva, and make sure to tag or mention them.
Wherever and however you use your client’s testimonials, make sure you’re upfront with that client about how you want to use the testimonial, and get written permission from them to do so.
This will show your professionalism and that you respect your client.
Conclusion
Customer testimonials, whether in text, image, or video form are important and powerful. Your potential clients will always want to know about your skills and services from other people before hiring you to work on their animation project.
Client testimonials greatly affect your reputation as a freelance animator. If your potential client is impressed after reading or watching your client reviews, you’re more likely to get sales leads and get hired to make videos for them.
If you’re struggling to get customer testimonials and animation clients, check out our free masterclass and our free marketing handbook to help improve your business skills in the animation industry.
