How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same results? As most business owners know, that generating new business can be hard. Just trying to remain in business takes a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.
In today’s online and social media-driven economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the effect of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what users may be saying online about your business!
You are also doing your business a great disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your customers are saying about your services or products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included in your content.
In this article, we’ll show you all you need to know to get better results online using meaningful customer testimonials.
Testimonials And Customer Reviews
P.T. Barnum, legendary showman and successful promoter, once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting testimonials from existing customers is existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … client reviews!
User reviews and testimonials are a terrific way to build credibility for your services and products.
Research conducted by marketing companies all seem to lead to the same conclusion: adding reviews and customer testimonials to your sales information eliminates doubts potential customers may have about purchasing some products or services, helps with product selection and increases the number of sales.
Here are just some statistics that support this:
- According to research findings by eVoc Insights, a company known for researching and measuring user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a web site if it has ratings and reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Site visitors who interact with both user reviews and customer questions and answers are 105% more likely to purchase while visiting and spend 11% more than visitors who don’t interact with UGC. (Bazaarvoice, Conversation Index, Q2 2011).
- Customer reviews are significantly more trusted (nearly 12 times more) than descriptions that come from manufacturers, according to a survey of US internet users by online video review site EXPO. (eMarketer, February 2010).
(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding User Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
Adding positive testimonials and reviews to your site from very happy clients is important for helping you grow your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Customer testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both in a negative and positive way.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could post negative comments on Facebook, or a discussion group or forum about a bad experience they’ve just had using your products and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes vital to your online success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need to worry about it) may be causing damage to your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that lets you legally and ethically manage user reviews:
Tips On How To Create User Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy. When you quote responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly what pains and problems your products and services can solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help site visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate the sales process.
Here are some practical tips on how to create customer testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more effective and captivating than simply providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about how “excellent” the customer support was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add customer testimonials in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your support when offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our bottom line by $47,975 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product helped us grow our sales?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits or reduce their costs in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work you have helped them save, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Avoid using the same customer testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site’s pages. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch discount for existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide to use it.
- Appeal to your best customer: As every infomercial featuring a celebrity endorsement, subject expert or “busy mom” knows, if you know who your target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become is a really powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your ideal customers.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, ask them permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Only use real testimonials. Your prospects need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with false testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers
Just Ask
If you have just completed performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Follow these tips for soliciting testimonials from your customers:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after performing a service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to record the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If a client sends you a positive email thanking you for a great job that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the juiciest sections (only use what they have written – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To Their Site
Offer to post a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.
Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a periodic auto responder message. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to measure the impact of using your products. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking subscribers for feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (and offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more testimonials …” link to your main testimonials section throughout your content sections.
Practical Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for measuring what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your sites to monitor visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages where users can submit testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is send clients to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which you can use to add a photo of the testimonial author, a company logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your posts and pages. You can insert testimonials content via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
The Testimonials Widget plugin provides extra features via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and technical support.
Visit this site to learn more about the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that provides a range of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
To download the plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Testimonials and customer reviews are powerful sources of content that can help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing clients, and start publishing these on your web site.
Resources
For additional sources of information and resources on creating engaging testimonials read these articles:
- Ecommerce Consumer Reviews: Why You Need Them And How To Use Them
- How To Create Captivating Customer Testimonials
- 5 Tips For Knockout Testimonials
- Make Customer Testimonials Meaningful
- 7 Simple But Powerful Customer Testimonial Examples You Can Steal
- Your 5-Minute Guide To Writing an Amazing LinkedIn Recommendation
- How To Get Great LinkedIn Recommendations
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