Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that finding effective ways to generate new customers can be extremely hard. Just trying to keep your business afloat requires a lot of your time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.
In today’s web-based and social-driven economy, ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what your customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You are also doing your business a disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your customers say about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing strategy.
In this article, we’ll show you how to improve your visitor-to-lead conversions using effective user testimonials.
Customer Reviews And Testimonials
Legendary American businessman and showman P.T. Barnum once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful and effective way of promoting your business. Reviews and testimonials from 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 a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … testimonials and reviews from your satisfied users!
Testimonials and reviews are effective for building credibility for your products or services.
Marketing studies conducted by leading research firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews reduce doubts potential customers may have about buying your product, help with product selection and increases sales.
Here are just some findings 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 user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Site visitors who interact with both consumer 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Client Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
Clearly, you should be adding testimonials and reviews from really happy clients to your site.
Customer testimonials and consumer reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both in a positive or negative manner.
People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could post unhelpful comments on Facebook about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with your services and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes vitally important to your success.
Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, 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 seriously hurting your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business through effective user review management:
Tips On Improving Your Sales Conversions With Customer Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing strategy. When you quote your own user responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help prospects identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some practical tips on improving your sales conversions with testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try using the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
- Use real photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces draws the most attention of visitors on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are far more powerful and captivating than simply providing facts and statistics. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about excellent support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help to sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service before offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping us grow our sales by $14,815 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ software helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their market share or reduce their costs in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work they have saved, 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 client testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your web pages. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch discount for clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide to use it.
- Appeal to your ideal customer: As every infomercial featuring a celebrity endorsement, subject expert or “busy mom” knows, if you know who your best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to can be a very powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials that speak directly to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If someone posts great feedback on your Facebook page praising your solution, ask them permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Don’t use fake client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective customers need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with false testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Clients
Ask
When you complete performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some tips for requesting testimonials from customers:
- Contact your clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 14 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after performing a service.
- Add a text box for testimonials in client surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a short video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and try to record your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. When clients send you a positive email thanking you for a great service that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the best sections (only use what they have written – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and invite them to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link Back To The Source
Offer to post a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.
Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in a regularly-spaced auto responder broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to measure the effect of using your products. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to solicit testimonials for your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (tip: offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page On Your Site
Create a new section on your web site for testimonials and place a “more customer testimonials …” link to your main testimonials section whenever you plan to display new testimonials on your content sections.
Practical Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your customer testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to measuring what visitors are doing on your pages.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your sites to measure visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your site or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages inviting users to submit reviews and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer clients to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are a few useful plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you insert a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that has additional features and plugin support.
To download the plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your website. You can insert testimonials content via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
The plugin offers added features via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and developer support.
To download and use this plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin provides plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. via 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 and use the plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Customer reviews and testimonials are great sources of content that help your business in terms of adding credibility, building authority, improving online reputation, and growing your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing customers or clients, and start publishing these on your website.
Additional Info
For additional resources on creating engaging testimonials read the articles below:
- 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
We also recommend subscribing to our Free Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!
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