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, only to get the exact same disappointing results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that trying to generate new customers can be hard. Just trying to survive 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 web-based and social-driven economy, ignoring what users may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you could be doing your business a disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients are saying about your services or products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included in your content.
In this article, you will learn ways to improve your sales with highly effective client testimonials.
Testimonials And Consumer Reviews
Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, legendary businessman and showman, is often quoted as having 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 promoting your business. Testimonials and reviews from satisfied customers are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … customer reviews and testimonials!
Customer testimonials and reviews are a fantastic way to build credibility for your services or products.
Research conducted by marketing research firms all lead to the same conclusion: testimonials and user reviews reduce doubts potential customers may have about purchasing your products or services, help with product selection and help increase the number of sales.
Here are just some of the findings available to support this:
- According to research findings by eVoc Insights, an organization known for researching and measuring user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has ratings and user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews are responsible for producing 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 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding Consumer Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding reviews and testimonials to your site from happy clients is essential for creating a solid online business reputation.
Testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both negative and positive ways.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could post updates on a forum about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your team members and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes vitally important to your online business 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 it) could be hurting your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a plugin for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage your customer reviews:
How To Create Client Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing. When you quote your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly what pains and problems your products and services can help solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help your visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates the sales process.
Below are some useful tips on improving your sales with testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
- Use photos: Marketing tests show that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more powerful and memorable 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 far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add testimonials in your site copy where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind if you were to present a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your support before offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping us grow our net profit by $66,054 in the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution has helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours 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 repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your web 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 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 can relate to is a powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint across different platforms. If you get great feedback on your Facebook page praising your customer service, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Your prospects need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with false testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials
Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing a service.
- Add a text box for testimonials in client surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next visit clients or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and record their positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy for them. When clients send you positive written feedback 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 shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to help them save time and invite them to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link Back To The Source
Offer to add a link back 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 the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to use your solution. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you obtain testimonials from other members that become part of your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets 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 add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more client testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page throughout your content sections.
Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for understanding what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to observe visitor behaviour here:
WordPress Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then send customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Below are a few useful WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add user testimonials to your 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 can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.
Visit this site to download this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your blog. You can insert customer testimonials 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 makes plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.
Visit this site for more information about using the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that offers a range of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
For more information about this plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Testimonials and user reviews 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your clients, and start publishing these on your site.
Resources
The articles below are a great source of information on creating engaging users testimonials and were used when researching information for sections of this article:
- 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, 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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