Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that finding effective ways to generate new business can be quite hard. Just trying to keep your business afloat requires a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.
In today’s digital and social-driven economy, it’s foolish to ignore the impact of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are talking about your business.
Ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You are also doing your business a great disservice if you are not promoting the positive things your clients are saying about your products, services, customer support, training, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be added throughout your content.
In this article, you’ll discover how to create better results online with sales boosting client testimonials.
Testimonials And Client Reviews
The great American showman and successful promoter P.T. Barnum once stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting genuine testimonials and reviews directly from existing customers is satisfied customers are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you can 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 … customer reviews!
Reviews and customer testimonials are a terrific way to build credibility for your services and products.
Tests conducted by leading companies all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding customer testimonials and reviews to your sales information pages helps reduce doubts potential customers may have about products, helps users select products and helps increase sales conversions.
Here are just some of the statistics 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 web site if it has ratings and reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews result in 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).
- Consumer 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 Customer Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding great reviews to your site from clients who are delighted with the results they’ve obtained by using your products or services is important for helping you grow your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Customer testimonials and reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both positively and negatively.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could post updates on Facebook or a discussion group about a bad experience they’ve just had with your business and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes a vital aspect of your 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 really don’t need it) may be seriously causing damage to your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a simple tool for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage customer reviews:
Tips On How To Create Standout Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing. When you quote your own user responses in your content, you:
- Show other users exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help prospects identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some practical tips on improving your conversions with profit boosting client testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try using the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: Marketing tests show that using images of people’s faces draws the most 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 site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than providing mere facts and statistics. The ability 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 using generalized statements about how “excellent” your support has been and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add testimonials to 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 can create on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your support when offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our bottom line by $13,361 during the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ software definitely helped us grow our business?” If possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales 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 in a recent business quarter, 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 repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your website. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more user 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 choose to use it.
- Appeal to your target audience: 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 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 ideal customers.
- Reprint across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your business, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Only use genuine client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to produce their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t destroy your credibility with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials
Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for requesting testimonials:
- Contact your clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after performing a service.
- Include a text box for testimonials in all your client surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and capture the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write it for them. Whenever clients send 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 best sections (only use what they have written – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have already prepared something to save them time and invite them to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link Back To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.
Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in a regularly-spaced email broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to experience your services. 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 users to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you request testimonials from other members for 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 recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section
Create a new section on your website for customer testimonials and place a “more customer testimonials …” link to this page whenever you are displaying blocks of testimonials on your content sections.
Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your 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 observing visitor behaviour on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your sites to monitor visitor behavior here:
WordPress Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages inviting users to submit reviews and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then send users to your “Testimonials” section.
Here are a few useful WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add user testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin 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 learn more about using this 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 pages and posts. 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 Testimonials Widget plugin provides additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions for better search engine results and technical support.
Visit this site to learn more about using the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers plenty 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 on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
For more information about using this plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Customer reviews and testimonials 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 your customers, and publish positive content about your business on your site.
Resources
For additional sources of information and resources about creating effective testimonials see 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
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