How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, only to get the exact same results? As most business owners know, that finding effective ways to generate new business can be quite difficult. 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 digital, mobile and social-driven economy, you cannot afford to ignore the effect of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what clients may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you could be doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your customers are saying about your services and products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.
In this article, we’ll show you how to improve your sales conversions using engaging customer testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, the great, legendary showman, once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-driven content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting genuine testimonials and reviews directly from satisfied clients is satisfied customers are far more persuasive for drawing new customers 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 … reviews and testimonials from your clients!
Customer testimonials and reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your services and products.
Tests conducted by many leading firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding user reviews and testimonials to your sales information helps decrease doubts potential customers may have about buying products, helps with product selection and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Below are just some findings that support this:
- According to a study 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 site if it has ratings and reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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).
- 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
You should be adding great reviews from extremely satisfied clients to your website.
Customer testimonials and customer reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both positively or negatively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could be posting disparaging remarks on Facebook about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with you or your business and this could be doing far more damage to your business than all the good work you’ve been putting into building it.
This is where online reputation management becomes vital to your success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) could be harming your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective plugin for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business through effective customer review management:
Tips On Improving Your Sales With Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be used in your content. When you include your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some practical tips on improving your sales conversions with knockout client testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
- Use real photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces draws the most attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Tell a story: Stories are much more powerful and captivating than simply providing statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about excellent service and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add customer testimonials in your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. Think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your customer service when offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our revenue by $14,499 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product has helped us grow our sales?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits 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 testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your website. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special discount for clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you choose 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 ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become can be a powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials that appeal directly to your ideal customers.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If you get great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your solution, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Never use fake testimonials. Your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with a false testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Clients
Ask
Getting a testimonial from a happy client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these useful guidelines for requesting testimonials from your clients:
- Contact your clients after 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing a service.
- Add a field for testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next meet with 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 short video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and capture the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. If 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 juiciest sections (only use what they have given you – never 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 done this to save them time and let them know they are completely free to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To Their Site Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients providing a testimonial. It also makes an 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 a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder mailouts. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your customers 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 of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you solicit testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more testimonials …” link to this page wherever you plan to add new testimonials on your content sections.
Practical Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your client testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for monitoring visitor behavior on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to observe visitor behavior here:
WordPress Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to 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), you then send users to your “Testimonials” section.
Below are a few useful testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add customer testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into posts and pages using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you publish a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.
The plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that offers additional features and technical support.
Visit this site to download and use 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 using 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 a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and developer support.
Go here to download this 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.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
Visit this site to download the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
User reviews and testimonials are great sources of content that can 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 existing customers or clients, and start publishing these on your website or blog.
Additional Info
For additional resources on creating engaging customer testimonials refer to 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 regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!
***
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org