Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that trying to generate new customers can be very hard, confusing and frustrating. Just trying to remain in business takes up a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.
In today’s digital, mobile and social media-driven economy, you just can’t ignore the impact of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You may also be doing your business a great disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your clients say about your products, solutions, customer support, training, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content.
In this article, we’ll show you tips for turning more visitors into qualified leads using engaging client testimonials.
Testimonials And Consumer Reviews
Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, legendary American showman and successful promoter, once stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-driven content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting genuine reviews and testimonials from your satisfied clients is satisfied clients are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … testimonials and reviews from their users!
Testimonials and reviews are a great way to build credibility for your products and services.
Studies conducted by many leading research firms all seem to lead to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials reduce doubts potential customers may have about products or solutions that you are trying to sell, help users select products and increases sales.
Below are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to research by eVoc Insights, an organization that researches and measures 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, user reviews play a significant role in creating an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding Consumer Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding reviews and testimonials to your site from satisfied customers is essential for creating a solid online reputation.
Customer testimonials and reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both negative and positive ways.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could be posting unhelpful feedback on a discussion group about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your staff and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes important to your business success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple tool 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 Conversions With Client Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market 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 what pains and problems your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help your visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some useful tips on how to create knockout testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use real photos: Marketing studies show that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more effective 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 more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about how “excellent” the service was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials to your web content where it best makes 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 if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your 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 genuinely thrilled about your customer service before offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “As a direct result of using your XYZ services, our sales have grown by an additional $61,329 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product helped us grow our business?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs 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 in a recent financial period, 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 a little difficult when you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your site’s pages. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more user 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 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become 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 targeted to your ideal customers.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your solution, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use real testimonials. Your prospects need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Customers
Ask
Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials:
- Contact your clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after completing your service.
- Include a field for entering testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and try to capture the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write it 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 given you – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have already prepared something to save them time and invite them to change what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to publish 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 the 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 subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in a scheduled newsletter broadcast. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to assess the effect of using your products or services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking subscribers to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials from other members for your profile. 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 recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to add a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page On Your Site
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section throughout your site.
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 your testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to observing visitor behavior on your site.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your sites to monitor visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit 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), all you have to do is refer customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add client testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them 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 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 users with a “pro” version that offers additional features and developer support.
Visit this site to download this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your website. You can insert customer testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
The plugin has plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.
To download this plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
For more information about this plugin, go here:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Testimonials and user reviews 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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing clients, and start publishing these on your web site.
Additional Info
The articles below provide useful information on creating engaging testimonials and were also helpful in providing research and 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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site 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 100% FREE!
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