Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that finding effective ways to generate new business can be difficult. 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-driven economy, ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

Don’t ignore what your customers may be saying online about your business!

By the same token, you are also doing your business a disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your customers say about your products, services, user support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of marketing your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.

In this article, we’ll show you how to convert more visitors into prospects using sales boosting user testimonials.

Testimonials And Customer Reviews

Legendary showman and businessman P.T. Barnum once 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting genuine testimonials and reviews from satisfied users is existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients than anything you have to say about your own products or services.

There is clearly an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … user testimonials and reviews!

Testimonials and reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your services or products.

Studies conducted by many leading firms all seem to point to the same conclusion: adding user reviews and customer testimonials to your sales information decreases doubts potential customers may have about your products or services, helps with product selection and increases sales conversions.

Below are just some of the findings available to support this:

• According to a study by eVoc Insights, a company that researches and measures 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, consumer reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer 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 user-generated content (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 User Reviews – Managing Online Reputation

Adding positive reviews and testimonials to your site from people who are delighted with your services is essential for helping you grow your business.

Customer testimonials and customer reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both in a negative as well as positive manner.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could be posting negative comments on Facebook or a discussion thread about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your staff 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 a significant part of your business and content marketing strategy.

Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as 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 WordPress plugin that lets you legally and ethically manage user reviews:

• Managing Your Online Reputation With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Improving Your Sales Conversions With User Testimonials – Useful Tips

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 used in your content. When you include responses from clients in your content, you:

• Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
• Help visitors identify and address their objections.
• Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate the sales process.

Below are some practical tips on how to create testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
• Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
• Use the power of storytelling: Stories are far more effective and captivating than just providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about excellent customer service and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: Add testimonials in your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to add a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting your pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your customer service when offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content that helps readers overcome their objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “Since using your XYZ solution, we have seen our sales increase by $14,349 during the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution helped us grow our business?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, 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 in a recent business quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Use different testimonials on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site. 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 best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to is an extremely 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 across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your products or services, ask them permission to reprint the content on your blog.
• Only use real client testimonials. Your potential customers need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are real. Don’t destroy your reputation with false testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients

Ask For Testimonials

Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.

Here are some 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 did not obtain one immediately after completing a service.
• Add a field for testimonials in client surveys.
• Take out your phone next time you visit a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and capture their positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy for them. Whenever clients send you positive written feedback 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 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 help them save time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link To Their Site

Offer to publish a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive for clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.

Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder mailouts. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to experience your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking customers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to solicit testimonials for your profile. 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 for permission to reprint it on your website (once again, you can offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).

Create A Client Testimonials Page On Your Site

Create a new page on your site for testimonials and place a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page throughout your site.

Practical 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 monitoring visitor behavior on your pages are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your site to observe visitor behavior here:

• Understanding Visitor Behaviour On Your WordPress Site Using Heat Map Tools – Heat Map Tracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages where users can submit testimonials.

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you then refer clients to your “Testimonials” section.

Check out the testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert a list of all your 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, their logo, etc.

The plugin also provides users with a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.

To download and use this plugin, visit this site:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your WordPress site. You can insert customer testimonials via 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 loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions for better search engine results and technical support.

For more information about the plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium WordPress plugin offers many great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
• Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
• Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.

Go here to download and use the plugin:

• Testimonials Plugin

To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

User reviews and client 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers or clients, and start publishing these on your site.

Resources

For additional sources of information and resources about creating effective clients testimonials read these articles:

• 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 actionable information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for 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 100% FREE!

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