Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that trying to generate new business can be hard. Just trying to remain 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 digital, mobile and social media-driven economy, you just can’t ignore the effect of online consumer behavior, especially if they are talking about your business.
Don’t ignore what your clients may be saying online about your business!
You may also be doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your customers say about your products or services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content.
In this article, we’ll show you how to achieve better results online with meaningful user testimonials.
Testimonials And Client Reviews
The great American showman Phineas Taylor 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 and effective way of promoting your business. Reviews and testimonials from your existing users are far more persuasive for attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews from their clients!
Testimonials and user reviews are great for building credibility for your services and products.
Studies conducted by many leading firms all point to the same conclusion: testimonials and user reviews help decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing your product, help with product selection and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
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 site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews can 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 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 Consumer Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
Adding positive testimonials and reviews to your site from people who are delighted with the results they’ve obtained by using your products or services is essential for growing your business online.
Testimonials and reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both negatively and positively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could have posted updates on a discussion group about a bad experience they’ve just had with your services and this could be costing you business.
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) may be causing damage to your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective plugin for WordPress users that lets you legally and ethically manage your customer reviews:
How To Create User Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be included in your content. When you quote responses from users in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help to solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help your visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates the sales process.
Below are some practical tips on how to create testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try using the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
- Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are far more powerful and captivating than just 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 more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about how “excellent” the service has been and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add testimonials to your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help to sell your point. Think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind if you were to add 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 products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service before offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “As a direct result of using XYZ product, we were able to grow our sales by $91,141 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs by 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 financial quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Vary the client testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site. 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 discount for existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide 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 an extremely 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 across different platforms. If someone posts great feedback on your Facebook page praising your business, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Don’t use fake testimonials. Many people can tell if you are employing copywriters to produce your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective customers need to see 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 Your Customers
Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these useful guidelines for requesting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
- Include a field for testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next meet with a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a short video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and record your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. If 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 given you – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to publish it. 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 Post A Link Back To Their Site Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to publish a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients providing a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Add Testimonial Requests To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a scheduled auto responder broadcast. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your 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 subscribers to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you solicit testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (once again, you can offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more testimonials …” link to your main testimonials page whenever you add new testimonials on your content sections.
Tip: You can measure how useful customer testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to monitoring what visitors are doing on your site.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your sites to predict visitor behavior here:
Using Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your site or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages where users can submit reviews and testimonials.
Once your 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 clients to your “Testimonials” page.
Below are some plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you add a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a company logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also comes with a “pro” version that has additional features and technical support.
To download this plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your website. You can insert user testimonials 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 makes plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and plugin support.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
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, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
User 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your customers, and start publishing these on your web site.
Additional Info
For additional information about creating engaging 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 regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your 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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