How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding effective ways of generating new customers can be difficult. Just trying to survive in business 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, mobile and social media-driven economy, ignoring what users may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what your customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You are also doing your business a great disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your clients are saying about your products, solutions, client support, training, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of marketing your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.
In this article, you’ll discover tips for creating better results online using standout customer testimonials.
Consumer Reviews
The great American showman and businessman Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum is often quoted as having 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 and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting testimonials from satisfied users is satisfied users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting 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 businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … consumer testimonials and reviews!
Testimonials and customer reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your products and services.
Research conducted by leading marketing firms all lead to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help reduce doubts potential customers may have about buying your products or services, help users select products and help increase conversions of visitors into sales.
Here are just some of the stats available to 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 web site if it has ratings and consumer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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 Customer Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Clearly, you should be adding great reviews and testimonials from customers to your website.
User reviews and testimonials, 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 products directly to you, but they could have posted updates on Facebook, or a forum or discussion thread about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with your services and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes a vitally important aspect of your online 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 to worry about it) may be hurting your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that allows you to legally and ethically manage user feedback:
Improving Your Sales Conversions With Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing. When you include responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show other users exactly what pains and problems your products and services can solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help potential customers identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a buying decision.
Here are some tips on how to create engaging user testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try using your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: Research shows 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 increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are much more powerful and captivating than simply providing facts and statistics. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about excellent customer service and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help you sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your customer service before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “As a direct result of installing your XYZ software, we were able to grow our revenue by an additional $41,889 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution has helped us grow our business?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their market share or reduce their costs by 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 period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Vary the client testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your web pages. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more customer 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 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 can relate to is a really powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint content 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 site.
- Only use genuine testimonials. Most people can see through sites that employ copywriters to produce content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t destroy your reputation with a false testimonial.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Just 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 a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing a service.
- Include a text box for testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and capture their positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write it for them. If a client sends you a positive email thanking you for a great service 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 use it. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and invite them to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link Back To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients providing you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real 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 newsletter broadcast. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to measure the results of using 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 subscribers to provide 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 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 their permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “more testimonials …” link to your main testimonials section whenever you add single testimonials on your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure how effective testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for understanding what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to measure visitor behaviour here:
Using WordPress Testimonial Plugins
If your website or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then send users to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into your pages and posts using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you publish a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The plugin also can be upgraded to 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 images or videos on your site. You can insert 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 Testimonials Widget plugin offers a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and technical support.
To download and use the plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin provides plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display 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 the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site for more information about this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Testimonials and customer 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 your customers, and start publishing these on your site.
Resources
For additional sources of information and resources on creating effective customer testimonials refer to 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 you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
***
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum