How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, and getting the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that trying to generate new customers can be extremely difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes up 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 and social media-driven economy, ignoring what your customers 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!
By the same token, you may also be doing your business a disservice if you don’t publish the positive things your clients say about your services or products. User reviews, testimonials, 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 learn how to get better results online with highly effective customer testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
The great, legendary showman Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum once said 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting testimonials and reviews from satisfied customers is satisfied clients are far more persuasive for drawing new clients, customers or users 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 … reviews and testimonials from your existing users!
Customer testimonials and reviews are a fantastic way to build credibility for your services or products.
Studies conducted by many leading companies all seem to point to the same conclusion: adding customer testimonials and reviews to your sales information eliminates doubts potential customers may have about buying a particular product, helps users select products and increases sales.
Below are just some of the findings available to support this:
- According to a study 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 web site if it has ratings and user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Site visitors who interact with both customer 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 Client Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding reviews and testimonials to your website from clients who are delighted with your services is essential for creating a solid online business reputation.
Testimonials and customer reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both negatively or positively.
People may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could have posted disparaging remarks on Facebook, or a forum or discussion group 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 business success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) may be seriously harming your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective tool for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage your customer feedback:
Tips For Creating User Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing. When you include responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
- 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 compelling client testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are far more powerful and memorable 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 longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” the customer service has been and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: It’s good to add testimonials to 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 will have on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased 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 clients are truly ecstatic about your support when offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “As a direct result of using your services, we have seen an additional revenue increase of $75,758 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution definitely 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 by 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, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Use different customer testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your site. Depending on the type of business you run, 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 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 can be an extremely 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 best audience demographic.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook page praising your business, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Never use fake testimonials. Many people can tell if you are employing copy writers to create your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective customers need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials
Ask
When you complete performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Follow these useful tips for soliciting testimonials from your clients:
- Contact your clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
- Include a text box for entering testimonials in your client surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next meet with a client or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to record the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy 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 best sections (only use what they have given you – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have already prepared something to save them time and invite them to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link Back To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to publish 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 list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder broadcasts. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to measure the effect of using your products or services. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject 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 from other members for your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (and offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a new section for testimonials and place a “more testimonials …” link to this section throughout your site.
Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your 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 measuring visitor behavior on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your sites to observe visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then refer users to your “Testimonials” section.
Here are a few useful WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add user testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you insert a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that has additional features and technical support.
Visit this site for more information about using the 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 posts and pages. You can insert client testimonials via 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 loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and developer support.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WP plugin provides a range of 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, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
To learn more about using the plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Client testimonials and user reviews are great sources of content that help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your clients or customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.
Additional Info
For additional sources of information and resources about creating effective users testimonials see these useful 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 easy-to-digest information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to 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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