Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new customers can be hard. Just trying to remain in business requires a lot of your time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.
In today’s online economy, you cannot afford to ignore the impact of online consumer behavior, especially if they are talking about your business.
Don’t ignore what consumers may be saying online about your business!
You are also doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients say about your products and services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.
In this article, you will learn how to improve your sales conversions with awesome user testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
P.T. Barnum, legendary American showman and businessman, is often quoted as having said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting reviews from existing users is existing clients are far more persuasive for attracting new clients than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews from their clients!
Testimonials and reviews are effective for building credibility for your business.
Studies conducted by many marketing research firms all point to the same conclusion: testimonials and user reviews eliminate doubts potential customers may have about your product, help users select products and increases the number of sales.
Here are just some of the findings 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 site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Site visitors who interact with both consumer 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).
- 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Customer Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
You should be adding reviews from extremely satisfied clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your site.
Testimonials and reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both in a negative as well as positive manner.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your products directly to you, but they could have posted negative comments on Facebook or a forum about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with you or your business and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes a vitally important aspect of your online business success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) may be harming your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business through effective customer review management:
Tips On Improving Your Sales Conversions With Powerful Client Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing. When you include your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what pains and problems your products and services can help solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Here are some useful tips on how to create user testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try using the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leave little 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 to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are far more powerful and memorable than providing mere statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about how “excellent” your support has been and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: It’s good to add 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 mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your customer service before offering guarantees or providing content designed to help your readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful… “Since using your XYZ services, we have noticed an additional profit increase of $83,411 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ software helped us grow our business?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits or reduce their costs in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours they have saved, 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 throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout 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 existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide 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 ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become can be a really 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 ideal customers.
- Reprint across different platforms. If someone posts a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your solution, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use genuine testimonials. Your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility with a false testimonial.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Just Ask
If you have just completed a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some useful tips for requesting testimonials from customers:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after performing a service.
- Include a text box for testimonials in all your client surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording your video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and capture the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy for them. If clients send 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 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 done this to save them time and invite them to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link Back To Their Site
Offer to post a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get 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 a scheduled email broadcast. Preferably, 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 your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking customers to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section
Create a new section for customer testimonials and place a “more testimonials …” link pointing to this page wherever you add single testimonials on your site.
Useful Tip: You can measure how effective client testimonials are 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 understanding what visitors are doing on your pages.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your sites to track visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins
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 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 can then send users to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add client testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into your pages and posts using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you add 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 business logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also provides users with a “pro” version with additional features and technical support.
Visit this site to learn more about this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your blog. You can insert testimonials content via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget makes loads more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and technical support.
Visit this site to download this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium WP plugin that offers many great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site for more information about the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Customer reviews and testimonials 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 or customers, and start publishing these on your website or blog.
Additional Info
The articles below are a great source of 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content for your 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 completely FREE!
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