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? As most business owners know, that trying to generate new customers can be hard. Just trying to remain in business takes a lot of your time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.
In today’s web-based and social-driven economy, ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you don’t publish the positive things your customers say about your services and products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content.
In this article, we’ll show you how to convert more visitors into qualified leads with captivating user testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
Legendary American businessman and showman Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum is often quoted as having stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful and effective way of promoting your business. Quoting testimonials from satisfied clients is satisfied clients are far more persuasive when it comes to 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 small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … consumer testimonials and reviews!
Reviews and testimonials are a great way to build credibility for your services or products.
Tests conducted by many leading firms all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews decrease doubts potential customers may have about buying a particular product, help users select products and help increase the number of 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 site if it has ratings and user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews play a significant role in creating 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding User Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management
Adding reviews to your website from people who are delighted with the results they’ve obtained by using your services is important for helping you grow your business and creating a solid online reputation.
Reviews and testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both positively and negatively.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could be posting disparaging remarks on Facebook about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had using your products and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes vitally important to your online business success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need to worry about it) may be causing damage to your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple tool for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your services through effective user review management:
Tips For Creating Client Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content. When you quote responses from clients in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help prospects identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate the sales process.
Here are some tips on how to create meaningful user testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are so much more powerful and memorable than simply providing facts and statistics. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about excellent customer support 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 best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your customer service before offering a money-back guarantee or providing content that helps your readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our sales by $69,751 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software has helped us grow our sales?” If 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 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.
- Vary the customer testimonials on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using 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 launch 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 ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to can be a 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 content across different platforms. If someone posts a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your solution, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use genuine client testimonials. Your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t destroy your reputation with a false testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Customers
Just Ask
When you complete a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Follow these useful guidelines for requesting testimonials from your clients:
- Make a point of contacting clients after 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after completing a service.
- Include a text box for testimonials in all your client surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit a client or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, explain to viewers what you have done for the client and record their 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 written – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to help them save time and let them know they are completely free to modify what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site
Offer to add a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes the 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 list of subscribers, include a request 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 experience your products. 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 clients for feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you solicit testimonials for your profile. 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 for permission to reprint it on your website (and offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more client testimonials …” link to your main testimonials page throughout your site.
Useful Tip: You can measure how useful client testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for monitoring what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your sites to analyze visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms 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 send users to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add user testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into your pages and posts 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 you can use to add a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that offers additional features and developer support.
Visit this site for more information about using this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your posts and pages. You can insert 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 Testimonials Widget plugin makes plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and plugin support.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium 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.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
To download the plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.
Additional Info
The articles below provide useful information about creating engaging customer testimonials and were 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful 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 completely FREE!
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