Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, only to get the exact same results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be very difficult and time-consuming. 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 web-based and social media-driven economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the impact of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what consumers may be saying online about your business!
You are also doing your business a disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your customers are saying about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be added throughout your content.
In this article, we’ll show you how to convert more visitors into qualified leads using standout user testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, legendary American businessman and showman, 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”. Using social proof as content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting genuine testimonials and reviews directly from existing users is existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new customers, clients or users than anything you can 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 … user reviews!
Reviews and testimonials are great for building credibility for your products and services.
Tests conducted by leading companies all lead to the same conclusion: testimonials and user reviews decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing your products or services, 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 by eVoc Insights, a company 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, user reviews can 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 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 Customer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding great testimonials and reviews to your site from happy customers is essential for helping you grow your business.
Customer testimonials and user reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negatively or positively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could be posting negative comments on a forum about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your employees and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes a vitally important aspect of 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 it) could be harming your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your products through effective user review management:
Creating Meaningful User Testimonials – Useful Tips
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content. When you quote your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show other users exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help to solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a buying decision.
Here are some useful tips on how to create knockout testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
- Use real photos: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces draws the attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more effective and memorable 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 more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about excellent 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 to your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind if you were to insert 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 clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your support when offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our profits by $22,815 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product helped us grow our business?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs 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.
- Avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your website. Depending on the nature of your business, 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 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 best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to 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 appeal directly to your ideal customers.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t destroy your credibility with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials
Just Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from your clients:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
- Include a text box for testimonials in client surveys.
- Take out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and try to record your client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write it for them. When clients send 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 juiciest sections (only use what they have given you – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have already prepared something 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 The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes the 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 a request for a testimonial in a scheduled newsletter broadcast. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to experience your solution. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking customers to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you solicit testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a new page on your web site for customer testimonials and add a “read more testimonials …” link to this section throughout your content sections.
Practical Tip: You can measure how useful 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 visitor behavior on your site.
We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your website to predict visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages where users can submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then refer customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into your pages and posts using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great to add a photo of the testimonial author, their business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version with additional features and developer support.
To download this plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, 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 specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget has plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.
To download and use this plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WordPress plugin offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
Visit this site for more information about using this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Customer reviews and client testimonials are great sources of content that 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 clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.
Resources
The articles below provide useful information on creating engaging testimonials and were used when researching 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 and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for 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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