Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most small business owners know, that trying to generate new customers can be very hard, confusing and frustrating. Just trying to keep your business afloat 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 digital, mobile and social-driven economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the significance of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Ignoring what your customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a disservice if you are not boosting the positive things your customers say about your products or services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.
In this article, you’ll discover ways to improve your sales conversions with standout user testimonials.
Testimonials And Consumer Reviews
Legendary showman and businessman P.T. Barnum is often quoted as having 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 and effective way of getting your business promoted. Genuine testimonials and reviews quoted directly from satisfied clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is clearly a source of untapped business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews from their clients!
Reviews and customer testimonials are fantastic for building credibility for your services and products.
Tests conducted by many leading research companies all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your sales information pages eliminates doubts potential customers may have about buying a product or service, helps users select products and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Below are just some findings that 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 reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can translate into 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).
- 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).
(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Customer Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Clearly, you should be adding positive reviews from really happy clients to your site.
Customer reviews and customer testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both positive and negative ways.
You see, 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 discussion thread about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your employees and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes vital to your success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) may be harming your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your products through effective customer review management:
Tips On Improving Your Sales Conversions With Awesome Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of marketing your products and services online and should be added to your content. When you include your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help your visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a buying decision.
Below are some practical tips on how to create customer testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. 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 so much more powerful and memorable than just providing facts and statistics. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has 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 to sell your point. Think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service when offering guarantees or providing content that helps readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “As a direct result of using your XYZ services, we have seen our revenue grow by $56,514 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ software has helped us grow our business?” Whenever possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, like how much your solution helped to increase their market share 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 in a recent business quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Use different client 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 website. Depending on 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to is a very 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 publishes a great comment on your Facebook page praising your products or services, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Don’t use fake client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are real. Don’t destroy your credibility with a false testimonial.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Always Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after performing a service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone next time you visit a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a short video testimonial/feedback interview. During your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and try to capture 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 service 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 – never 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 done this to save them time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they see fit 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 a great incentive to get clients providing a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a scheduled newsletter message. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to use 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 users to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you obtain testimonials from other members for your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to add a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section
Create a new section for customer testimonials and add a “read more testimonials …” link pointing to this section wherever you add single testimonials on your content sections.
Practical Tip: You can measure how effective customer 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 understanding visitor behavior on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your site to measure visitor behaviour here:
WordPress Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages inviting users to submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is send clients to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the 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 images with testimonials, which you can use to add a photo of the testimonial author, their business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides a “pro” version that has additional features and technical support.
To download this plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your WordPress site. You can insert testimonials using 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 has plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and developer support.
For more information about using 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.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
Visit this site to learn more about using this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
User reviews and testimonials are powerful 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 start publishing these on your website.
Resources
The articles below provide useful information on creating engaging clients 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 that will show you 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. 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