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, and getting the exact same results? As most business owners know, that generating new customers can be difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat 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 and social media-driven economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the significance of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are talking about your business.
Don’t ignore what users may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you may also be doing your business a great disservice if you are not promoting the positive things your clients are saying about your products or services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.
In this article, you’ll discover how to convert more visitors into qualified prospects with highly effective customer testimonials.
Client Reviews
Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, legendary showman and successful promoter, is often quoted as having said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-driven content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting genuine reviews from satisfied customers is satisfied clients are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new customers than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … client reviews!
Customer reviews and customer testimonials are a terrific way to build credibility for your business.
Research conducted by many marketing research firms all point to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials reduce doubts potential customers may have about buying your product, help users select products and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Here are just some findings that support this:
- According to a study by eVoc Insights, an organization 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 reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, 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.
- Web site visitors who interact with both 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 – Online Reputation Management
Adding reviews and testimonials to your website from people who are thrilled with your services is essential for growing your business online.
Testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both positive and negative ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could be posting disparaging remarks on a forum about a bad encounter they’ve just had with you or your business and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes important to your online success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need to worry about it) could be seriously hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your products through effective customer review management:
Tips On Improving Your Conversions With Meaningful User Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy. When you include your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help potential customers identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a buying decision.
Here are some useful tips on how to create effective customer testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more effective and memorable than just providing statistical facts. The ability 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 presenting generic statements about excellent service and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add testimonials in your site copy where it best makes 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 retails for before posting your 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 support when offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our profits by $73,667 during the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ product definitely helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits or reduce their costs in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work 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 client testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out or have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on 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 launch discount for existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you choose 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become is a powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If someone publishes great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your products or services, send them a message asking permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Don’t use fake client testimonials. Your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients
Ask For Testimonials
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.
Here are some tips for requesting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
- Add a text box for entering testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next visit 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 brief video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to capture the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If 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 – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the 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 edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To The Source Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients providing you with a testimonial. It also makes the 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 subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in a periodic email message. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to measure the impact of using 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 customers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to solicit testimonials that become part of your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person who provides 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 or profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Page On Your Site
Create a new section on your site for client testimonials and place a “more client testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page wherever you are adding small blocks of testimonials on your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure how effective 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 observing visitor behaviour 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 For WordPress
If your website or blog is powered by 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 testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer clients to your “Testimonials” section.
Below are some great WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you publish a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The plugin also comes with a “pro” version with additional features and developer support.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your site. You can insert testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
The plugin has loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.
To download and use this plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers many 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.
Visit this site to download this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Client testimonials and customer reviews are great sources of content that can help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing customers, and publish positive content about your business on your site.
Additional Info
For additional resources on creating effective testimonials see the articles below:
- 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 web site, save money creating high-quality 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 100% FREE!
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