How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, only to get the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that generating new customers can be difficult and time-consuming. Just trying to keep your business afloat requires a lot of 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, it’s foolish to ignore the effect of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are talking about your business.

Ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

You are also doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients are saying about your services and products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content.

In this article, we’ll show you ways to achieve better results online using meaningful user testimonials.

Client Reviews And Testimonials

Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary showman, is often quoted as having stated 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 and testimonials from existing 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 clearly a source of untapped business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … customer testimonials and reviews!

Testimonials and reviews are fantastic for building credibility for your services and products.

Research conducted by marketing research companies all point to the same conclusion: adding testimonials and customer reviews to your sales information helps decrease doubts potential customers may have about buying your products or services, helps users select products and increases conversions of visitors into sales.

Below are just some findings that support this:

• According to research findings 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 web site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can mean 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).

(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)

Adding Consumer Reviews – Online Reputation Management

Clearly, you should be adding positive testimonials and reviews from extremely satisfied clients to your site.

User reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negatively and positively.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to you, but they could have posted negative comments on Facebook about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with you or your business and this could be doing far more damage to your business than all the good work you’ve been putting into building it.

This is where online reputation management becomes vitally important to your online business 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 this.

See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business through effective user review management:

• Managing Your Online Reputation With Power Online Reviews

Tips On How To Create Profit Boosting Testimonials

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of marketing your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing strategy. When you include your own customer responses in your content, you:

• Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
• Help site visitors identify their objections and address these.
• Help prospects connect with their motivations and facilitate the sales process.

Here are some practical tips on creating user testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: Try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
• Use real photos: Marketing studies show that using images of people’s faces draws the attention of visitors on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
• Tell a powerful story: Stories are much more effective and memorable than simply providing statistical facts. Being able 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 service and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: Add testimonials to your site copy where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help to sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your 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 genuinely ecstatic about your support before offering a money-back guarantee or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful… “As a direct result of using your services, we were able to grow our bottom line by $93,719 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution definitely helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales 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 in a recent business quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Avoid using the same customer testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site’s pages. 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 existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you choose to use it.
• Appeal to your ideal 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 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 targeted to your ideal customers.
• Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If you get great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your products or services, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the content on your site.
• Don’t use fake testimonials. Your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients

Always Ask For Testimonials

Getting a testimonial from a happy client can be as simple as just asking for it.

Here are some useful tips for soliciting testimonials from your customers:

• Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing a service.
• Add a field for entering testimonials in 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 your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. When 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 for them. When a client sends you positive written feedback 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 your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial

Offer to publish a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive for 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 list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in a regularly-spaced newsletter broadcast. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to experience your solution. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, 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 positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Testimonials Section

Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more testimonials …” link pointing to this page throughout your content sections.

Practical Tip: You can measure how useful customer testimonials are by how long visitors remain 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 technology you can add to your sites to observe visitor behaviour here:

• Tracking Visitor Behaviour On Your WordPress Site With Heat Mapping Software – HeatMapTracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If your site or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages where users can submit testimonials.

Once your plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you then send clients to your “Testimonials” section.

Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you publish a list of all 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, a company logo, etc.

The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides a “pro” version that offers additional features and technical support.

To download the plugin, visit this site:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Testimonials Plugin

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your pages and posts. You can insert customer testimonials using 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 loads more features available via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and technical support.

To download this plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium 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. via a shortcode
• Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.

To download and use the plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Plugin

To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

Customer reviews and testimonials are great 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 customers or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.

Additional Info

The articles below are a great source of 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 easy-to-digest information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

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