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 disappointing results? As most business owners know, that generating new business can be difficult. Just trying to survive in business 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 and social-driven economy, ignoring what consumers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what your clients may be saying online about your business!
You could be doing your business a great disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your customers say about your products and services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content.
In this article, you’ll learn how to improve your visitor-to-sales conversions with profit-boosting customer testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
Legendary 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 understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting genuine reviews and testimonials from your satisfied clients is existing customers are far more persuasive for drawing new clients than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews and testimonials from users!
Consumer reviews and testimonials are a terrific way to build credibility for your products and services.
Studies conducted by many leading firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews help to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about your products or services, help users select products and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Here are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to research findings by eVoc Insights, a company 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 consumer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Web site visitors who interact with both user 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding Consumer Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Clearly, you should be adding positive reviews from existing clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your website.
Consumer reviews and testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negative and positive ways.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could have posted updates on Facebook or a discussion thread about a bad 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 important to your success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business through effective customer review management:
Tips On Improving Your Sales Conversions With Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing. When you quote your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what pains and problems 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 further along the sales process.
Here are some tips on creating effective client testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces will draw the most attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are far more effective and captivating than simply providing statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized 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: Add customer testimonials in your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help to sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting your pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your customer service when offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “Since using XYZ solution, we have seen our net profit increase by $50,761 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ software has helped us grow our business?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their market share or reduce their costs by 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 financial 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 somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more customer 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 decide 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 ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become can be an extremely 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 content across different platforms. If you get fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Never use fake testimonials. Most people can see through sites that employ copywriters to create their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t destroy your reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Just Ask
Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful tips for soliciting testimonials from your customers:
- Contact clients after 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing a service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in client surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to record the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy for them. When 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 – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and invite them to change what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To The Source Wherever You Publish 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 to provide you with 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 regularly-spaced auto responder message. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to experience your services. 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 subscribers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you solicit testimonials for your profile. With LinkedIn, 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 positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section
Create a new page on your website for customer testimonials and place a “read more client testimonials …” link to your main testimonials page throughout your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for understanding what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your website to predict visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins
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 feedback and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then send clients to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add user testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.
Visit this site to download the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your website. You can insert client 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 plugin makes loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and developer support.
To download and use this plugin, go here:
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.
- Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid 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 download and use the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Client testimonials and user reviews 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing clients or customers, and start publishing these on your web site.
Resources
The articles below provide useful information on creating effective 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
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