How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, only to get the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that trying to generate new business can be extremely hard. Just trying to stay in business takes 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 media-driven economy, ignoring what users may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

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

By the same token, you may also be doing your business a disservice if you are not boosting the positive things your customers are saying about your products, services, user support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.

In this article, you’ll discover ways to improve your visitor-to-lead conversions with standout customer testimonials.

Consumer Reviews

Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, legendary showman and businessman, 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-based content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine testimonials and reviews from satisfied users are far more persuasive for attracting new customers than anything you say about your own products or services.

There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … customer reviews and testimonials!

User reviews and testimonials are a great way to build credibility for your products or services.

Studies conducted by leading research firms all seem to lead to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials decrease doubts potential customers may have about buying products that you are trying to sell, help users select products and help increase sales conversions.

Here are just some of the statistics available to support this:

• According to research findings 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 site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer 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 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).

(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)

Adding Client Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation

Adding great reviews and testimonials to your website from people who are delighted with the results they’ve obtained by using your services is important for helping you grow your business online and creating a solid online reputation.

Reviews and customer testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both negative and positive ways.

People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could post negative comments on a forum 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 vital to your online business success.

Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) could be causing damage to your business without you even being aware of it.

See this article to learn more about a plugin for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business, products or services through effective user review management:

• Now You Can Manage Bad User Reviews On WordPress With Power Online Reviews

Tips On Improving Your Sales With 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 added to your content. When you include your own client responses in your content, you:

• Show others exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
• Help prospects identify their objections and address these.
• Help potential customers connect with their motivations and this facilitates moving them further along the sales process.

Here are some practical tips on improving your conversions with meaningful testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: Try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps to keep it ‘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 can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
• Tell a powerful story: Stories are far more powerful and captivating than providing mere statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about excellent support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials to your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service before offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful… “As a direct result of using your XYZ services, we have seen our sales grow by $92,765 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software helped us grow our business?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, 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 in a recent financial quarter, 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 somewhat difficult if you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your website. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more user 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 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 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 testimonials across different platforms. If someone posts a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your solution, ask them for permission to reprint the content on your site.
• Only use genuine client testimonials. Your potential clients need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with ”made up” testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients

Just Ask

Getting a testimonial from a satisfied customer can be as simple as just asking for it.

Follow these tips for soliciting testimonials from your customers:

• Make a point of contacting customers after 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after performing a service.
• Add a text box for entering testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
• Take out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and try to capture the client’s positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy and write it for them. Whenever 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 best sections (only use what they have written – 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 let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link Back To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial

Offer to publish a link 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 real and can be verified.

Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in a scheduled email broadcast. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to use your products or 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 clients for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials from other members for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (once again, you can offer to add a link back to their profile in exchange).

Create A Customer Testimonials Section

Create a new section on your web site for customer testimonials and add a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this section throughout your content sections.

Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your user 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 adding heatmaps to your website to monitor visitor behaviour here:

• Spy On Your WordPress Site Visitors With Analytics Software – HeatMap Tracker Review

WordPress Plugins

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

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then refer customers to your “Testimonials” section.

Check out the testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.

Easy Testimonials also provides users with a “pro” version with additional features and technical support.

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your blog. You can insert testimonials via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.

The plugin makes plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and plugin support.

To learn more about using this plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium plugin that provides plenty of great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
• Display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
• Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

Go here to download this plugin:

• Testimonials WordPress Plugin

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

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing clients, and start publishing these on your web site.

Resources

The articles below are a great source of information about creating engaging clients testimonials and were also 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 that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

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