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? Most business owners don’t need to be told that trying to generate new customers can be extremely difficult. Just trying to stay in business 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 media-driven economy, you just can’t ignore the effect of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.

Don’t ignore what customers 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 clients say about your solutions, client training, support, etc. 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.

In this article, you’ll learn ways to achieve better results online using awesome user testimonials.

User Reviews And Testimonials

P.T. Barnum, legendary businessman and showman, is often quoted as having stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful and effective way of promoting your business. Genuine reviews and testimonials from your satisfied users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting 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 small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews and testimonials from customers!

Customer testimonials and user reviews are fantastic for building credibility for your products and services.

Research conducted by many marketing research companies all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing a certain product or service, help users select products and help increase sales conversions.

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

• According to research 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 web site if it has ratings and user reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Web 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).
• 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 Client Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation

Clearly, you should be adding positive reviews from very happy clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your website.

Reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and impact your business both in a positive or negative manner.

People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could post disparaging remarks on Facebook or a user thread 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 success.

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

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

• Managing Negative Client Reviews With Power Online Reviews WordPress Plugin

Improving Your Sales With Testimonials – Useful Tips

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing strategy. When you include your own client responses in your content, you:

• Show other users exactly what pains and problems your products and services can help to solve for them and how easily this can be done.
• Help potential customers identify and address their objections.
• Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates the sales process.

Below are some practical tips on improving your sales conversions with powerful customer testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
• Use photos: Research shows 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 will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
• Tell a powerful story: Stories are much more effective and memorable than simply providing facts and statistics. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
• Keep it in context: Add 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 mind if you were to display a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your support when offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify your 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 software, we have seen our revenue increase by $79,227 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution 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 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 during a specific 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 throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your website. Depending on your business, 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 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 ideal 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 publishes fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall 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 testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to see that the testimonials published on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Client Testimonials

Just Ask

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

Here are some tips for requesting testimonials from customers:

• Make a point of contacting clients after 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing your service.
• Include a field for testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
• Pull out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and 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 best 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 quote them on your site. 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 The Source Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial

Offer to add a link back to their site 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 Testimonial Requests To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a scheduled email message. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to experience your products. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials for your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Client Testimonials Section On Your Site

Create a new page for client testimonials and add a “more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section 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. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to understanding what visitors are doing on your site.

We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your sites to monitor visitor behavior here:

• Monitoring User Behaviour On Your WordPress Site Using HeatMap Tools – HeatMap Tracker Review

WordPress Testimonial Plugins

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

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then send 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 the sidebar as a widget, or embed them 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 images with testimonials, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their company logo, etc.

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

To download and use this plugin, go here:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

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

Testimonials Widget has plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and plugin support.

To download and use the plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium plugin provides plenty of 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, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
• Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

Go here to learn more about using this plugin:

• 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 powerful sources of content that can 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

For additional sources of information and resources about creating engaging testimonials read these articles:

• 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 teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

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