Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most small business owners know, that trying to generate new business can be confusing, frustrating and really difficult. 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 significance of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.
Ignoring what users 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 don’t promote the positive things your clients say about your services, solutions, user support, training, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing.
In this article, you’ll discover how to achieve better results online with engaging user testimonials.
User Reviews And Testimonials
The great, legendary showman and businessman Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum once stated 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine testimonials and reviews quoted directly from existing clients are far more persuasive for attracting new clients than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews from your happy users!
Testimonials and customer reviews are effective for building credibility for your business.
Studies conducted by many leading research companies all point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding reviews and testimonials to your sales pages helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about purchasing a specific product or service, helps with product selection and increases sales.
Here are just some of the findings available to support this:
- According to research 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, customer reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- 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 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 Consumer Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management
Clearly, you should be adding testimonials and reviews from delighted clients to your website.
Customer testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both negatively or positively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could have posted updates on a forum about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had using your products 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 online reputation management, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) could be causing damage to your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that allows you to legally and ethically manage user feedback:
Creating Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing strategy. When you include responses from clients in your content, you:
- Show other users exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help potential customers identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate the sales process.
Here are some practical tips on how to create testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
- Use real photos: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces will draw the most attention of visitors on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Tell a story: Stories are so much more effective and captivating than just providing facts and statistics. The ability 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 using generalized statements about excellent support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add testimonials to your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind 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 clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your customer service before offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our revenue by $81,492 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ product definitely 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 market share or reduce their costs by 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.
- Use different client testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your web pages. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more client testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch discount for clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide 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 can relate to 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 that speak directly to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your solution, ask them for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Only use real testimonials. Your prospects need to believe that the testimonials you provide on your site are real. Don’t destroy your credibility with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Always Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials:
- Contact customers after 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing a service.
- Add a text box for testimonials in client surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a short video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and try to record their positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write it for them. Whenever clients send 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 quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to modify what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link Back To Their Site
Offer to post a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.
Add Testimonial Requests To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a periodic email message. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your solution. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking customers to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you solicit testimonials for your profile. 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 for permission to reprint it on your site (once again, you can offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page On Your Site
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more customer testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page throughout your site.
Practical Tip: You can measure how useful client 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 understanding what visitors are doing on your site.
We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your sites to monitor visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your website or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you then send customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add customer testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into your pages and posts using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you insert a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.
Visit this site to learn more about using the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your pages and posts. You can insert 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 Testimonials Widget plugin makes loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and developer support.
Visit this site for more information about using this plugin:
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, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
To download and use this plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
User reviews and client testimonials are powerful 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 start publishing these on your web site.
Resources
For additional resources on creating effective customer testimonials see 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
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