Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new customers can be very hard. Just trying to remain in business requires 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, ignoring what your customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what consumers 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 promoting the positive things your clients are saying about your services or products. 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 used throughout your content.
In this article, you’ll learn ways to achieve better results online using sales boosting customer testimonials.
Testimonials And Consumer Reviews
The great American showman and businessman P.T. Barnum 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting genuine testimonials and reviews from your existing customers is satisfied users are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new customers than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is clearly a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … customer testimonials and reviews!
Testimonials and reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your services or products.
Research conducted by marketing research firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews eliminate doubts potential customers may have about products or solutions that you are trying to sell, help with product selection and increases the number of product sales.
Here are just some findings that support this:
- According to a study 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 customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews play a significant role in creating an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Web site visitors who interact with both 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 Customer Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding great reviews and testimonials to your website from clients who are thrilled with your products or services is important for helping you grow your business and creating a solid online reputation.
Customer reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negatively or positively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could have posted updates on Facebook or a forum about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your sales or customer support representatives 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 an important aspect of your success.
Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) could be hurting your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business through effective user review management:
Tips On How To Create Engaging Customer Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing strategy. When you include responses from users in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help site visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates the sales process.
Here are some practical tips on how to create client testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
- Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more powerful 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 longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” your support was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials in your web content where it makes the most 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 mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your customer service when offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content that helps your readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our bottom line by $47,768 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution definitely helped us grow our sales?” If 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 they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent period, 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 a little difficult if you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on 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 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 can be a 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 content across different platforms. If you get fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Don’t use fake testimonials. Many people can tell if you are employing professional writers to write your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to see that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility with false testimonials.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from your customers:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after performing a service.
- Include a field for testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and record their positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy for them. When 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 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 edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site
Offer to add a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes the 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 auto responder broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using your services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you request testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person who provides 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 (you can offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Section
Create a new page for client testimonials and place a “more testimonials …” link pointing to this page throughout your content sections.
Practical Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your client testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to measuring what visitors are doing on your site.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your site to monitor visitor behaviour here:
Using WordPress Plugins
If you use 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 reviews and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then refer users 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 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 is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The plugin also provides a “pro” version that offers additional features and technical support.
Visit this site to learn more about this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your web site. You can insert client testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
The plugin provides added features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and technical support.
Visit this site to download the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers a range of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying 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 testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
Visit this site to download the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Client testimonials and customer reviews are powerful 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 publish positive content about your business on your site.
Additional Info
For additional sources of information and resources on creating effective testimonials read the articles below:
- 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 actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
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