How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, only to get the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that generating new business can be hard. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes up 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 economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the significance of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.
Ignoring what consumers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You are also doing your business a disservice if you are not promoting the positive things your clients are saying about your services or products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing.
In this article, you’ll learn how to achieve better results online using standout customer testimonials.
User Reviews
P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary businessman and showman, once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Reviews and testimonials from satisfied clients are far more persuasive for attracting new clients than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … testimonials and reviews from their previous users!
Testimonials and consumer reviews are effective for building credibility for your products or services.
Studies conducted by leading marketing firms all point to the same conclusion: adding customer testimonials and consumer reviews to your sales information pages helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about buying your products or services, helps users select products and helps increase sales conversions.
Here are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to a study 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 customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews play a significant role in creating an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can result in 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 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 And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management
Adding great testimonials and reviews to your website from customers is important for helping you grow your business and creating a solid online reputation.
Customer testimonials and user reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both in a positive or negative way.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could post negative feedback on Facebook or a discussion 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 a vital aspect of your online business success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that allows you to legally and ethically manage user reviews:
Improving Your Conversions With Client Testimonials – Useful Tips
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content. When you include responses from users in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help site visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates the sales process.
Here are some useful tips on how to create compelling testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
- Use real photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces draws the attention of visitors browsing 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 far 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 far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about how “excellent” your customer support was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to display a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your customer service when offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “Since using your services, we have increased our sales by $83,476 during the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ product has 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 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, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Avoid using the same client testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more client 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 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 aspire to become is a very 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 testimonials across different platforms. If you get great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your solution, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Don’t use fake testimonials. Your potential customers need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity with false testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials
Just Ask
Getting a testimonial from a happy client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from clients:
- Contact your customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 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 surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a completed project 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 your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and try to record the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. If a client sends 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 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 quote them on your site. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and invite them to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To The Source
Offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great 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.
Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in one of your newsletter broadcasts. This should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to measure 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 customers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain 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 providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Section
Create a new section for customer testimonials and place a “more client testimonials …” link pointing to this section throughout your site.
Useful Tip: You can measure how useful client testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for understanding visitor behaviour on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your website to measure visitor behaviour here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages inviting users to 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 then send customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add client testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you insert a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version with additional features and developer support.
To download and use the plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your web site. You can insert user 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 comes with a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and developer support.
Visit this site to download and use this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium WordPress plugin that offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
- Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
For more information about using the plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Client testimonials and customer reviews are great 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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your customers, and publish positive content about your business on your web site.
Resources
For additional sources of information and resources about creating engaging testimonials refer to 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
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