How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be very hard, confusing and frustrating. 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, mobile and social media-driven economy, it’s a mistake to ignore the effect of what potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You could be doing your business a disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your customers are saying about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.
In this article, you’ll discover how to improve your sales conversions with engaging customer testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, legendary American showman, 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-driven content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine reviews from satisfied clients are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews from their previous customers!
Customer testimonials and reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your products or services.
Studies conducted by leading research firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews reduce doubts potential customers may have about buying your products or services, help with product selection and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Here are just some of the stats 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 web site if it has ratings and consumer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user 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 Consumer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding testimonials and reviews to your website from existing clients is important for growing your business and creating a solid online reputation.
User reviews and customer testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both in a negative or positive way.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could have posted damaging feedback on a discussion group about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your representatives and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes a vitally important aspect of your online business success.
Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) may be seriously harming your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business, products or services through effective user review management:
Creating Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included in your content. When you quote your own user responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what pains and problems your products and services can help to solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help your visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some tips on creating captivating 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 the authenticity of your testimonials.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are much more effective and memorable than simply providing statistical facts. Being able 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 using generic statements about how “excellent” the customer service was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add customer testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing 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 readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “Since using your services, we we were able to grow our sales by $93,357 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product 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 in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work 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 customer testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your website. Depending on your business, 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 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 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 that speak directly to your ideal customers.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If you get great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your business, ask them for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Don’t use fake client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to create their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Clients
Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing a service.
- Include a text box for testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next visit clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to record the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write it for them. When 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 written – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and let them know they are completely free to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To The Source
Offer to post a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients providing you with a testimonial. It also makes an 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 subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a periodic auto responder message. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to use your product, service or solution. 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 them for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you obtain testimonials from other members for your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section
Create a new page on your website for client testimonials and add a “more testimonials …” link to this section throughout your site.
Useful Tip: You can measure how useful testimonials are 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 monitoring what visitors are doing on your pages.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to predict visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your website or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages inviting users to submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then send customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Below are some great WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add client testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into your pages and posts using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, a business logo, etc.
The plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.
To download this plugin, go here:
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 blog. You can insert user 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 has loads more features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and technical support.
Go here to learn more about using this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin provides plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Customer reviews and testimonials are great 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 your customers or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your site.
Resources
The articles below are a great source of information on creating engaging users testimonials and were also helpful in providing research and 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 regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful 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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