Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, only to get the exact same results? As most business owners know, that finding effective ways of generating new customers can be very difficult and frustrating. Just trying to keep your business afloat 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 web-based economy, ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what customers may be saying online about your business!
You are also doing your business a disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your clients say about your services and products. 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 an integral part of your content.
In this article, you’ll discover how to convert more visitors into qualified leads with profit-boosting client testimonials.
Client Reviews And Testimonials
P.T. Barnum, the great American showman and businessman, 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. Quoting genuine testimonials and reviews from satisfied users is satisfied clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new customers, clients or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews and testimonials from clients!
Testimonials and reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your business.
Tests conducted by leading research companies all point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding reviews and testimonials to your site helps decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products, helps users select products and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Here are just some statistics that support this:
- According to research findings 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 consumer 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 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).
- 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 Customer Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding positive testimonials and reviews to your website from customers who are thrilled with the results they’ve obtained by using your products or services is essential for growing your business.
Testimonials and consumer reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both in a negative and positive way.
People may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could be posting negative comments on Facebook or a forum about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your staff members and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes vitally important to your business success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) could be harming your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that lets you legally and ethically manage user reviews:
Tips On How To Create Compelling Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing. When you include responses from users in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help site visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates the sales process.
Below are some practical tips on how to create customer testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try using the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use real photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces will draw the 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 much more powerful and memorable than providing mere statistical facts. 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 excellent support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add customer 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 will have on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your customer service before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our sales by $64,931 during the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ product definitely helped us grow our sales?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, 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 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.
- Use different customer testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or have very few clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your site’s 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 ideal 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 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 targeted to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your products or services, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Never use fake testimonials. Your potential clients need to see that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers
Just Ask
If you have just completed performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Follow these useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from customers:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing a service.
- Include a field for entering testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next meet with a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to record their positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial 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 juiciest sections (only use what they have given you – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to help them save time and invite them to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link Back To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients providing you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in a periodic newsletter message. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject 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 is a great way to 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 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 add a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “more testimonials …” link to this page wherever you are displaying single testimonials on your site.
Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of client testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for understanding what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your sites to monitor visitor behaviour here:
Using WordPress Plugins
If you use 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 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), all you have to do is send customers to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert 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, a business logo, etc.
The plugin also comes with a “pro” version with additional features and developer support.
Go here to download the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your posts and pages. 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.
The plugin has loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and developer support.
To download and use the plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
To download the plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Customer reviews and testimonials 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 customers, and start publishing these on your web site.
Resources
For additional information about creating engaging users 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will show exactly 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. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!
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