Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new customers can be quite hard, time consuming and frustrating. Just trying to remain in business takes 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, you just can’t ignore the impact of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.

Ignoring what users may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

You may also be doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your clients say about your products or services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.

In this article, we’ll show you tips for turning more visitors into prospects with powerful user testimonials.

Testimonials And Customer Reviews

P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary showman and successful promoter, is often quoted as having said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine testimonials from existing users are far more persuasive when it comes to 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 businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews from existing customers!

Testimonials and reviews are a fantastic way to build credibility for your business.

Research conducted by leading marketing companies all point to the same conclusion: adding testimonials and consumer reviews to your sales information helps decrease doubts potential customers may have about buying products or services that you are trying to sell, helps with product selection and helps increase sales conversions.

Below are just some of the statistics available to support this:

• According to a study by eVoc Insights, a company 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 result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Site visitors who interact with both consumer 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).

(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)

Adding User Reviews – Online Reputation Management

Clearly, you should be adding positive reviews and testimonials from satisfied clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your website.

Customer testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both in a negative and positive way.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to your face, but they could post negative comments on Facebook or a forum about a bad 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 an essential part of your success strategy.

Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) could be seriously hurting your business without you even being aware of this.

See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your services through effective customer review management:

• Manage Poor User Reviews In WordPress With Power Online Reviews Plugin

How To Create User Testimonials – Useful Tips

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. When you quote your own client responses in your content, you:

• Show others 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 potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a decision to purchase.

Below are some useful tips on how to create knockout user testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
• Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
• Tell a story: Stories are far more powerful and captivating than providing mere statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue 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 all of us have heard a “million times” before.
• Keep it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials in 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 can create on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting your price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your customer service when offering a money-back guarantee or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our net profit by $32,215 during the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ product has 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 sales 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 during a specific business quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Vary the testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many 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 testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch 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 really 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 ideal customers.
• Reprint content across different platforms. If someone publishes fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your customer service, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
• Only use genuine client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with false testimonials.

How To Get Client Testimonials

Always Ask For Testimonials

If you have just completed a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.

Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials:

• Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after performing a service.
• Include a text box for entering testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
• Pull out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and try to capture their positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy for them. When clients send you positive written feedback that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the best sections (only use what they have written – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have already prepared something to save them time and let them know they are completely free to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link Back To Their Site

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.

Add Testimonial Requests To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to experience your products or services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to solicit testimonials from other members for your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).

Create A Client Testimonials Page

Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “more client testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page wherever you have displayed new testimonials on your site.

Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your customer testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for measuring what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to measure visitor behavior here:

• Predicting Visitor Behaviour On Your WordPress Site Using Analytics Software – HeatMap Tracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages where users can submit testimonials.

Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then send clients to your “Testimonials” page.

Check out the testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add 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 an image with each testimonial, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.

Easy Testimonials also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.

To learn more about using this plugin, visit this site:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your site. You can insert 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 more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and developer support.

To download the plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium WordPress plugin provides many 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, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
• Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.

To download this plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials WordPress Plugin

To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

User reviews and 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.

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 and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

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