Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be quite difficult. 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 users may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what your clients may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your clients say about your products or services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be added to your content.
In this article, you’ll discover ways to improve your visitor-to-sales conversions using profit-boosting client testimonials.
Client Reviews And Testimonials
The great American showman Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum 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-based content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting testimonials and reviews directly from satisfied users is existing users are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients, customers or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … client reviews!
Reviews and customer testimonials are a great way to build credibility for your business.
Tests conducted by many leading firms all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews help reduce doubts potential customers may have about your products, help with product selection and increases sales.
Here are just some statistics 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 consumer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Site visitors who interact with both user 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 User Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding positive testimonials and reviews to your site from customers who are delighted with the results they’ve obtained by using your services is essential for helping you grow your business online.
Testimonials and reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both positive and negative ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could have posted negative comments on Facebook or a forum group about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with your services 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 significant part of your online business success strategy.
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 to worry about it) could be hurting your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective plugin for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage your customer feedback:
Creating User Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing strategy. When you quote responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some useful tips on how to create captivating user testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are much more effective 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 more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about how “excellent” the customer support was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add customer testimonials in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help to 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 product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your support before offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our revenue by $98,946 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution 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 profits 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 in a recent financial quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Use different client testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your web pages. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more 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 ideal customer: 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 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 fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your solution, ask them permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Don’t use fake client testimonials. Many people can tell if you are employing copy writers to create your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Clients
Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a happy client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these useful tips for requesting testimonials from your customers:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing your service.
- Include a text box for entering testimonials in client surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording your video, describe to 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 a client sends you positive written feedback 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 – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into 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 Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes the 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 list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in a regularly-spaced auto responder broadcast. This should be done after your clients have had a chance to experience your 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 customers to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you request testimonials from other members that become part of your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (and offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Page
Create a new page for client testimonials and add a “more testimonials …” link to your main testimonials page whenever you display blocks of testimonials on your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your 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 monitoring what visitors are doing on your site.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your site to analyze visitor behaviour here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins
If your site or blog is powered by 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 plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then send clients to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are a few useful WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you insert a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which is great to add a photo of the testimonial author, a business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that offers additional features and technical support.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your website. You can insert testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget makes plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and technical support.
To download and use this plugin, go here:
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. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
User reviews and testimonials 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers, and publish positive content about your business on your web site.
Resources
For additional resources about creating effective testimonials refer to these useful articles:
- 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 teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content for your site 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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