Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, only to get the exact same results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding effective ways to generate new business can be confusing, time-consuming and really hard. Just trying to survive in business 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 online and social media-driven economy, you just can’t ignore the effect of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are talking about your business.
Ignoring what your customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you could be doing your business a disservice if you don’t publish the positive things your clients are saying about your products or services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing strategy.
In this article, we’ll show you how to improve your visitor-to-lead conversions using meaningful user testimonials.
Testimonials And Customer Reviews
The great, legendary showman and successful promoter Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum is often quoted as having stated 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 and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting reviews and testimonials directly from existing users is existing customers are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … testimonials and reviews from their satisfied clients!
Testimonials and consumer reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your products and services.
Research conducted by leading marketing companies all point to the same conclusion: adding reviews and customer testimonials to your sales pages decreases doubts potential customers may have about buying products or services, helps users select products and helps increase sales.
Here are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to research findings 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 site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user 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 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 Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding reviews and testimonials to your website from very satisfied customers is essential for growing your business.
Testimonials and user reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negative and positive ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could post negative comments on Facebook about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had using your products and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes vitally important to your success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) could be seriously hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective tool for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your products through effective user review management:
Tips On Improving Your Sales Conversions With Sales Boosting Client Testimonials
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. When you include your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show other users exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help potential customers identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a buying decision.
Here are some tips on creating profit boosting testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps preserve the authenticity of your testimonials.
- Use photos of real people: 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 powerful story: Stories are so much more powerful and memorable than simply providing statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a far more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about excellent service and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use 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 will have on your visitor’s perception if you were to present 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 presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service when offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “Since installing XYZ solution, we have noticed an additional profit increase of $47,025 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution definitely helped us grow our sales?” 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.
- Vary the client testimonials on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your website. Depending on the nature of 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 is a 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 someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, send them a message asking permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Don’t use fake testimonials. Your potential clients need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers
Ask
When you complete 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 from your clients:
- Contact your clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing your service.
- Add a text box for entering testimonials in all client surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next meet with 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 very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and record your client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy for them. When clients send you a positive email thanking you for a great service that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the juiciest sections (only use what they have written – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the 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 change what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To The Source
Offer to post a link back to their website 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 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. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to use your solution. Use words like “I need your help” 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.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you request testimonials for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is 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 (you can offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Page On Your Site
Create a new page for customer testimonials and place a “read more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page throughout your site.
Practical 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 observing what visitors are doing on your site.
We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your site to monitor visitor behavior here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages where users can submit testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer customers to your “Testimonials” section.
Here are a few useful testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add customer testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into your pages and posts 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, their logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.
Visit this site to learn more about this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your posts and pages. You can insert 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 plugin offers a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
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 your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
Go here for more information about using this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Client testimonials and customer reviews 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 existing clients, and start publishing these on your site.
Resources
For additional resources on creating effective testimonials read these 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful 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 completely FREE!
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