Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, and getting the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new business can be extremely difficult. Just trying to stay in business requires a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.

In today’s digital and social-driven economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the significance of online consumer behavior, especially if they are talking about your business.

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

You are also doing your business a great disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your customers say about your solutions, client support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.

In this article, you’ll learn how to improve your sales conversions with profit-boosting customer testimonials.

Testimonials And Consumer Reviews

The great, legendary showman and successful promoter 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 and effective way of promoting your business. Genuine testimonials and reviews quoted directly from existing clients 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 clearly a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews and testimonials from your clients!

Customer reviews and customer testimonials are a powerful way to build credibility for your products or services.

Research conducted by marketing firms all seem to point to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing your products, help with product selection and help increase conversions of visitors into sales.

Here are just some statistics that support this:

• According to research findings 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 site if it has ratings and reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, user reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Web site visitors who interact with both 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).

(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)

Adding Customer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management

Clearly, you should be adding great testimonials and reviews from very happy clients to your website.

Testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both in a negative and positive way.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your products directly to you, but they could have posted disparaging remarks on Facebook, or a forum or discussion group about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your representatives 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 business and content marketing strategy.

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 harming 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 negative reviews about your services through effective user review management:

• Manage Bad User Feedback Easily With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Tips On How To Create Testimonials

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing. When you quote responses from users in your content, you:

• Show others exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily it can do this.
• Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
• Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates the sales process.

Here are some tips on improving your sales conversions with effective client testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: You should try using the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
• Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
• Tell a story: Stories are much more powerful and memorable than simply providing facts and statistics. Being able 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 support has been and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: It’s good to add testimonials to your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help you 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 can be purchased for before posting your price 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 before offering a money-back guarantee or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “As a direct result of using your services, we have noticed a net profit growth of $74,786 in the previous 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 sales or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours you have helped them save, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent period, 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 repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site’s pages. 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 target audience 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 best audience demographic.
• Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If you get fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your business, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
• Don’t use fake testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing professional writers to create your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to see that the testimonials published on your site are real. Don’t destroy your credibility with ”made up” testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials From Customers

Just Ask

Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.

Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from your clients:

• Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing a service.
• Include a field for testimonials in client surveys.
• Pull out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a short video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to capture your client’s positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If a client sends 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 best sections (only use what they have given you – don’t 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 modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link To The Source 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 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 subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to experience your products or services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

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

Create A Client Testimonials Section

Create a new section for testimonials and add a “read more testimonials …” link to this page whenever you add single testimonials on your site.

Practical Tip: You can measure how useful testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to measuring visitor behavior on your site.

We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your site to understand visitor behavior here:

• How To Measure Visitor Behavior On Your WordPress Site With Analytics Software – Heat Map Tracker Review

Using Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If your site or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages inviting users to submit feedback and testimonials.

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then send customers to your “Testimonials” section.

Below are some plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great to add a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.

The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that has additional features and plugin support.

To download this plugin, visit this site:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your blog. You can insert testimonials content 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 comes with extra features via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and technical support.

Visit this site to download the plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium plugin that offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
• Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, 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 colors, font types and more.

Go here to download and use the plugin:

• Testimonials Plugin

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

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

Customer reviews and client testimonials are great sources of content that help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your clients or customers, and start publishing these on your web site.

Additional Info

The articles below are a great source of information on creating effective customer testimonials and were also used when researching 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 that will add value to 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!

***

***