Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, only to get the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that trying to generate new business can be very hard and frustrating. Just trying to remain in business 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 digital and social-driven economy, ignoring what consumers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what your customers may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your customers say about your products and services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be used in your content.
In this article, we’ll show you how to convert more visitors into prospects using profit-boosting customer testimonials.
Testimonials And Consumer Reviews
The great, legendary showman Phineas Taylor 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 genuine reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers is existing users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new customers than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews and testimonials from their clients!
Customer testimonials and user reviews are fantastic for building credibility for your business.
Studies conducted by many marketing research firms all seem to point to the same conclusion: adding customer testimonials and consumer reviews to your sales information helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about products and services, helps users select products and helps increase sales conversions.
Below are just some of the findings available to support this:
- According to research 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 user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding User Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
Clearly, you should be adding positive testimonials and reviews from extremely satisfied clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your site.
Testimonials and consumer reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both in a negative as well as positive way.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could post updates on Facebook about a bad experience they’ve just had using your products 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 vitally important to your online business success.
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 to worry about it) could be seriously causing damage to your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that lets you legally and ethically manage user reviews:
Tips For Creating User Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing strategy. When you include responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show others exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help your visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and facilitate the sales process.
Below are some useful tips on creating customer testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: 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 site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are far more powerful and memorable than just providing statistical facts. Being able 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 presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” the customer service has been and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add customer 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 add a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting your product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your support before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “As a direct result of using your services, we grew our revenue by an additional $70,252 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution has helped us grow our sales?” If possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales 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.
- Avoid using the same client testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best 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 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 powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your ideal customers.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If someone posts fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, ask them permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Only use genuine testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients
Just Ask
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. 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing your service.
- Include a field for entering testimonials in all client surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next visit clients or hand over a completed job 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 your viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to record their positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. Whenever 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 written – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and let them know they are completely free to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To Their Site
Offer to post a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for 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 list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a periodic auto responder message. This should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to use 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 to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials that become part of your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person providing 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 or profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section throughout your content sections.
Practical 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. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to understanding what visitors are doing on your pages.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your site to understand visitor behavior here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then refer customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you publish a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, their business logo, etc.
The plugin also provides a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.
To download the plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your web site. You can insert testimonials via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
The plugin comes with added features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.
Visit this site to download and use this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that provides many great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site for more information about using this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Customer reviews and client testimonials 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing clients, and publish positive content about your business on your web site.
Additional Info
For additional sources of information and resources on creating engaging testimonials refer to 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 that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your 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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