Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? As most small business owners know, that trying to generate new business can be quite difficult. Just trying to remain 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, mobile and social-driven economy, it’s foolish to ignore the effect of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are talking about your business.

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

You may also be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your customers are saying about your products, solutions, client support, training, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included throughout your content.

In this article, you’ll learn how to get better results online using profit-boosting customer testimonials.

User Reviews

P.T. Barnum, the great American businessman and showman, once 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 getting your business promoted. Quoting genuine reviews and testimonials from satisfied clients is existing customers are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.

There is an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews and testimonials from customers!

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

Studies conducted by leading marketing companies all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding reviews and testimonials to your sales information eliminates doubts potential customers may have about your product, helps users select products and helps increase conversions of visitors into sales.

Below 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 web site if it has ratings and reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Web 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 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 Consumer Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation

Clearly, you should be adding positive reviews from really happy customers to your site.

User reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both in a negative as well as positive manner.

People may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to your face, but they could be posting updates on Facebook or a user group about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your sales or customer support 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 success strategy.

Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even realizing this.

See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that lets you legally and ethically manage user reviews:

• Managing Negative User Reviews With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Creating Customer Testimonials – Useful Tips

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing. When you quote your own user responses in your content, you:

• Show others exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
• Help potential customers identify their objections and address these.
• Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates the sales process.

Below are some useful tips on how to create client testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: You should try using your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
• Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
• Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more powerful and memorable 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 generalized statements about how “excellent” your support has been and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Keep it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials to your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help to 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 sells for before posting your service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your customer service before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping us grow our profits by $60,613 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ product definitely helped us grow our business?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their market share 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 in a recent financial quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Avoid using the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site’s pages. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more client testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch discount for clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you choose 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 ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become 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 testimonials across different platforms. If someone posts a great comment on your Facebook page praising your business, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
• Never use fake testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing professional writers to write your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials

Ask For Testimonials

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.

Follow these useful tips for requesting testimonials:

• Contact your clients after 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing a service.
• Add a text box for testimonials in your client surveys.
• Take out your phone when you next meet with a client or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and record their positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy and write it for them. If 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 – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have done this 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 Post A Link To Their Site Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial

Offer to add a link back 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 real and can be verified.

Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a periodic newsletter broadcast. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to use your products. 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 customers for feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you request testimonials from other members 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 for permission to reprint it on your site (once again, you can offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Client Testimonials Page

Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page whenever you add new testimonials on your content sections.

Useful Tip: You can measure how effective user testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for measuring visitor behaviour on your site are “heatmaps”.

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

• Analyzing User Behaviour On Your WordPress Site With Heatmapping Tools – Heat Map Tracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

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

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

Check out the plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

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

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

Go here for more information about the plugin:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress 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 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.

Testimonials Widget offers added features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and developer support.

Go here to download the plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium plugin offers a range 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 sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. via 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.

For more information about using this plugin, go here:

• 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 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 your customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website.

Resources

For additional information on creating engaging testimonials see 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 show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for 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 completely FREE!

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