How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, only to get the exact same results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new business can be very hard. Just trying to survive 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 online economy, it’s foolish to ignore the significance of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting comments about your business.

Don’t ignore what your customers may be saying online about your business!

You are also doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your customers say about your products, services, user support, training, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content.

In this article, you’ll learn how to improve your sales with more effective user testimonials.

Testimonials And Customer Reviews

P.T. Barnum, the great American showman and businessman, once stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Genuine testimonials and reviews from existing customers are far more persuasive for attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.

There is clearly a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews from their users!

Customer testimonials and customer reviews are a powerful way to build credibility for your business.

Research conducted by marketing companies all point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your site helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about some products or services, helps with product selection and increases sales conversions.

Below are just some of the findings available to 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, 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.
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 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).

(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)

Adding User Reviews – Managing Online Reputation

Adding great testimonials and reviews to your site from clients who are delighted with your products or services is essential for creating a solid online reputation.

Customer testimonials and reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both negatively or positively.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could have posted negative comments on Facebook, or a discussion group or forum about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your staff members 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 vitally important aspect of 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 it) could be seriously harming your business without you even being aware of it.

See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your services through effective user review management:

Manage Poor Client Reviews With Power Online Reviews

Tips For Creating Engaging Testimonials

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

Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
Help site visitors 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 useful tips on improving your sales conversions with testimonials:

Don’t over edit: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps preserve the authenticity of your testimonials.
Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
Use the power of storytelling: Stories are far more effective and captivating than providing mere facts and statistics. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about excellent customer service and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
Keep it in context: Add customer testimonials to your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they 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 product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service before offering a money-back guarantee or providing content that helps your readers overcome their objections.
Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful: “Since using your services, we were able to increase our profits by $95,125 during the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ software has helped us grow our business?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, 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 they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate during a specific business quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
Vary the customer testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site. 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 target audience: 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 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 content across different platforms. If someone posts a great comment on your Facebook page praising your customer service, ask them permission to reprint the content on your site.
Only use real testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing copywriters to write your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials

Ask For Testimonials

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

Follow these useful tips for requesting testimonials:

Make a point of contacting clients after 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after completing a service.
Add a field for entering testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
Pull out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. During your video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to record their positive reactions and feedback.
Make it easy 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 – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and invite them to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link Back To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial

Offer to post a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great 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 A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder mailouts. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to measure the results of using your solution. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking subscribers to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials that become part of your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (tip: offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Client Testimonials Section

Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more testimonials …” link to your main testimonials page whenever you have displayed new testimonials on your site.

Tip: You can measure how effective customer testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for observing what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your website to observe visitor behavior here:

Measuring User Behavior On Your WordPress Site Using Heat Map Software – HeatMap Tracker Review

Using Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If you use 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 can then refer users to your “Testimonials” page.

Check out the testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress 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 Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you add 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 plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.

To download the plugin, visit this site:

Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your pages and posts. 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.

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

Visit this site to download and use this plugin:

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium WP plugin provides many 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 slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

To download and use this plugin, go here:

Testimonials WordPress 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 powerful sources of content that 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 clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website.

Resources

For additional information about creating effective testimonials read these articles:

We also recommend subscribing to our Free Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

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Building Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews