Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, and getting the exact same results? As most business owners know, that trying to generate new business can be very difficult. Just trying to remain in business takes a lot of 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, it’s a mistake to ignore the significance of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your clients say about your products or services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be used throughout your content.
In this article, you’ll learn ways to improve your sales conversions using captivating customer testimonials.
User Reviews
The great American showman Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum 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 promoting your business. Quoting testimonials and reviews from your satisfied users is existing customers are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … client reviews and testimonials!
Testimonials and customer reviews are a great way to build credibility for your products and services.
Studies conducted by leading firms all seem to point to the same conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your point of sale pages eliminates doubts potential customers may have about your products, helps users select products and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Below are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to a study 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 result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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).
- 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 Consumer Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding great reviews and testimonials to your site from customers who are thrilled with your services is important for helping you grow your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Customer reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and impact your business both negative and positive ways.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could post negative comments on Facebook or a forum about a bad experience they’ve just had with your services 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 important to your online success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) may be hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that lets you legally and ethically manage customer feedback:
Tips On How To Create User Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing strategy. When you include responses from users in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help prospects identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate the sales process.
Below are some tips on improving your sales conversions with captivating testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: Marketing tests show that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors browsing 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 story: Stories are far more effective and memorable than providing mere facts and statistics. Being able 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 using generalized statements about how “excellent” your support was 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 in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your customer service before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful… “Since installing XYZ product, we were able to grow our sales by $79,077 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software helped us grow our business?” If 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 you have helped them save, 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 testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your website. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more client 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 decide to use it.
- Appeal to your best 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 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, ask them permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use real testimonials. Your prospects need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are real. Don’t destroy your reputation with false testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Clients
Always Ask For Testimonials
When you complete performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some useful tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing a service.
- Include a text box for testimonials in your client surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to capture the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. Whenever clients send 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 given you – 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 already prepared something to save them time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site
Offer to post a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.
Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a periodic auto responder message. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to use your services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them for feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you obtain testimonials from other members for your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a new section for customer testimonials and add a “more client testimonials …” link to your main testimonials page whenever you have displayed new testimonials on your site.
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. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to monitoring visitor behaviour on your pages.
We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your site to analyze visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages where users can submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you then refer users to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use 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 publish 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, a company logo, etc.
The plugin also provides a “pro” version that has additional features and technical support.
Visit this site for more information about using this 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.
The Testimonials Widget plugin provides a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and technical support.
To learn more about using the plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium WordPress plugin that offers many great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
To download and use this plugin, go here:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Client testimonials and customer reviews are powerful sources of content that help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers, and start publishing these on your site.
Additional Info
The articles below provide useful information about creating effective testimonials and were also helpful in providing research and 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 easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for 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 100% FREE!
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