Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes 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, mobile and social media-driven economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the effect of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what your customers may be saying online about your business!
You could be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients say about your products or services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be included in your content.
In this article, we’ll show you tips for creating better results online using sales boosting customer testimonials.
Testimonials And Client Reviews
The great American showman and successful promoter Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum 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. Quoting genuine testimonials from your existing customers is satisfied customers are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing 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 … customer reviews!
Consumer reviews and testimonials are a powerful way to build credibility for your services or products.
Tests conducted by many leading research firms all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews help decrease doubts potential customers may have about products or services, help with product selection and help increase sales conversions.
Below are just some findings that support this:
- According to research by eVoc Insights, an organization 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, customer reviews play a significant role in creating an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can translate into 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).
- 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 Customer Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Clearly, you should be adding testimonials and reviews from extremely satisfied clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your site.
Testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both positive and negative ways.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to you, but they could have posted disparaging remarks on a discussion thread about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had using your products and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes an essential part of your online 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 to worry about it) could be harming your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business, products or services through effective user review management:
Tips On Improving Your Sales With Effective User Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of marketing your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy. When you include 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 site visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Here are some tips on creating testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use real photos: Marketing tests show that using images of people’s faces draws the most attention of visitors on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more effective and captivating than simply providing facts and statistics. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” the customer support has been and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add testimonials to your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your support before offering a money-back guarantee or providing content that helps readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “Since installing XYZ software, we have noticed our sales grow by $43,404 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software 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 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, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Use different client testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best 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 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 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 really powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If someone posts a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your products or services, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Don’t use fake client testimonials. Most people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective customers need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a false testimonial.
How To Get Customer Testimonials
Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after 90 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing a service.
- Include a text box for entering testimonials in client surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and record the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. Whenever a client sends you a positive email thanking you for a great job 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 – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site
Offer to add a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients providing you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real 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 after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your product, service or 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 them for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you obtain testimonials that become part of your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (and offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more client testimonials …” link to your main testimonials page throughout your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for measuring what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your site to monitor visitor behaviour here:
Using WordPress Testimonial Plugins
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 plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you then send customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Below are some great testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add client testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.
Visit this site to download and use 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 website. 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 comes with a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and developer support.
Go here to download this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WP plugin offers a range of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, 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.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
User 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 or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your site.
Additional Info
For additional resources on creating effective testimonials see these articles:
- 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality 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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