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 customers, only to get the exact same results? As most business owners know, that trying to generate new business can be extremely hard and confusing. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes up 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-driven economy, it’s foolish to ignore the effect of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.

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

By the same token, you may also be doing your business a disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients are saying about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.

In this article, you will learn tips for converting more visitors into prospects with meaningful user testimonials.

Customer Reviews

The great, legendary showman P.T. Barnum is often quoted as having stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine testimonials and reviews from existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing 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 small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews from your customers!

Reviews and testimonials are a terrific way to build credibility for your products and services.

Marketing studies conducted by leading companies all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding consumer reviews and testimonials to your sales pages decreases doubts potential customers may have about buying products, helps with product selection and increases conversions of visitors into sales.

Here are just some of the findings available to support this:

• According to research by eVoc Insights, a company known for researching and measuring user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a web site if it has ratings and consumer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, user reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more 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 user-generated content (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 Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management

Adding great testimonials and reviews to your site from satisfied customers is important for growing your business online and creating a solid online reputation.

Customer reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both positively or negatively.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could post disparaging remarks on Facebook or a discussion thread about a bad experience they’ve just had with your business and this could be costing you business.

This is where online reputation management becomes a vitally important aspect of your online business success.

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

See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective plugin for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business, products or services through effective customer review management:

• Learn How To Easily Manage Your Online Reputation On WordPress With Power Online Reviews

Tips On Improving Your Conversions With Engaging Testimonials

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content. When you quote your own client responses in your content, you:

• Show potential customers exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
• Help potential customers identify and address their objections.
• Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them closer to a decision to purchase.

Below are some useful tips on improving your conversions with profit boosting client testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: Try using the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
• Use photos: Marketing tests show that using images of people’s faces draws the attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
• Tell a powerful story: Stories are much more effective and memorable than simply providing facts and statistics. 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 excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Keep it in context: Add testimonials in your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service before offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “As a direct result of using your XYZ solution, we were able to grow our sales by an additional $96,679 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product has helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales 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 during a specific period, 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 if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site’s pages. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more user testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special discount for clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide 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 best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become is an extremely powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials that speak directly to your best audience demographic.
• Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If someone publishes fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your solution, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
• Only use genuine testimonials. Your prospects need to believe that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with ”made up” 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.

Follow these useful tips for requesting testimonials:

• Make a point of contacting clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 14 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after performing a service.
• Include a field for testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
• Take out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. During your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and capture their positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy and write it for them. Whenever clients send you a positive email thanking you for a great service 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 use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and invite them to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link Back To The Source

Offer to publish a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.

Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a scheduled newsletter message. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the effect of using your services. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to solicit testimonials that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (once again, you can offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).

Create A Client Testimonials Section

Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more customer testimonials …” link to this page throughout your content sections.

Useful Tip: You can measure how useful testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for understanding visitor behavior on your pages are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your site to predict visitor behavior here:

• Spy On Your WordPress Site Visitors With Analytics Software – Heat Map Tracker Review

Using Testimonial Plugins

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 reviews and testimonials.

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

Here are a few useful WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into your pages and posts using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you insert a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, their company logo, etc.

The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that offers additional features and developer support.

Go here to download and use this plugin:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your WordPress 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.

The plugin comes with extra features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.

Go here to download the plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium plugin offers many great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
• Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid 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 colors, font types and more.

To download 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 Summary …

Testimonials and user reviews are powerful sources of content that can 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 start publishing these on your website or blog.

Resources

The articles below provide useful information about creating engaging clients testimonials and were also used when researching 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

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