How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, only to get the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new customers can be extremely difficult. Just trying to remain in business 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 online and social media-driven economy, ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

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

By the same token, you could be doing your business a disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your customers say about your products and services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be used in your content.

In this article, you’ll discover ways to improve your sales conversions with highly effective client testimonials.

Client Reviews

Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, legendary American showman and businessman, 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”. Social proof-driven content is a powerful and effective way of promoting your business. Genuine reviews from your existing clients are far more persuasive for attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.

There is a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … client testimonials and reviews!

Customer testimonials and user reviews are a powerful way to build credibility for your products or services.

Research conducted by many marketing firms all seem to lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your sales information helps decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing particular products, helps users select products and helps increase sales.

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

• According to research findings by eVoc Insights, an organization 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 reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews play a significant role in creating an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Web site visitors who interact with both consumer 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).

(Source: eConsultancy.com)

Adding User Reviews – Managing Online Reputation

Adding positive reviews and testimonials to your site from clients who are thrilled with your services is essential for creating a solid online reputation.

Customer reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and impact your business both positive and negative ways.

People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could be posting updates on Facebook, or a forum or discussion thread about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your staff and this could be costing you business.

This is where online reputation management becomes vitally important to your online success.

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

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

• Managing Your Online Reputation With Power Online Reviews Plugin For WordPress

Tips On How To Create Testimonials

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content. When you include responses from customers in your content, you:

• Show others exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
• Help site visitors identify and address their objections.
• Help potential customers connect with their motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a buying decision.

Here are some useful tips on how to create testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: Try using the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
• Use real photos: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces draws the most attention of visitors on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
• Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more effective and captivating than simply providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about how “excellent” the service was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials to your web content where it best makes 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 can be purchased for before posting your price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your customer service before offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful: “Since using your XYZ services, we were able to grow our bottom line by $33,053 in the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ product definitely helped us grow our business?” If 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 you have helped them save, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate during a specific financial quarter, 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 if you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your web 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 discount for existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to can be 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 ideal customers.
• Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If someone publishes great feedback on your Facebook page praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, ask them for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
• Don’t use fake testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers

Ask

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

Follow these useful tips for soliciting testimonials:

• Contact your customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after performing a service.
• Include a text box for entering testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
• Take out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and try to record their positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy for them. If 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 juiciest sections (only use what they have written – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your 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 like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link To Their Site

Offer to publish a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great 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.

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 clients have had a chance to experience 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 customers to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

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

Create A Client Testimonials Section On Your Site

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

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

We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your site to analyze visitor behavior here:

• How To Predict User Behaviour On Your WordPress Site With Heat Map Tools – Heat Map Tracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If your site or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages where users can submit feedback and testimonials.

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then refer clients to your “Testimonials” page.

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 them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you publish a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their company logo, etc.

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

To download and use the plugin, go here:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your blog. 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 for improved search engine results and plugin support.

Visit this site to learn more about using the plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium plugin that provides 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. by adding a shortcode
• Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

To download the plugin, visit this site:

• 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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing clients, and start publishing these on your web site.

Resources

The articles below are a great source of information about creating effective testimonials and were 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your 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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