Building 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 disappointing results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new customers can be hard. Just trying to keep your business afloat requires a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.

In today’s digital and social media-driven economy, ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

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

By the same token, you could be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t publish the positive things your clients are saying about your services and products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of marketing your products and services online and should be included in your content.

In this article, we’ll show you how to convert more visitors into qualified leads with more effective client testimonials.

Testimonials And Client Reviews

Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary showman and businessman, once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting genuine testimonials and reviews from existing customers is existing customers are far more persuasive for drawing new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.

There is clearly an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … customer reviews and testimonials!

Customer testimonials and reviews are great for building credibility for your products or services.

Research conducted by leading marketing research firms all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding user reviews and customer testimonials to your point of sale pages reduces doubts potential customers may have about buying particular products or services, helps users select products and helps increase sales.

Here are just some statistics that support this:

• According to research 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 site if it has ratings and user reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Website 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 user-generated content (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).

(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)

Adding Customer Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation

Adding great reviews to your website from customers who are delighted with your products or services is important for helping you grow your business and creating a solid online reputation.

Customer testimonials and customer 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 services directly to your face, but they could be posting disparaging remarks on Facebook, or a forum or discussion group about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with your services and this could be costing you business.

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

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

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

• Manage Poor Customer Feedback With Power Online Reviews

Improving Your Sales With Testimonials – Useful Tips

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of marketing your products and services online and should be added to your content. When you include your own customer responses in your content, you:

• Show others exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help solve for them and how easily it can do this.
• Help prospects identify and address their objections.
• Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a buying decision.

Below are some useful tips on creating customer testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep it ‘real’.
• Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
• Tell a powerful story: Stories are much more powerful 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 longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about how “excellent” the customer service was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Keep it in context: Add testimonials to your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to add a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your customer service before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “Since implementing XYZ solution, we have noticed our profits increase by $34,556 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ product has helped us grow our business?” If 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 of work they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent period, 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 if you are just starting out or 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 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 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 ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become is a 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 content across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
• Never use fake testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to see that the testimonials published on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Customer Testimonials

Just Ask

When you complete a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.

Follow these useful tips for soliciting testimonials from your customers:

• Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after performing a service.
• Add a field for entering testimonials in all your client satisfaction surveys.
• Take out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to capture your client’s positive reactions and responses.
• 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 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 publish it. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and let them know they are completely free to change 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 to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.

Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to experience your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need your help” 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 product review.

Use LinkedIn

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

Create A Testimonials Page

Create a new section on your website or blog for testimonials and add a “read more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section throughout your site.

Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to monitoring what visitors are doing on your pages.

We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your site to track visitor behavior here:

• Analyzing Visitor Behavior On Your WordPress Site With Heat Mapping Tools – HeatMap Tracker Review

WordPress Testimonial Plugins

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 inviting users to submit feedback and 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 clients to your “Testimonials” page.

Below are a few useful testimonial plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you add a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use to add a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.

The Easy Testimonials plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version with additional features and developer support.

To learn more about using this plugin, visit this site:

• 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 website. You can insert testimonials content 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 has loads more features available via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and plugin support.

To download and use the plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

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

• Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
• Display options for 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 testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.

Go here to download this plugin:

• 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 your clients, and start publishing these on your site.

Resources

For additional sources of information and resources on creating engaging customer testimonials see the articles below:

• 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 actionable information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

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