Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User 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? As most small business owners know, that generating new customers can be extremely hard. 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-driven economy, you just can’t ignore the significance of what potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what clients may be saying online about your business!
You could be doing your business a disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your customers say about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content.
In this article, you will learn how to turn more visitors into qualified leads using knockout user testimonials.
Client Reviews
P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary businessman and showman, 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine reviews quoted directly from existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to 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 businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews from their clients!
Customer reviews and testimonials are a great way to build credibility for your services or products.
Studies conducted by leading research firms all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding testimonials and customer reviews to your sales information pages helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about buying your products or services, helps with product selection and increases the number of sales.
Here are just some of the stats available to 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 customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews are responsible for producing 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 user 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).
(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Client Reviews – Online Reputation Management
You should be adding positive reviews and testimonials from clients who have experienced positive results with your business to your website.
Testimonials and consumer reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both positive and negative ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could post disparaging remarks on Facebook or a discussion thread about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your representatives 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 vitally important to your online success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) could be causing damage to your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a tool for WordPress users that lets you legally and ethically manage your customer feedback:
Tips On How To Create Awesome User Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing strategy. When you quote your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help site visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and facilitate the sales process.
Here are some useful tips on creating client testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘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 story: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than simply providing facts and statistics. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about how “excellent” the customer support has been and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add customer testimonials to your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these 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 sells for before posting product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service before offering guarantees or providing content that helps readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our net profit by $36,657 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software 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 by 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 in a recent business quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Avoid using the same customer testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more 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 choose 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 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 ideal customers.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If someone posts a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your solution, send them a message asking permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Only use real client testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing professional writers to produce your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t destroy your credibility with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after performing a service.
- Include a field for testimonials in client surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next meet with 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. When recording the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and record your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. When 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 written – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link Back To The Source
Offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients providing 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 list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder mailouts. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to solicit testimonials from other members 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 receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (tip: offer to add a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section
Create a new page for customer testimonials and place a “more client testimonials …” link to your main testimonials section throughout your content sections.
Useful 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 observing visitor behaviour on your pages.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your website to measure visitor behavior here:
Using WordPress Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms 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), all you have to do is refer clients to your “Testimonials” section.
Here are some WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add client testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you publish a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.
The plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.
Go here to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free 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 Testimonials Widget plugin makes loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and developer support.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WordPress plugin offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. via 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.
Visit this site to download this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
User reviews and testimonials are powerful sources of content that help your business in terms of adding credibility, building authority, improving online reputation, and growing your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your clients, and start publishing these on your website.
Resources
The articles below provide useful information about creating effective testimonials and were 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content for your 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!
***
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org