Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, and getting the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that finding effective ways of generating new customers can be quite hard, time consuming and frustrating. Just trying to survive in business requires a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.
In today’s web-based and social media-driven economy, ignoring what consumers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your customers say about your services, solutions, client support, training, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be added to your content.
In this article, we’ll show you how to get better results online with captivating client testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
Legendary businessman and showman Phineas Taylor 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. Quoting reviews and testimonials from existing customers is satisfied clients 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 a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … user testimonials and reviews!
Customer testimonials and reviews are effective for building credibility for your products or services.
Studies conducted by many leading firms all seem to point to the same conclusion: adding consumer reviews and testimonials to your sales pages helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about purchasing a particular product, helps with product selection and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Below are just some findings that support this:
- According to a study by eVoc Insights, a company 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 consumer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Site visitors who interact with both customer 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Customer Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Clearly, you should be adding great reviews and testimonials from really happy clients to your site.
Customer testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negative and positive ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could post negative comments on Facebook about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with you or your business 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 a vital part of your business success strategy.
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) could be hurting your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that lets you legally and ethically manage your customer reviews:
Tips For Creating Knockout User Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy. When you quote responses from clients in your content, you:
- Show other users exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help your visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate the sales process.
Below are some useful tips on improving your sales conversions with client testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps preserve the authenticity of your testimonials.
- Use photos: Marketing studies show that using images of people’s faces will draw the most attention of visitors on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are much more powerful and captivating than simply providing facts and statistics. Being able 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 using generalized statements about how “excellent” the service was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have 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 sell your point. 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 service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your support before offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our net profit by $59,661 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software has helped us grow our business?” If possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits 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, 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 throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your website. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to can be a very 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 across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook page praising your products or services, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use genuine client testimonials. Your prospects need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Customers
Just Ask
If you have just completed 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 soliciting testimonials from clients:
- Contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing a service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in your client surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next 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 brief video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, explain to viewers what you have done for the client and capture your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. If clients send 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 shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to help them save time and invite them to change what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link Back To Their Site Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients providing a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real 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 broadcasts. Preferably, this should be done after your customers have had a chance to use your services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients for feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials that become part of your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (once again, you can offer to add a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Page On Your Site
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more customer testimonials …” link to this page throughout your site.
Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your client testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for understanding visitor behavior on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to track visitor behaviour here:
Useful WordPress Plugins
If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages where users can submit testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then refer clients to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are a few useful 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 a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials 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, a business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.
To download this plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or 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 plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.
To download and use this plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the 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 the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
User reviews and client 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 existing customers or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website.
Additional Info
The articles below provide useful information about creating effective 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 actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for your 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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