How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that finding effective ways of generating new business can be confusing, time-consuming and difficult. 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 online and social media-driven economy, you cannot afford to ignore the significance of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.

Ignoring what consumers 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 are not promoting the positive things your clients are saying about your products, services, client support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing.

In this article, you’ll discover how to improve your conversions using knockout customer testimonials.

Customer Reviews

Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, legendary businessman and showman, 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 and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting genuine testimonials and reviews directly from satisfied customers is existing users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.

There is an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … client reviews and testimonials!

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

Studies conducted by marketing firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about buying your products, help with product selection and increases sales conversions.

Here are just some of the statistics 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 site if it has ratings and user reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, user reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can mean 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 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 – Online Reputation Management

Adding positive testimonials and reviews to your site from very happy clients is essential for creating a solid online reputation.

Testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both positively or negatively.

People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could post negative comments on Facebook or a forum about a bad experience they’ve just had using your products 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 an essential part of your business and content marketing strategy.

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

See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your products through effective customer review management:

• Managing Bad Client Reviews With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Tips For Creating Engaging Client Testimonials

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing. When you include responses from customers in your content, you:

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

Here are some useful tips on how to create 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 misspelt words in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
• Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
• Tell a story: Stories are far 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 more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about how “excellent” your support was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
• Keep it in context: Add customer testimonials in your site copy where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help 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 sells for before posting product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service before offering guarantees or providing content that helps your readers overcome their objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our bottom line by $88,037 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution has helped us grow our business?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate during a specific financial period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Avoid using the same client testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or have very few clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your web pages. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more client testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch discount for clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you choose 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 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 testimonials across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your business, ask them for permission to reprint the content on your site.
• Don’t use fake testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing copywriters to write your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility with false testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers

Ask

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

Here are some tips for soliciting testimonials:

• Contact customers after 14 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after completing a service.
• Add a field for testimonials in all your client satisfaction surveys.
• Take out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, explain to viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to record your client’s positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy and write it for them. Whenever clients send you positive written feedback 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 – don’t 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 let them know they are completely free to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link Back To Their Site

Offer to post a link back 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.

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 timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to measure the impact of using your 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 subscribers to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you solicit testimonials for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and 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 (and offer to publish a link back to their profile in exchange).

Create A Testimonials Page On Your Site

Create a new section on your site for client testimonials and add a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this section throughout your content sections.

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

We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your website to analyze visitor behaviour here:

• How To Spy On Your WordPress Site Visitors Using Analytics Software – HeatMapTracker Review

Using WordPress Plugins

If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages where users can submit testimonials.

Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer customers to your “Testimonials” page.

Here are a few useful 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. Easy Testimonials also lets you insert a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.

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

To download this plugin, go here:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your posts and pages. You can insert testimonials content via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.

The plugin offers a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and developer support.

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

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium plugin provides plenty of great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
• Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
• Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.

Go here to learn more about using this plugin:

• Testimonials 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 great sources of content that help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing clients, and start publishing these on your site.

Additional Info

For additional information about creating effective clients testimonials refer to these articles:

• 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 show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to 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!

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