How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be difficult. Just trying to stay in business takes up a lot of 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 simply can’t afford to ignore the effect of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are talking about your business.
Ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You may also be doing your business a disservice if you don’t publish the positive things your customers say about your products or services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included throughout your content.
In this article, you’ll discover ways to improve your sales conversions with standout customer testimonials.
Consumer Reviews
The great American businessman and showman P.T. Barnum once 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. Quoting reviews directly from existing customers is satisfied clients are far more persuasive for attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … customer reviews and testimonials!
Customer testimonials and consumer reviews are terrific for building credibility for your business.
Studies conducted by many leading research firms all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews reduce doubts potential customers may have about buying products, help with product selection and increases the number of sales.
Here are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to a study 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 web site if it has ratings and user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can result in 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).
- 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 Client Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding reviews and testimonials to your site from happy clients is essential for helping you grow your business.
Testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both positive and negative ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could post damaging words on Facebook about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your employees and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes a significant part of your business and content marketing strategy.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) could be causing damage to your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a simple tool for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your services through effective customer review management:
Tips On How To Create Client Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of marketing your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy. When you quote responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show others exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates moving them further along the sales process.
Here are some practical tips on creating client testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try using the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos: Marketing studies show that using images of people’s faces draws the most attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more effective and memorable than providing mere statistical facts. The ability 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 using generic statements about how “excellent” your service has been and giving “two thumbs up” product 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 you believe these can most effectively help to sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your customer service before offering a money-back guarantee 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 us grow our bottom line by $77,505 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ software definitely helped us grow our business?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, 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 in a recent period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Use different customer testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your website. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more user 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 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 best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to can be 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 great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use genuine client testimonials. Your prospects need to see that the testimonials published on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a false testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients
Ask
If you have just completed a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some useful tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing a service.
- Include a field for testimonials in all your client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and record your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. Whenever 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 already prepared something to save them time and invite them to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link Back To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to add 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 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 subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in a scheduled email message. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your products. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to obtain testimonials from other members for your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more testimonials …” link to this section throughout your content sections.
Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of user 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 monitoring visitor behavior on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your sites to predict visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you 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), all you have to do is refer customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a 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 insert 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 business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version with additional features and technical support.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your blog. You can insert testimonials content using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
The Testimonials Widget plugin offers added features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and developer support.
Visit this site to download and use this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WP plugin provides plenty of 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. using 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 for more information about the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Client testimonials and customer reviews are powerful sources of content that can help your business in terms of adding credibility, building authority, improving online reputation, and growing your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers or clients, and start publishing these on your site.
Resources
For additional sources of information and resources on creating effective testimonials refer to 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 that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site 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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