Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new customers can be confusing, frustrating and hard. Just trying to survive in business takes up 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, ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what consumers may be saying online about your business!
You could be doing your business a disservice if you are not boosting the positive things your customers are saying about your services or products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be added to your content.
In this article, you’ll learn how to turn more visitors into qualified leads with awesome user testimonials.
Testimonials And Customer Reviews
Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, the great American showman and businessman, is often quoted as having stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Testimonials and reviews quoted directly from existing customers are far more persuasive for attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is clearly a source of untapped business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … user reviews!
Customer reviews and customer testimonials are a powerful way to build credibility for your business.
Marketing studies conducted by many leading research firms all lead to the same conclusion: testimonials and user reviews reduce doubts potential customers may have about your products, help users select products and increases the number of product sales.
Here are just some of the statistics available to support this:
- According to research findings 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, consumer reviews play a significant role in creating 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 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).
(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Customer Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
Adding great reviews and testimonials to your website from very happy customers is essential for growing your business.
Reviews and customer testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both positively and negatively.
People may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could have posted disparaging remarks on a discussion thread 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 vitally important to your business success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) could be seriously harming your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your products through effective customer review management:
Improving Your Sales Conversions With Testimonials – Useful Tips
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of marketing your products and services online and should be used in your content. When you quote responses from clients in your content, you:
- Show others exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help potential customers 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.
Below are some tips on improving your conversions with profit boosting testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
- Use real photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than just providing facts and statistics. The ability 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 excellent support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use 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 mind if you were to add a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your support before offering guarantees or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our bottom line by $50,829 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution 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 they have saved, 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.
- Use different testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your site’s pages. 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 launch discount for existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide 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 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 ideal customers.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If someone posts great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your business, ask them permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use real testimonials. Prospective clients need to see that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t destroy your credibility with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Clients
Ask For Testimonials
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:
- Make a point of contacting customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing your service.
- Include a text box for testimonials in all client surveys.
- Take out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a short video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and try to capture the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy for them. Whenever a client sends you a positive email thanking you for a great service that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the juiciest sections (only use what they have written – never 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 let them know they are completely free to change 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 site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using your products or services. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking customers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to solicit testimonials that become part of your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to publish a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more customer testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page whenever you add new testimonials on your content sections.
Tip: You can measure how effective testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for observing what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your sites to understand visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your site or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages inviting users to 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 send customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are some great testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add user testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into posts and pages using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you publish a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which is great to add a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.
Visit this site to learn more about using the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your blog. You can insert testimonials via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget has plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.
Visit this site to learn more about the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WordPress plugin provides a range of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site to learn more about using the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your clients or customers, and start publishing these on your web site.
Resources
For additional sources of information and resources about creating effective users 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful 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 completely FREE!
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now