How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that generating new customers can be confusing, time-consuming and very difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat 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 online economy, it’s foolish to ignore the significance of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You are also doing your business a disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your customers say about your services and products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.
In this article, you will learn ways to achieve better results online with highly effective customer testimonials.
User Reviews And Testimonials
Legendary American showman Phineas Taylor (Aka “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. Testimonials from your existing users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients than anything you 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 … customer testimonials and reviews!
Reviews and customer testimonials are a powerful way to build credibility for your products and services.
Tests conducted by leading research firms all seem to lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding reviews and customer testimonials to your site decreases doubts potential customers may have about buying your products or services, helps users select products and increases the number of product sales.
Below are just some findings that support this:
- According to a study 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 web site if it has ratings and consumer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- 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 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding Client Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding great reviews to your site from clients who are thrilled with your products or services is important for helping you grow your business and creating a solid online reputation.
Testimonials and consumer reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both negatively or positively.
People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could be posting disparaging remarks on Facebook, or a forum or discussion group about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your representatives and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes an important aspect of your online business success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) may be causing damage to your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a plugin for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage your customer feedback:
Tips On Improving Your Sales With Sales Boosting User Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing strategy. When you quote responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help prospects identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Below are some practical tips on creating client testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos: Marketing tests show that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than providing mere statistical facts. 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 generalized statements about how “excellent” your customer support was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials in your site copy where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting your product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your support when offering guarantees or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “Since using your XYZ services, we increased our profits by $80,002 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, 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 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 somewhat difficult when you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your site. 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 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become can be an extremely 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 fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your business, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Don’t use fake testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing professional writers to create your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to see that the testimonials published on your site are real. Don’t destroy your reputation with a false testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Clients
Always Ask For Testimonials
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 useful tips for requesting testimonials from your clients:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in all client surveys.
- Take out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and capture the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write it for them. When clients send 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 – 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 already prepared something to save them time and let them know they are completely free to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link Back To Their Site
Offer to publish a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great 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.
Add Testimonial Requests To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder mailouts. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to use your solution. 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 feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to obtain testimonials for 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 positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “read more client testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page throughout your content sections.
Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of 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 observing visitor behavior on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your site to analyze visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your website or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and 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 (make sure to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then send customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are some WordPress 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 them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you add 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, a business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides a “pro” version with additional features and developer support.
To download the plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your posts and pages. 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 plugin provides additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and developer support.
To download this plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin provides many great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding 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 for more information about the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Client testimonials and customer reviews are great 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your customers or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website.
Resources
The articles below provide useful information about creating effective testimonials and were also 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 regular training emails with actionable information 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 100% FREE!
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