Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that generating new business can be very difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat 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 web-based and social-driven economy, ignoring what clients 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!
You could be doing your business a disservice if you are not promoting the positive things your customers say about your solutions, client training, support, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included in your content.
In this article, you’ll learn ways to improve your visitor-to-sales conversions with captivating customer testimonials.
Testimonials And Consumer Reviews
The great, legendary showman and successful promoter Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum 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. Quoting testimonials from satisfied clients is satisfied users are far more persuasive for drawing new customers 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 … reviews and testimonials from existing customers!
Reviews and testimonials are terrific for building credibility for your products or services.
Research conducted by many leading marketing research companies all point to the same conclusion: adding customer testimonials and user reviews to your site reduces doubts potential customers may have about products, helps with product selection and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Below are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to research findings 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 reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer 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.
- Website 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 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding User Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Clearly, you should be adding great reviews and testimonials from customers to your site.
Testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both positive and negative ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could have posted disparaging remarks on Facebook or a discussion thread about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had with your services 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 aspect of your online business success.
Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) may be hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business, products or services through effective customer review management:
Tips For Creating Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be included in your content. When you include your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help to 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 aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some useful tips on improving your sales with compelling user testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are far more powerful and memorable than simply providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a far more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about excellent service and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add customer testimonials to your web content where it makes the most 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 your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your customer service when offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “As a direct result of using your XYZ software, we were able to grow our sales by $60,771 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ product 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 in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours 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.
- Use different client testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your web 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 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 target audience 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 across different platforms. If someone posts fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your customer service, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing professional writers to create your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients
Just Ask
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.
Here are some tips for requesting testimonials from your customers:
- Contact clients after 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
- Add a text box for entering testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and capture their positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. Whenever 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 best sections (only use what they have given you – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create 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 help them save time and invite them to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site
Offer to add a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.
Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder mailouts. Preferably, this should be done after your customers have had a chance to use your 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 feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you request testimonials for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Page
Create a new page for testimonials and place a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this section throughout your content sections.
Useful 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 the testimonial content. A great tool for observing visitor behaviour on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your site to observe visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your site or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages where users can submit testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then refer users to your “Testimonials” page.
Below are some plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add user testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version with additional features and technical support.
Go here for more information about using the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your WordPress site. You can insert user testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
The plugin provides extra features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and technical support.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium WP plugin that provides a range 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 at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site for more information about using the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
User reviews and 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your clients or customers, and start publishing these on your site.
Resources
The articles below are a great source of information about creating engaging testimonials and were 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site 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 completely FREE!
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