Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that trying to generate new customers can be confusing, frustrating and very hard. Just trying to survive in business requires 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, ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

Don’t ignore what your clients may be saying online about your business!

By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you are not promoting the positive things your customers say about your products, solutions, user training, support, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing.

In this article, you’ll learn how to convert more visitors into prospects with highly effective client testimonials.

Customer Reviews And Testimonials

The great, legendary showman P.T. Barnum once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Reviews from your existing 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 opportunities for generating new business that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews from their existing clients!

Customer testimonials and consumer reviews are fantastic for building credibility for your products and services.

Marketing studies conducted by many leading companies all lead to the same conclusion: adding customer reviews and testimonials to your point of sale pages eliminates doubts potential customers may have about purchasing particular products, helps users select products and helps increase sales conversions.

Here are just some statistics that support this:

• According to a study 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, consumer reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can result in 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 User Reviews – Online Reputation Management

Adding positive reviews to your website from customers who are delighted with the results they’ve obtained by using your services is essential for creating a solid online business reputation.

User reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and impact your business both in a negative and positive way.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to you, but they could be posting negative comments on Facebook, or a discussion thread or forum about a bad experience they’ve just had with your services and this could be costing you business.

This is where online reputation management becomes important to your business success.

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

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

• Manage Your Online Reputation With Power Online Reviews

How To Create Meaningful Testimonials – Useful Tips

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 marketing strategy. When you quote your own customer responses in your content, you:

• Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
• Help prospects identify and address their objections.
• Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates the sales process.

Below are some useful tips on how to create profit boosting client testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: You should try using your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
• Use real photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces draws the attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
• Tell a powerful story: Stories are much more effective and captivating than simply providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about excellent customer service and giving “two thumbs up” service 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 they can most effectively help sell your point. Think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails 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 truly thrilled about your customer service when offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “As a direct result of using your services, we have noticed a profit growth of $80,074 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software has helped us grow our business?” 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 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.
• Avoid using the same customer testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your site. 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 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 is 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 ideal customers.
• Reprint content across different platforms. If you get great feedback on your Facebook page praising your products or services, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the content on your blog.
• Don’t use fake testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing copywriters to write your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to believe that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials From Clients

Just Ask

Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.

Here are some useful tips for soliciting testimonials:

• Contact your clients 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 your service.
• Include a field for entering testimonials in your client surveys.
• Pull out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to record their positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If 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 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 quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link To Their Site

Offer to publish a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes an 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 a scheduled auto responder broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to use your product, service or solution. 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 review of your services.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to solicit testimonials for your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Client Testimonials Page On Your Site

Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this section throughout your site.

Tip: You can measure how useful client testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for understanding visitor behaviour on your site are “heatmaps”.

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

• Understanding Visitor Behaviour On Your WordPress Site Using Analytics Software – HeatMapTracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages where users can submit testimonials.

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

Below are some great 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 testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you add a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which you can use to add a photo of the testimonial author, a business logo, etc.

Easy Testimonials also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.

Visit this site for more information about the plugin:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

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 client testimonials via 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.

To download and use this plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium WordPress plugin offers many 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 at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.

To download the plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Plugin

To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Summary …

Client testimonials and customer reviews 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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your clients, and start publishing these on your site.

Resources

The articles below are a great source of information about creating effective 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 web site, save money creating high-quality content for 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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