How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that trying to generate new customers can be extremely hard. 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 web-based and social media-driven economy, ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what users may be saying online about your business!
You could be doing your business a disservice if you don’t publish the positive things your clients are saying about your services, solutions, user support, etc. 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 marketing.
In this article, you will learn tips for converting more visitors into qualified prospects with knockout customer testimonials.
Testimonials And Consumer Reviews
The great, legendary businessman and 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. Quoting testimonials and reviews from satisfied clients is satisfied users are far more persuasive for attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you can 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 … user reviews and testimonials!
Testimonials and reviews are a fantastic way to build credibility for your business.
Marketing studies conducted by leading research firms all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding customer reviews and testimonials to your sales information pages reduces doubts potential customers may have about your product, helps with product selection and helps increase the number of sales.
Here are just some statistics that support this:
- According to research 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 customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Web site visitors who interact with both customer 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding User Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
Adding great reviews and testimonials to your site from clients who are thrilled with your services is essential for creating a solid online business reputation.
Reviews and testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both in a positive as well as negative manner.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could post negative comments on a discussion thread about a bad experience they’ve just had with 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 an integral part of your online success strategy.
Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) may be causing damage to your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business through effective customer review management:
Tips On How To Create User Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of marketing your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing. When you include responses from users in your content, you:
- Show others exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help prospects identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some useful tips on how to create customer testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces draws the attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are much more powerful and captivating than simply providing 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 excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add testimonials in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to add a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your support before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our sales by $76,069 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ product definitely 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 market share 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.
- Avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your website. Depending on your business, 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 best 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 across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your solution, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Prospective clients need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with false testimonials.
How To Get Customer Testimonials
Ask
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 guidelines for requesting testimonials from clients:
- Make a point of contacting customers after 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after completing a service.
- Add a field for testimonials in your client surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for the client and capture their positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. When 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 best 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 quote them on your site. Explain that you have already prepared something 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 The Source Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients providing you with a testimonial. It also makes an 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 a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder broadcasts. This should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to use your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you request testimonials from other members for your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (tip: offer to add a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Page
Create a new page for client testimonials and place a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this section wherever you plan to add new testimonials on your content sections.
Practical Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your customer testimonials 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 what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your sites to measure visitor behavior here:
Useful 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 let you add forms to your pages inviting users to submit reviews and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then send clients to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are some WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you insert 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 company logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that has additional features and plugin support.
To download the plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your blog. 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.
Testimonials Widget has loads more features available via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and developer support.
To download this plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WordPress plugin provides a range of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display options for 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 colors, font types and more.
To learn more about this plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website.
Resources
For additional information on creating effective clients testimonials see 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
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