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 business can be extremely difficult and frustrating. Just trying to survive in business takes 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, you cannot afford to ignore the impact of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what your customers may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you may also be doing your business a great disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your customers say about your products, services, customer training, support, etc. 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 how to convert more visitors into prospects using captivating customer testimonials.
User Reviews And Testimonials
Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, the great American showman, is often quoted as having stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine reviews quoted directly from satisfied clients are far more persuasive for attracting new customers than anything you 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 … reviews from your customers!
Testimonials and customer reviews are fantastic for building credibility for your products or services.
Tests conducted by leading companies all point to the same conclusion: adding customer testimonials and reviews to your site reduces doubts potential customers may have about buying your product, helps with product selection and helps increase sales.
Below are just some of the statistics available to 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 web site if it has ratings and consumer 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 translate into 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 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 Consumer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding positive reviews to your website from very happy clients is important for helping you grow your business and creating a solid online reputation.
Consumer reviews and testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both positively or negatively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could post unhelpful feedback on a discussion thread 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 part of your business and content marketing 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 to worry about it) may be seriously harming your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage user reviews:
How To Create Testimonials – Useful Tips
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content. When you include your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help your visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some practical tips on creating testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps preserve the authenticity of your testimonials.
- Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are much more powerful and memorable than providing mere facts and statistics. The ability 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 presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” your service has been and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help sell your point. Think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind if you were to add a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your support when offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our bottom line by $69,491 during 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 profits 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 during a specific financial quarter, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Use different customer testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your web pages. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more user 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 choose 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 can relate to is a 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 page praising your customer service, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Your prospects need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with false testimonials.
How To Get Customer Testimonials
Just Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these 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 performing a service.
- Add a field for testimonials in your client surveys.
- Take out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and capture your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. Whenever clients send you positive written feedback that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the juiciest 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 change what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive for clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real 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. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to experience 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 users to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you obtain 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 positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more testimonials …” link to this section wherever you have added single testimonials on your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure how effective user testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for understanding what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your website to understand visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer users to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add customer testimonials to the 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 you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their company logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also provides users with a “pro” version that offers additional features and developer support.
Visit this site to download and use this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your web site. You can insert testimonials content via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget has loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions for better search engine results and technical support.
Go here to learn more about using this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WordPress plugin provides many 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 slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
To download the plugin, go here:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
User reviews and client testimonials are powerful sources of content that can help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers, and start publishing these on your web site.
Resources
For additional information on creating effective customer testimonials see 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality 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 100% FREE!
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