Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be very difficult and confusing. Just trying to stay in business requires 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 your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what consumers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you may also be doing your business a disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients say about your services or products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content.
In this article, you’ll learn tips for turning more visitors into prospects with profit-boosting user testimonials.
Consumer Reviews And Testimonials
Legendary American businessman and showman Phineas Taylor 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 and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting reviews from satisfied users is existing clients are far more persuasive for drawing new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews and testimonials from your clients!
Testimonials and customer reviews are effective for building credibility for your business.
Marketing studies conducted by leading firms all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding reviews and customer testimonials to your point of sale pages decreases doubts potential customers may have about products or solutions that you are trying to sell, helps with product selection and increases the number of sales.
Here are just some of the statistics available to support this:
- According to a study by eVoc Insights, an organization that researches and measures user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a web site if it has ratings and 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 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding Consumer Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Clearly, you should be adding great reviews from really happy customers to your website.
User reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both in a positive and negative way.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to you, but they could have posted negative comments on Facebook or a forum about a bad encounter they’ve just had with you or 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 a significant 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) could be seriously causing damage to your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business, products or services through effective user review management:
Tips On Improving Your Conversions With Awesome Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing strategy. When you quote responses from clients in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help potential customers identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and this facilitates moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some useful tips on how to create captivating client testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try using the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps preserve the authenticity of your testimonials.
- Use photos of real people: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces draws the most 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 site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more effective and memorable than just providing facts and statistics. 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 presenting generic statements about how “excellent” your customer support was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add customer testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your customer service when offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content designed to help your readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “As a direct result of using your services, we have seen an additional revenue increase of $25,655 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution 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 by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work you have helped them save, 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.
- Avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if 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 client 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 very powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials that appeal directly to your ideal customers.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If someone posts fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your solution, send them a message asking permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Don’t use fake client testimonials. Most people can see through sites that employ copywriters to produce content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective customers need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Your 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 from clients:
- Make a point of contacting clients after 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after performing a service.
- Add a field for testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for the client and record the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write it for them. Whenever a client sends 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 written – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and let them know they are completely free to change what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To The Source
Offer to add a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients providing you with a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder messages. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your products. Use words like “I need a quick favor” 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 product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to request testimonials for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (and offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section wherever you plan to display new testimonials on your site.
Useful Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your 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 measuring what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your website to understand visitor behaviour here:
- Measuring Visitor Behavior On Your WordPress Site Using Analytics Software – Heat Map Tracker Review
Using Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages where users can submit testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then refer users to your “Testimonials” section.
Below are some great WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add customer testimonials to the 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 is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a company logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version with additional features and technical 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, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your site. You can insert testimonials content 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 makes plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and technical support.
Go here to download the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers a range of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site to learn more about using the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Testimonials and user reviews 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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing clients, and start publishing these on your website.
Resources
For additional resources on creating effective testimonials refer to 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
We also recommend subscribing to our Free Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach 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 100% FREE!
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