Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that generating new customers can be quite hard. Just trying to stay in business takes 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 media-driven economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the significance of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.
Ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
You are also doing your business a great disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your customers are saying about your products or services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be used throughout your content.
In this article, you’ll learn tips for turning more visitors into qualified prospects using awesome user testimonials.
Client Reviews And Testimonials
P.T. Barnum, the great American showman and businessman, 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. Reviews from your existing clients are far more persuasive for attracting new clients than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is clearly a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … testimonials and reviews from your clients!
Testimonials and reviews are great for building credibility for your services or products.
Tests conducted by leading research companies all point to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews reduce doubts potential customers may have about a specific product, help with product selection and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Below are just some findings that support this:
- According to research findings 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, customer reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer 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).
(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Consumer Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding great reviews and testimonials to your website from people who are delighted with your products or services is important for growing your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Testimonials and customer reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both in a positive and negative way.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could be posting disparaging remarks on a forum about a bad experience they’ve just had using your products 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 part of your online success strategy.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) could be causing damage to your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that can help you avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business through effective user review management:
Creating Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing strategy. When you quote 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 site visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some tips on how to create client testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try using the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than simply providing statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about how “excellent” your support was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials to your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your support when offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our bottom line by $40,278 in the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution definitely 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 of work 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.
- Vary the client testimonials on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on 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 clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you choose 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become can be an extremely powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials that speak directly to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint across different platforms. If someone publishes great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Only use real client testimonials. Your prospects need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with false testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers
Just Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for requesting testimonials from customers:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after performing a service.
- Add a text box for entering testimonials in all your client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a short video testimonial/feedback interview. During your video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and try to record their positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. When a client sends you positive written feedback 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 shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to save them time and let them know they are completely free to modify what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To The Source Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide 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 subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a regularly-spaced auto responder broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using your products or services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” 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 that become part of your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is 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 website (once again, you can offer to publish a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more client testimonials …” link to this page throughout your content sections.
Practical Tip: You can measure how effective customer testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to monitoring visitor behavior on your site.
We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your sites to track visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your website or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages where users can submit reviews and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is send users to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into your pages and posts 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 for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also comes with a “pro” version that offers additional features and technical support.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your website. You can insert testimonials 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 provides extra features via a premium version, including built-in functions for better search engine results and plugin support.
Visit this site to download this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin 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 slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
To download this plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Customer reviews and 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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your clients, and start publishing these on your website or blog.
Resources
For additional resources on creating effective clients testimonials read 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 actionable information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, 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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