How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, only to get the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be difficult. Just trying to survive in business 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 digital, mobile and social-driven economy, you cannot afford to ignore the effect of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you may also be doing your business a great disservice if you are not boosting the positive things your clients say about your services or products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing.
In this article, you’ll discover ways to improve your visitor-to-sales conversions using knockout client testimonials.
Customer Reviews
P.T. Barnum, legendary American showman and businessman, 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. Testimonials and reviews from satisfied clients are far more persuasive for attracting new clients than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews from their customers!
Consumer reviews and customer testimonials are terrific for building credibility for your business.
Research conducted by leading marketing firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews help reduce doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products or services that you are trying to sell, help with product selection and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Below are just some findings 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 web site if it has ratings and reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Web 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 User Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding reviews and testimonials to your site from delighted customers is important for helping you grow your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both positively and negatively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could be posting damaging words on Facebook or a discussion group about an unpleasant 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 vitally important to your success.
Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) could be seriously hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that lets you legally and ethically manage customer reviews:
Tips On How To Create Standout Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included in your content. When you include your own user responses in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help potential customers identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and facilitate the sales process.
Below are some practical tips on creating customer testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: Marketing studies show 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 increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are far more powerful and memorable than just providing facts and statistics. Being able 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 generalized statements about how “excellent” the customer support has been and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add testimonials to your site copy where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help to 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 can be purchased for before posting product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your customer service before offering guarantees or providing content that helps readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful… “Since installing your XYZ product, we have seen a sales growth of $65,608 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ software helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits or reduce their costs by 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.
- Vary the testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your website. Depending on the type of business you run, 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 decide 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 ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to is an extremely 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 best audience demographic.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your business, send them a message asking permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use genuine testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to create content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Customers
Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful tips for requesting testimonials from your clients:
- Contact your clients after 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing a service.
- Add a field for testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a brief 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 the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- 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 shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have already prepared something to save them time and invite them to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link Back To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great 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 one of your newsletter broadcasts. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to measure the effect of using your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking subscribers to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you request testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is 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 (tip: offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page
Create a new page for customer testimonials and add a “read more customer testimonials …” link to this page throughout your site.
Useful Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of customer testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for measuring what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your site to understand visitor behaviour here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages where users can submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then send users to your “Testimonials” page.
Below are some great testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add client testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into posts and pages using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great to add a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version that offers additional features and technical support.
Go here to learn more about using 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 pages and posts. You can insert testimonials content via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
The Testimonials Widget plugin has loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and technical support.
To download and use this plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium WP plugin that provides plenty of 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, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
Visit this site for more information about using this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
User reviews and client testimonials are powerful sources of content that can 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 or customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.
Additional Info
The articles below provide useful information about creating engaging users testimonials and were helpful in providing research and 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content for your 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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