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 requires 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, ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your clients are saying about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included in your content marketing.
In this article, you’ll discover tips for turning more visitors into qualified prospects using engaging user testimonials.
Testimonials And Client Reviews
The great, legendary businessman and showman P.T. Barnum once said 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 and effective way of getting your business promoted. Reviews quoted directly from existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new customers, clients or users than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is clearly a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … client reviews and testimonials!
Testimonials and reviews are a powerful way to build credibility for your services and products.
Studies conducted by many leading research companies all point to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials eliminate doubts potential customers may have about purchasing your product, help users select products and increases sales conversions.
Here are just some of the statistics available to support this:
- According to research by eVoc Insights, a company that researches and measures user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has ratings and consumer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Customer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Clearly, you should be adding positive reviews and testimonials from really happy clients to your site.
Testimonials and consumer reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both in a negative and positive manner.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could be posting negative comments on Facebook or a forum about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your sales or customer support representatives and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes an integral part of your business and content marketing strategy.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) may be harming your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business through effective customer review management:
Tips For Creating Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing strategy. When you quote responses from clients in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help your visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates the sales process.
Below are some practical tips on how to create testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are far more effective and captivating than just providing statistical facts. 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 generic statements about excellent support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: It’s good to add testimonials to your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your customer service before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “Since using your services, we have seen a revenue growth of $25,902 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software 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 by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work they have saved, 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 client 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 using the same testimonial everywhere on your site’s pages. 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 launch 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 ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become 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 across different platforms. If you get fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your business, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Don’t use fake client testimonials. Your potential clients need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Customer Testimonials
Ask
If you have just completed a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing your service.
- Add a field for testimonials in your client surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a brief video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, describe to your 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. If a client sends you a positive email thanking you for a great job that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the best sections (only use what they have given you – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link Back To The Source
Offer to add a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an 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 a periodic newsletter message. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to measure the impact of using your products. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and 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 (you can offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a new page on your website or blog for testimonials and add a “read more customer testimonials …” link to this section wherever you display new testimonials on your content sections.
Tip: You can measure how useful client testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for observing visitor behaviour on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your site to analyze visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins
If your website or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages where users can submit testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then refer clients to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add user testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into your pages and posts using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert a list of all your 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 can be upgraded to a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.
To download this plugin, go here:
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 blog. 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 comes with additional features via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and technical support.
To download and use this plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WordPress plugin offers plenty 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 sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
Go here to download this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
User reviews and 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 existing customers, and start publishing these on your web site.
Resources
For additional resources on creating engaging clients testimonials read 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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