How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new customers can be very hard, confusing and frustrating. Just trying to keep your business afloat 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, ignoring what your customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what clients may be saying online about your business!
You may also be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your customers are saying about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing strategy.
In this article, you’ll learn how to convert more visitors into qualified leads with powerful user testimonials.
Client Reviews And Testimonials
P.T. Barnum, legendary American businessman and showman, once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine reviews from your existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews and testimonials from their clients!
Reviews and testimonials are terrific for building credibility for your services or products.
Studies conducted by leading marketing firms all point to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help decrease doubts potential customers may have about a particular product or service, help users select products and help increase conversions of visitors into 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 customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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 Client Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding reviews and testimonials to your website from people who are delighted with your services is important for helping you grow your business and creating a solid online reputation.
Testimonials and user reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both negative and positive ways.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could post unhelpful words on Facebook about an unpleasant encounter they’ve just had with one of your sales or customer support representatives 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 online business success strategy.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as 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 tool for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage user reviews:
Tips For Creating Knockout Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, 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 your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly what pains and problems your products and services can help solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help your visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates the sales process.
Here are some practical tips on how to create effective testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
- Use real photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces will draw the most attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are so much more effective and captivating 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 excellent customer service and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add customer testimonials in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your support when offering guarantees or providing content designed to help your readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “As a direct result of using your XYZ services, we have noticed an additional net profit growth of $48,764 in the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution 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 market share 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 in a recent financial period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Vary the customer testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your site’s pages. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more 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 can be a 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 content across different platforms. If someone posts fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your customer service, ask them for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Only use real testimonials. Your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity with false testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials
Ask
Getting a testimonial from a happy client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these tips for requesting testimonials:
- Make a point of contacting customers after 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing your service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in client surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and capture your client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write it for them. If a client sends you a positive email thanking you for a great service 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 quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to help them save time and invite them to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site
Offer to add a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients providing a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Add Testimonial Requests To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in a periodic newsletter broadcast. This should be done after your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using your solution. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person providing 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 Testimonials Section
Create a new page on your web site for client testimonials and add a “more testimonials …” link pointing to this section whenever you are adding new testimonials on your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure how effective testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to measuring what visitors are doing on your pages.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your sites to track visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins
If your site or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer clients to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the testimonial 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 them into a Page or Post 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 can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The plugin also provides a “pro” version that has additional features and technical support.
Go here to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your blog. You can insert client testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
The plugin makes 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, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium WP plugin that provides many great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
To download this plugin, go here:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Testimonials and user reviews are powerful sources of content that help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your customers or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.
Additional Info
For additional sources of information and resources on creating effective users 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips 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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