Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? As most small business owners know, that trying to generate new customers can be difficult. 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 online and social-driven economy, it’s foolish to ignore the impact of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what clients may be saying online about your business!
You may also be doing your business a disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your clients say about your services or products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of marketing your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing.
In this article, you will learn how to achieve better results online using more effective client testimonials.
Testimonials And Customer Reviews
Legendary American showman P.T. Barnum once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-driven content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Genuine testimonials 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 an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews and testimonials from their existing users!
Testimonials and consumer reviews are effective for building credibility for your services and products.
Studies conducted by many marketing firms all point to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help reduce doubts potential customers may have about buying products or services that you are trying to sell, help with product selection and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Here are just some statistics 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 user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews play a significant role in creating an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can result in 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).
- 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 And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
Adding positive reviews to your website from delighted clients is essential for creating a solid online business reputation.
Consumer reviews and customer testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both negative and positive ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could post negative feedback on Facebook or a user thread about a bad experience they’ve just had with your services and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes a significant part of your success strategy.
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) may be seriously harming your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a plugin for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business through effective customer review management:
Creating User Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing. When you include responses from users in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help site visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some tips on improving your sales conversions with testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are far more powerful and captivating than providing mere statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add customer testimonials to your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help sell your point. For example, 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 your pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly thrilled about your customer service when offering a money-back guarantee or providing content that helps readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping us grow our sales by $90,282 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software helped us grow our business?” If 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 somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your website. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more 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 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 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 ideal customers.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If someone publishes fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your solution, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use genuine testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing professional writers to create your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with a false testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials
Ask
If you have just completed performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some useful tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after performing a service.
- Include a text box for entering testimonials in all client surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to record their positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write it for them. When 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 written – never 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 edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link Back To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in a scheduled email message. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to experience your services. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to obtain testimonials that become part of your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite 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 site (and offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more testimonials …” link to this section throughout your site.
Useful Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your testimonials 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 behaviour on your pages.
We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your sites to monitor visitor behaviour here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your site or blog is built using 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 plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then send users to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which can be used for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides a “pro” version that offers additional features and developer support.
Visit this site to learn more about this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your WordPress site. You can insert client testimonials via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
The Testimonials Widget plugin has plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.
Visit this site for more information about using this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that provides many 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, grid layout, list 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 colours, font types and more.
Go here to learn more about this 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 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 or clients, and start publishing these on your site.
Resources
The articles below provide useful information on creating effective testimonials and were also used when researching 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 regular training emails with actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!
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