How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract new customers, and getting the exact same disappointing results? As most small business owners know, that finding effective ways of generating new customers can be difficult. Just trying to stay in business requires a lot of your 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 significance of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting negative comments about your business.
Ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your clients say about your products, services, user support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be used throughout your content.
In this article, we’ll show you ways to improve your sales using more effective user testimonials.
Client Reviews And Testimonials
Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, legendary showman, once stated 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 promoting your business. Quoting genuine reviews from your satisfied customers is satisfied users are far more persuasive for drawing new clients, customers or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is clearly a source of untapped business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … customer reviews and testimonials!
User reviews and customer testimonials are a powerful way to build credibility for your products and services.
Research conducted by marketing companies all point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding reviews and testimonials to your sales information eliminates doubts potential customers may have about some products or services, helps users select products and helps increase sales conversions.
Below are just some findings that support this:
- According to research findings 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, reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- 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 Customer Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding reviews to your website from clients who are delighted with the results they’ve obtained by using your services is essential for creating a solid online reputation.
Consumer reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and impact your business both in a positive as well as negative way.
People may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to you, but they could be posting updates on Facebook about a bad experience they’ve just had using your products and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes a vitally important aspect of your online success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) could be harming your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that lets you legally and ethically manage customer feedback:
How To Create User Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of marketing your products and services online and should be used in your content. When you include your own user responses in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help potential customers identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a buying decision.
Here are some practical tips on creating compelling customer testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try using 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: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces will draw the most attention of visitors on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are so much more effective and memorable than just providing facts and statistics. 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 presenting generic statements about how “excellent” your service was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials to your web content 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 by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your support when offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “Since using your services, we increased our sales by an additional $20,029 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software has helped us grow our sales?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours 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 testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more user testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch discount for 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 best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become can be a really 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 a great comment on your Facebook page praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Only use genuine testimonials. Your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility with false testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials
Just 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.
Follow these useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials:
- Contact your clients after 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after completing your service.
- Include a text box for testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next visit clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. During your video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to capture your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. When clients send 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 best sections (only use what they have given you – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to use it. 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 Publish A Link To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to publish a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an 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.
Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a periodic auto responder message. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to experience your product, service or solution. 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 feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials for your account. 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 positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more testimonials …” link pointing to this page throughout your site.
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. A great tool for observing visitor behaviour on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your sites to monitor visitor behavior here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you then send customers to your “Testimonials” section.
Check out the WordPress testimonial 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 posts and pages 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, a business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that has additional features and plugin support.
For more information about the plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your posts and pages. You can insert testimonials 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 makes plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and technical support.
Go here to download this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium WP plugin that 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 your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list 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.
Visit this site for more information about 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 help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your clients or customers, and start publishing these on your website or blog.
Additional Info
The articles below are a great source of information about creating engaging customer 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
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