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 results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new business can be very hard. Just trying to stay in business 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, 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 disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients are saying about your services and products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be included throughout your content.

In this article, you’ll discover how to turn more visitors into qualified prospects with more effective client testimonials.

Client Reviews

Legendary American showman and businessman P.T. Barnum once stated 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 and effective way of promoting your business. Quoting genuine reviews and testimonials directly from satisfied clients is satisfied users 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 an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … testimonials and reviews from your satisfied clients!

Customer testimonials and consumer reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your business.

Marketing studies conducted by many leading firms all point to the same conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your sales information reduces doubts potential customers may have about products, helps with product selection and helps increase the number of product sales.

Here are just some of the statistics available to support this:

According to research findings by eVoc Insights, a company 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 consumer reviews.”
According to Reevoo.com, user reviews play a significant role in creating an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
Site visitors who interact with both user 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 User Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management

Adding great testimonials and reviews to your site from very happy clients is important for growing your business online and creating a solid online reputation.

User reviews and testimonials, 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, products or services directly to your face, but they could post negative comments on Facebook, or a forum or discussion thread about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had using your products 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 vitally important aspect of your online business success.

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 seriously hurting your business without you even being aware of it.

See this article to learn more about a simple tool for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business through effective customer review management:

Easily Manage Poor User Feedback On WordPress With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Creating Sales Boosting Testimonials – Useful Tips

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content. When you quote your own client responses in your content, you:

Show others exactly what pains and problems 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 tips on improving your sales conversions with testimonials:

Avoid over-editing: Try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
Use photos of real people: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
Tell a story: Stories are much more effective and memorable than just providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
Keep it in context: Add customer testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your customer service when offering guarantees or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our sales by $27,226 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ product has helped us grow our business?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their market share 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 during a specific financial quarter, 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 repeatedly throughout your site. 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 discount for clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you choose to use it.
Appeal to your ideal customer: 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 can be a powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your best audience demographic.
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 comment or post on your blog.
Only use real client testimonials. Most people can see through sites that employ copywriters to produce content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t destroy your credibility with ”made up” testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers

Ask

Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.

Follow these useful tips for requesting testimonials:

Make a point of contacting customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing your service.
Include a field for testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
Pull out your phone when you next meet with a client or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a short 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 your client’s positive reactions and responses.
Make it easy and write the testimonial 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 given you – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to modify 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 to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.

Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a regularly-spaced auto responder broadcast. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to use your products. Use words like “I need a quick favor” 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 that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (once again, you can offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Customer Testimonials Section On Your Site

Create a new page for testimonials and add a “read more customer testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page wherever you are adding single testimonials on your site.

Practical Tip: You can measure how useful testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to observing what visitors are doing on your pages.

We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your site to understand visitor behaviour here:

Measuring Visitor Behavior On Your WordPress Site Using Heat Mapping Tools – Heat Map Tracker Review

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 testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then refer customers to your “Testimonials” section.

Here are some testimonial plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add client testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you publish a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which is great to add a photo of the testimonial author, a business logo, etc.

The plugin also provides a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your web 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 comes with added features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and technical support.

To download the plugin, go here:

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium WP plugin that offers 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 sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.

Visit this site to download the plugin:

Testimonials Plugin

To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Summary …

Testimonials and customer reviews are great sources of content that can help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your customers or clients, and start publishing these on your site.

Additional Info

The articles below provide useful information about creating engaging testimonials and were used when researching information for sections of this article:

We also recommend subscribing to our Free Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content for your site 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 100% FREE!

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Building Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews