Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new business can be hard. Just trying to survive 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 media-driven economy, ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you may also be doing your business a great disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your customers say about your products, services, customer support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of marketing your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing strategy.
In this article, you will learn how to achieve better results online with engaging customer testimonials.
Testimonials And Consumer Reviews
Legendary American showman Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum is often quoted as having stated 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 promoting your business. Genuine reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients, customers or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … consumer reviews!
Testimonials and user reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your business.
Studies conducted by many leading marketing companies all seem to point to the same conclusion: adding reviews and testimonials to your point of sale pages helps reduce doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products that you are trying to sell, helps users select products and helps increase the number of product sales.
Here are just some findings that support this:
- According to research 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 site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding Consumer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding great testimonials and reviews to your website from happy clients is important for growing your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Testimonials and consumer reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both negatively and positively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could post damaging words on Facebook, or a discussion group or forum about a bad experience they’ve just had with your business 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 vitally important to your success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) could be harming your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that allows you to legally and ethically manage user reviews:
Tips On How To Create Client Testimonials
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy. When you quote responses from users in your content, you:
- Show other users exactly what pains and problems your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help site visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some useful tips on creating testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Tell a story: Stories are far more powerful and captivating than simply providing statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about excellent customer service and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add customer testimonials to your site copy where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help to sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your customer service before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our net profit by $72,126 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product definitely 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 sales or reduce their costs by 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 during a specific period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Avoid using the same customer testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your web pages. Depending on the type of business you run, 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to 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 speak directly to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your products or services, send them a message asking permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Don’t use fake client testimonials. Prospective customers need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Just 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.
Follow these useful tips for soliciting testimonials from customers:
- Contact your clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after performing a service.
- Include a field for testimonials in your client surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and record your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If 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 – don’t 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 save them time and let them know they are completely free to change what you have written however they like 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 a great incentive to get clients providing a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.
Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in a periodic auto responder broadcast. This should be done after your clients have had a chance to measure the effect of using your products or services. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you solicit testimonials from other members for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (once again, you can offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page
Create a new section on your website or blog for client testimonials and place a “more customer testimonials …” link to this page throughout your site.
Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your user testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for monitoring visitor behavior on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to analyze visitor behaviour here:
WordPress Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms 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 users to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are some WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress 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 publish a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, their business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version with additional features and technical support.
Visit this site to download the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, 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 have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget makes plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and technical support.
Go here to download the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium WP plugin that offers plenty of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
For more information about using this plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Client 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 existing customers or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.
Resources
For additional sources of information and resources on creating engaging testimonials refer to 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
We also recommend subscribing to our Free Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now