How To 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 results? As most small business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new business can be confusing, frustrating and quite hard. Just trying to keep your business afloat requires a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.

In today’s web-based and social-driven economy, ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

Don’t ignore what users may be saying online about your business!

By the same token, you may also be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your clients say about your products, solutions, client training, support, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be included throughout your content.

In this article, you will learn how to get better results online with more effective customer testimonials.

Client Reviews

Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, the great, legendary showman and businessman, 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 promoting your business. Quoting reviews and testimonials from existing users is existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients than anything you have to 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 … testimonials and reviews from their customers!

Testimonials and reviews are effective for building credibility for your business.

Studies conducted by many leading marketing research companies all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your site helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products, helps with product selection and helps increase sales.

Here are just some statistics that support this:

• According to research by eVoc Insights, a company that researches and measures user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has ratings and reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Web 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).
• Consumer 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 User Reviews – Managing Online Reputation

Clearly, you should be adding great testimonials and reviews from happy customers to your site.

Reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both positive and negative ways.

People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could have posted updates on Facebook, or a forum or discussion group about an unpleasant 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 vital to your success.

Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) could be hurting your business without you even realizing this.

See this article to learn more about a WordPress plugin that lets you legally and ethically manage user reviews:

• Easily Manage Your Online Reputation On WordPress With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Tips For Creating Awesome Testimonials

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be included in your content. When you include your own customer responses in your content, you:

• Show potential customers exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
• Help prospects identify their objections and address these.
• Help potential customers connect with their motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a buying decision.

Below are some useful tips on improving your sales conversions with standout testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
• Use photos: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces draws 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 content.
• Tell a story: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than just providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about excellent support 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 in 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 will have on your visitor’s perception if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting price 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 ecstatic about your customer service when offering a money-back guarantee 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… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our net profit by $81,997 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution 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 in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours you have helped them save, 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 repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your site. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more customer 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 is a really 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 across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your business, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the content on your site.
• Never use fake client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to produce their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility with ”made up” testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials From Customers

Ask

When you complete a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.

Here are some useful guidelines for requesting testimonials:

• Make a point of contacting clients after 14 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after performing a service.
• Add a field for entering testimonials in all your client satisfaction surveys.
• Take out your phone next time you visit a client or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording the video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and record your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy for them. When clients send you a positive email thanking you for a great job that contains snippets of useful testimonial material interspersed with the rest of their message, grab the best sections (only use what they have written – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to publish 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 Post A Link Back To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial

Offer to post 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 the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.

Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in one of your newsletter messages. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to use your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users for feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to request testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (once again, you can offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Testimonials Section

Create a new page on your website for customer testimonials and add a “more client testimonials …” link to this page throughout your content sections.

Practical Tip: You can measure how useful customer testimonials are 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 what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your sites to observe visitor behaviour here:

• How To Analyze User Behavior On Your WordPress Site With Heat Map Software – Heat Map Tracker Review

Using Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages inviting users to submit reviews and testimonials.

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is send clients to your “Testimonials” page.

Below are some great WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

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

The Easy Testimonials plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.

To download the plugin, visit this site:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your posts and pages. 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.

Testimonials Widget offers a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and plugin support.

To download and use this plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium WordPress plugin provides a range of great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
• Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
• Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.

To learn more about this plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials Plugin

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

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

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 existing customers or clients, and start publishing these on your site.

Additional Info

For additional information on creating effective users testimonials refer to these useful 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 regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content for 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!

***

***