How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, and getting the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that generating new business can be difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes 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 impact of what potential customers are doing online, especially if they are talking about your business.
Don’t ignore what your clients may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you could be doing your business a disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your clients say about your services or products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content.
In this article, you will learn how to get better results online with profit-boosting user testimonials.
User Reviews And Testimonials
Legendary American businessman and showman P.T. Barnum once stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine testimonials and reviews quoted directly from existing customers are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new customers, clients or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is clearly a source of untapped business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews from their users!
Reviews and testimonials are great for building credibility for your business.
Research conducted by many leading marketing firms all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews decrease doubts potential customers may have about your products or services, help users select products and increases conversions of visitors into sales.
Below are just some of the stats available to 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 site if it has ratings and reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer 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 Consumer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding great testimonials and reviews to your site from happy clients is important for growing your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Reviews and testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both in a positive and negative manner.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could have posted updates on Facebook, or a forum or discussion thread about a bad encounter they’ve just had with you or your business and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes a vital part of your online success strategy.
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 causing damage to your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your products through effective user review management:
Creating Sales Boosting Testimonials – Useful Tips
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be used in your content. When you quote your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show other users exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help your visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and this facilitates the sales process.
Below are some practical tips on creating profit boosting customer testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use photos: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces draws the attention of visitors on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more effective and memorable than just providing statistical facts. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about excellent service and giving “two thumbs up” product 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 sell your point. 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 pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service when offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our sales by $23,698 during the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, like how much your solution helped to increase their market share or reduce their costs by 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.
- Vary the client testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your web pages. 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 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 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 appeal directly to your ideal customers.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If someone publishes fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Prospective clients need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity with a false testimonial.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Ask For Testimonials
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 tips for soliciting testimonials from your customers:
- Contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after performing a service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in client surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a short video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and record your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy 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 – never put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to help them save 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
Offer to add a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes the 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 list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a regularly-spaced email broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the effect of using your products or services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking users for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials from other members for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (once again, you can offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Page
Create a new page for customer testimonials and place a “more client testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page throughout your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of user testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for monitoring visitor behaviour on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your site to monitor visitor behavior here:
Using WordPress Testimonial Plugins
If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages where users can submit testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then send users to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are some WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials 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, their business logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also provides users with a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your blog. You can insert user testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget provides additional features via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and plugin support.
To download this plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that provides a range 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 slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, font types and more.
To learn more about using this plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Client testimonials and user reviews are great 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers or clients, and publish positive content about your business on your site.
Resources
For additional information on creating effective testimonials see 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
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