How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, only to get the exact same results? As most business owners know, that generating new customers can be quite hard. Just trying to remain 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 web-based and social media-driven economy, ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what customers may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you are not promoting the positive things your customers are saying about your services, solutions, client training, support, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be included in your content.
In this article, you’ll discover ways to improve your visitor-to-sales conversions with captivating user testimonials.
Customer Reviews
Legendary American businessman and showman 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting reviews and testimonials from satisfied clients is existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … customer reviews and testimonials!
Customer reviews and testimonials are great for building credibility for your services and products.
Research conducted by marketing firms all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding user reviews and testimonials to your sales pages reduces doubts potential customers may have about buying your products or services, helps with product selection and helps increase sales.
Here are just some statistics that support this:
- According to research findings 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 web site if it has ratings and consumer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews result in 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 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 Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management
Adding great reviews to your site from happy clients is essential for creating a solid online reputation.
Testimonials and customer reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both positive and negative ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could post negative comments on Facebook or a forum thread about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your employees 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 vital aspect of your business success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need to worry about it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a tool for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business, products or services through effective customer review management:
Tips On Improving Your Sales Conversions With Effective Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing. When you quote responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help site visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Here are some useful tips on improving your sales conversions with engaging user testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
- Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than providing mere facts and statistics. The ability 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 using generalized 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 testimonials to your site copy where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these 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 your product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your customer service when offering guarantees or providing content that helps your readers overcome their 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 $26,926 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ software has helped us grow our sales?” If 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 of work 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.
- Vary the client testimonials on 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’s 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 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 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 ideal customers.
- Reprint across different platforms. If someone posts fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your business, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Only use genuine 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 displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Customer Testimonials
Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Follow these useful guidelines for requesting testimonials from clients:
- Make a point of contacting clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing a service.
- Add a field for testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next meet with a client or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to record your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. Whenever clients send you positive written feedback 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 use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to publish it. 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 see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link Back To The Source
Offer to add a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in a periodic newsletter broadcast. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the impact of using your products. 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 subscribers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to solicit testimonials from other members that become part of your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page On Your Site
Create a new page for client testimonials and add a “read more customer testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section throughout your site.
Practical Tip: You can measure how useful customer testimonials are by how long visitors remain 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 software you can add to your sites to predict visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages where users can submit feedback 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 customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you publish a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The plugin also provides a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.
To download this plugin, go here:
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 posts and pages. You can insert client 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 has loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.
To learn more about this plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers many 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. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
To download this plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Testimonials and user reviews are powerful sources of content that can help your business in terms of adding credibility, building authority, improving online reputation, and growing your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your clients or customers, and start publishing these on your site.
Resources
For additional information about creating effective testimonials see 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for your site 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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