How To 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 trying to generate new business can be very difficult. Just trying to stay in business takes a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.
In today’s online and social-driven economy, ignoring what consumers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what your customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you could be doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your clients are saying about your services and products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing.
In this article, we’ll show you how to improve your sales conversions using meaningful customer testimonials.
User Reviews And Testimonials
Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, the great American showman, 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-based content is a powerful and effective way of promoting your business. Quoting testimonials and reviews from existing customers is satisfied clients are far more persuasive for attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews and testimonials from your satisfied users!
Testimonials and consumer reviews are a powerful way to build credibility for your services or products.
Studies conducted by many leading firms all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: user reviews and testimonials reduce doubts potential customers may have about buying products and services, help with product selection and help increase conversions of visitors into sales.
Below are just some of the findings available to support this:
- According to a study 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 user reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can translate into 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 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Client Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding positive reviews and testimonials to your website from satisfied clients is essential for helping you grow your business online.
Testimonials and user reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both positively and negatively.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your products directly to your face, but they could be posting updates on Facebook or a 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 a vital aspect of your online business success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) could be causing damage to your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a simple tool for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage customer reviews:
Creating Customer Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy. When you include responses from clients in your content, you:
- Show others exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help your visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some tips on how to create knockout user testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: You should try using 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 photos of real people: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are so much more effective and memorable 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 presenting generic statements about how “excellent” the support was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add testimonials in your web content 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 by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your customer service when offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “Since using your XYZ solution, we have noticed a sales increase of $41,583 during the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution definitely helped us grow our business?” 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 you have helped them save, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate during a specific business 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 repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your website. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more user 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 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 can be an extremely 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 you get a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to see that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility with false testimonials.
How To Get Customer Testimonials
Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from your clients:
- Contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
- Add a field for testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull 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 wouldn’t mind recording a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to record your client’s positive reactions and responses.
- 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 juiciest sections (only use what they have given you – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to save them time and let them know they are completely free to modify what you have written however they see fit 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 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 Testimonial Requests To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a periodic auto responder message. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your products or services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking customers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you solicit testimonials from other members that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (and offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page
Create a new section on your website for client testimonials and add a “more client testimonials …” link to this page whenever you display single testimonials on your site.
Practical Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to measuring visitor behaviour on your pages.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your sites to track visitor behaviour here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages where users can submit 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 users to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add customer testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.
The plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.
To download and use the plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your site. You can insert testimonials content via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
The plugin has plenty more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions for better search engine results and plugin support.
To download this plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium 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 options for your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
Go here to download the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.
Resources
The articles below provide useful information on creating effective testimonials and were also helpful in providing research and information for sections of this article:
- 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 you 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 marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!
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