Build 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, only to get the exact same disappointing results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new customers can be difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat 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 and social-driven economy, ignoring what users may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

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

By the same token, you may also be doing your business a disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your clients say 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 an integral part of your content.

In this article, you’ll discover how to turn more visitors into prospects with profit-boosting client testimonials.

User Reviews And Testimonials

P.T. Barnum, the great American showman and businessman, once stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting reviews and testimonials from your existing clients is satisfied users are far more persuasive for drawing new clients, customers or users than anything you 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 … reviews from your customers!

Reviews and customer testimonials are great for building credibility for your business.

Studies conducted by marketing research firms all point to the same conclusion: adding customer testimonials and consumer reviews to your sales pages helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products or services that you are trying to sell, helps users select products and helps increase the number of sales.

Below are just some of the statistics 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 consumer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Website visitors who interact with both consumer 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 User Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation

You should be adding great reviews from existing clients to your site.

Customer testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both negatively and positively.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could have posted updates on Facebook, or a discussion thread or forum about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your representatives and this could be costing you business.

This is where online reputation management becomes a significant part of your business and content marketing strategy.

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) could be seriously causing damage to your business without you even being aware of this.

See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your products through effective user review management:

• Manage Your Online Reputation With Power Online Reviews WordPress Plugin

Improving Your Sales With Customer Testimonials – Useful Tips

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of marketing your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing. When you quote your own customer responses in your content, you:

• Show prospects exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help 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 aspirations and facilitate moving them closer to a buying decision.

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

• Don’t over edit: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
• Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your content.
• Tell a story: Stories are so much more effective and captivating than providing mere facts and statistics. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” your support has been and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials in your web content where it makes the most sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help to sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind if you were to present a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your support before offering a risk-free guarantee or providing content that helps your readers overcome their objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “As a direct result of using your XYZ services, we have noticed an additional revenue growth of $86,067 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ software has 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 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.
• Use different customer testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your website. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more 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 decide 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 ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to can be a 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 testimonials across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your customer service, send them a message asking permission to reprint the content on your blog.
• Only use real client testimonials. Prospective clients need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your integrity with ”made up” testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials From Clients

Just Ask

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.

Here are some useful guidelines for requesting testimonials:

• Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing your service.
• Include a field for testimonials in your client surveys.
• Pull out your phone when you next visit clients or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to capture their positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If a client sends 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 – never 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 help them save time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link To Their Site

Offer to add a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide you with 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 one of your autoresponder messages. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to use your services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials from other members for your account. 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 for permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to add a link back to their profile in exchange).

Create A Testimonials Section On Your Site

Create a new section for client testimonials and add a “read more customer testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page throughout your site.

Useful Tip: You can measure how effective client testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to observing visitor behavior on your site.

We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your sites to observe visitor behavior here:

• How To Understand Visitor Behavior On Your WordPress Site Using Analytics Software – HeatMapTracker 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 testimonials.

Once your testimonial 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” section.

Check out the testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add customer testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials 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 an image with each testimonial, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.

The plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that has additional features and developer support.

Visit this site for more information about the plugin:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your blog. You can insert testimonials 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 makes loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and plugin support.

Visit this site to download this plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium WP plugin that provides many 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, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
• Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.

To download and use the plugin, go here:

• Testimonials WordPress Plugin

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

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Summary …

Client testimonials and customer reviews are great 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, and start publishing these on your website or blog.

Resources

The articles below provide useful information on creating engaging testimonials and were 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site 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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