Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that trying to generate new customers can be very hard. 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 web-based and social-driven economy, it’s a mistake to ignore the effect of online consumer behavior, especially if they are talking about your business.
Don’t ignore what consumers may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a disservice if you are not boosting the positive things your customers are saying about your products, services, user training, support, etc. 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 included in your content marketing.
In this article, you will learn how to improve your visitor-to-sales conversions with profit-boosting customer testimonials.
Testimonials And Client Reviews
Legendary American showman Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum 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 getting your business promoted. Genuine reviews quoted directly from existing users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … user reviews!
Testimonials and reviews are terrific for building credibility for your business.
Research conducted by many marketing firms all seem to lead to the same conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your sales pages helps decrease doubts potential customers may have about buying particular products or services, helps with product selection and helps increase sales conversions.
Below are just some of the stats available to support this:
- According to a study 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, user reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can result in 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 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 Customer Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management
Adding great reviews to your website from customers is essential for creating a solid online reputation.
Customer reviews and testimonials, however, can work both ways and impact your business both in a negative or positive way.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could be posting negative comments on a discussion group about a bad experience they’ve just had using your products 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 just don’t need it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your products through effective user review management:
How To Create Compelling Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content. When you quote your own customer responses in your content, you:
- Show potential customers exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help potential customers identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates the sales process.
Below are some practical tips on how to create testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces will draw 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 powerful story: Stories are much more powerful and memorable than just providing facts and statistics. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about how “excellent” the support has been 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 web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your customer service before offering guarantees or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our sales by $60,823 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution helped us grow our business?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, 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 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.
- Use different client testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your site. Depending on the nature of your business, 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 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 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 that speak directly to your ideal customers.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If you get fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your products or services, ask them for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Don’t use fake testimonials. Your prospects need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity with a false testimonial.
How To Get Client Testimonials
Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful tips for soliciting testimonials from your customers:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing your service.
- Add a text box for entering testimonials in client surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a short video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording the video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and record the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy 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 – don’t 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 already prepared something to save them time and let them know they are completely free to edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link to their site 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 real and can be verified.
Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a periodic newsletter message. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using your product, service or solution. 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 them to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you request testimonials from other members that become part of your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (you can offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Page
Create a new section on your web site for customer testimonials and add a “read more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this section whenever you have added small blocks of testimonials on your content sections.
Useful Tip: You can measure how useful user 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 monitoring visitor behavior on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your website to track visitor behaviour here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages where users can submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then refer users 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 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, a logo, etc.
The plugin also provides users with a “pro” version with additional features and developer support.
Visit this site to download and use this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your pages and posts. You can insert 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 plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and technical support.
To download and use the 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 to display correctly on any device or browser.
- Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
To download and use this plugin, go here:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Client testimonials and customer reviews are powerful 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 your clients, and publish positive content about your business on your website.
Additional Info
The articles below provide useful information about creating effective testimonials and were used when researching 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 and practical tips that will teach 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 strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!
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