Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that finding effective ways of generating new customers can be hard. Just trying to survive 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 digital and social-driven economy, ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what clients may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you could be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your clients are saying about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of marketing your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing.
In this article, you’ll learn tips for creating better results online using meaningful user testimonials.
Testimonials And Customer Reviews
Legendary showman Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum is often quoted as having said 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine reviews and testimonials quoted directly from existing users are far more persuasive for drawing new customers, clients or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … testimonials and reviews from their existing clients!
Customer testimonials and customer reviews are effective for building credibility for your services or products.
Studies conducted by leading marketing research companies all seem to lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your site helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products, helps with product selection and helps increase sales conversions.
Here are just some findings that support this:
- According to research by eVoc Insights, an organization that researches and measures user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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).
(Source: eConsultancy.com)
Adding User Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management
Adding positive reviews to your website from delighted customers is important for growing your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Reviews and customer testimonials, 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 have posted updates on Facebook or a forum about a bad experience they’ve just had using your products and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes vitally important to your business success.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need to worry about it) may be hurting your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage your customer reviews:
Tips On How To Create Sales Boosting Customer Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing. When you quote your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help solve for them and how easily it can do this.
- Help your visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Here are some practical tips on improving your conversions with user testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention to your content. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than providing mere statistical facts. 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 generic statements about how “excellent” the service 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 in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help sell your point. For example, think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly thrilled about your support before offering guarantees or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our revenue by $31,707 in the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ product definitely helped us grow our sales?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent business quarter, 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 somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your site. Depending on your business, you could try to obtain more testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special discount for clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide 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 aspire to become can be a very 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 best audience demographic.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If someone posts great feedback on your Facebook page praising your solution, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Only use genuine testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to produce their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential clients need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t destroy your credibility with false testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients
Just Ask
Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials:
- Contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing your service.
- Include a field for testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next visit a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and capture the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. When 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 given you – 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 already prepared something to help them save 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 Publish A Link To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great 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 list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. This should be done after your clients have had a chance to experience your products. 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 clients to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials that become part of your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite 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 their permission to reprint it on your website (tip: offer to publish a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Customer Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a new section on your website for customer testimonials and add a “read more testimonials …” link to your main testimonials section throughout your content sections.
Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your user testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to monitoring what visitors are doing on your pages.
We have written an article about a heatmap software you can add to your site to observe visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your site or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages where users can submit reviews and 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 send customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are some testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you add a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides a “pro” version with additional features and developer support.
Visit this site to download 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 videos or images on your web site. You can insert customer 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 makes loads more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.
To download and use 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 displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, 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.
Go here to download and use the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Customer reviews and client testimonials 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your clients or customers, and publish positive content about your business on your site.
Additional Info
The articles below are a great source of information about creating effective 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 actionable information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to 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!
***
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now