How To Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that trying to generate new business can be very difficult. Just trying to survive 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, it’s a mistake to ignore the impact of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.

Ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

By the same token, you could be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your customers say about your products and services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of marketing your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing.

In this article, you’ll learn ways to improve your visitor-to-lead conversions using standout client testimonials.

Testimonials And Customer Reviews

Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary businessman and showman, once said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting genuine testimonials and reviews from your existing customers is existing users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new customers than anything you say about your own products or services.

There is a source of untapped business growth potential that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … testimonials and reviews from their happy clients!

Customer testimonials and user reviews are a powerful way to build credibility for your products or services.

Tests conducted by many leading companies all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products or solutions that you are trying to sell, help with product selection and increases sales conversions.

Here are just some of the statistics available to support this:

According to research findings 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 web site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
According to Reevoo.com, user reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can translate into 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).
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).

(Source: eConsultancy.com)

Adding Consumer Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation

Adding great testimonials and reviews to your website from existing customers is important for growing your business online and creating a solid online reputation.

Customer testimonials and consumer reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both negative and positive ways.

People may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to your face, but they could have posted negative comments on a discussion thread about a bad experience they’ve just had with your business and this could be costing you business.

This is where online reputation management becomes vital 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 causing damage to your business without you even being aware of this.

See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your services through effective customer review management:

Easily Manage Bad Client Reviews On WordPress With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Tips On How To Create User Testimonials

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing. When you include your own customer responses in your content, you:

Show others exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
Help potential customers identify and address their objections.
Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them further along the sales process.

Below are some practical tips on improving your sales with sales boosting client testimonials:

Avoid over-editing: You should try using the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating than simply providing facts and statistics. The ability to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a far more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about excellent customer service and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
Keep it in context: Add testimonials to your site copy 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 will have on your visitor’s mind if you were to present a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your support when offering guarantees or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping to increase our sales by $90,735 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution helped us grow our sales?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, 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 financial period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
Vary the client testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your web pages. 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 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 target audience is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to is 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 ideal customers.
Reprint across different platforms. If you get great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your solution, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the content on your blog.
Only use genuine testimonials. Many people can tell if you are employing copywriters to create your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential clients need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity or reputation with false testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials

Just Ask

If you have just completed a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.

Follow these useful tips for requesting testimonials:

Make a point of contacting customers after 14 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing a service.
Include a text box for testimonials in all client surveys.
Take out your phone next time you visit a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a short video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, explain to your viewers what you have done for the client and capture the client’s positive reactions and responses.
Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If a client sends 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 written – don’t put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your 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 change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Publish A Link To The Source

Offer to publish a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.

Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using 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 clients for feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you solicit 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 receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (once again, you can offer to add a link back to their profile in exchange).

Create A Testimonials Section On Your Site

Create a new page on your web site for customer testimonials and place a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this page wherever you are displaying single testimonials on your content sections.

Useful Tip: You can measure how effective 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 understanding visitor behaviour on your pages.

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

Analyzing Visitor Behavior On Your WordPress Site Using Heat Map Tools – Heat Map Tracker Review

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 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), you can then send clients to your “Testimonials” page.

Check out the testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add user testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert a list of all your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their company logo, etc.

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

Go here to download and use the plugin:

Easy Testimonials – WordPress Plugin

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your site. 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.

The Testimonials Widget plugin has loads more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and technical support.

Go here to download and use the plugin:

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium plugin that provides plenty 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 slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. using 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.

Visit this site to download and use this plugin:

Testimonials Plugin

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

How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Summary …

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 clients or customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website.

Resources

For additional information about creating engaging testimonials refer to these articles:

We also recommend subscribing to our Free Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will teach 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 marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)

Category: WordPress Business Strategies

Building Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews