Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new business can be difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes 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, mobile and social media-driven economy, it’s foolish to ignore the effect of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are talking about your business.

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

By the same token, you may also be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t publish the positive things your clients say about your products, services, user support, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of marketing your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing.

In this article, we’ll show you ways to improve your sales conversions using meaningful client testimonials.

Testimonials And Customer Reviews

P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary showman and successful promoter, once 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. Quoting genuine testimonials from satisfied customers is satisfied users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients than anything you say about your own products or services.

There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … client reviews!

Reviews and testimonials are great for building credibility for your products or services.

Tests conducted by many leading research firms all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about your products or services, help with product selection and increases sales.

Here are just some findings that 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 site if it has ratings and consumer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, user reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more 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 Client Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management

Clearly, you should be adding reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers to your website.

Testimonials and reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both negative and positive ways.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could post disparaging remarks on Facebook about a bad encounter they’ve just had with you or 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 vitally important aspect of your success.

Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, 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 harming your business without you even realizing it.

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

• Easily Manage Negative Customer Feedback In WordPress With Power Online Reviews

Creating Standout Testimonials – Useful Tips

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you promote and market 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 other users exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help to solve for them and how easily this can be done.
• Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
• Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate the sales process.

Here are some practical tips on creating customer testimonials:

• Don’t over edit: You should try using your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
• Use photos: It’s a proven fact that using images of people’s faces draws the most attention of visitors on a web page. 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 far more effective and memorable than simply providing facts and statistics. Being able 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 presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” your support was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
• Keep 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. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely thrilled about your customer service when offering guarantees or providing content that helps your readers overcome their objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our sales by $94,309 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product helped us grow our sales?” If 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 they have saved, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate during a specific period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Vary the testimonials throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your website. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more customer 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 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 is a really 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 you get fantastic feedback on your Facebook wall praising your solution, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
• Never use fake testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing professional writers to produce your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential clients need to see that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility with ”made up” testimonials.

How To Get Testimonials From Clients

Ask

When you complete performing a service, 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 it a part of your business processes to contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after completing a service.
• Add a text box for testimonials in client surveys.
• Pull out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and try to record your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy for them. If a client sends you a positive email thanking you for a great service 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 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 invite them to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link Back To The Source

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

Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder messages. This should be done as soon as your customers have had a chance to experience your solution. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to obtain testimonials for your profile. 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 recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to publish a link back to their profile in exchange).

Create A Customer Testimonials Page

Create a new section for testimonials and place a “more client testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section wherever you have added new testimonials on your content sections.

Useful Tip: You can measure how useful user testimonials are 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 understanding visitor behavior on your site.

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

• Predicting User Behavior On Your WordPress Site Using Analytics Software – HeatMap Tracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If your site or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages inviting users to submit feedback and testimonials.

Once your plugin is installed and set up (make sure to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer users to your “Testimonials” page.

Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

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

The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that offers additional features and plugin support.

For more information about using this plugin, visit this site:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos 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 has loads more features available via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and developer support.

To download and use the plugin, go here:

• Testimonials Widget

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. by adding a shortcode
• Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, 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 Conclusion …

Testimonials and user reviews are powerful 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 start publishing these on your website.

Additional Info

The articles below are a great source of information about creating engaging 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, 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 100% FREE!

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