How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, and getting the exact same results? As most business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new customers can be hard. Just trying to survive in business takes up a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.

In today’s digital, mobile and social-driven economy, ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

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

You may also be doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your clients say about your services or products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective 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 tips for turning more visitors into qualified leads with meaningful customer testimonials.

Testimonials And Client Reviews

P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary businessman and showman, once stated 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 and effective way of promoting your business. Testimonials and reviews from your satisfied clients are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients, customers or users than anything you say about your own products or services.

There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews from their users!

Consumer reviews and customer testimonials are a terrific way to build credibility for your business.

Tests conducted by many leading research firms all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews decrease doubts potential customers may have about your products or services, help with product selection and help increase the number of product sales.

Here are just some of the statistics 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 user reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more customer reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Site 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 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).

(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)

Adding Customer Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management

You should be adding reviews from really happy customers to your website.

Customer testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and 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 post updates on Facebook, or a discussion group 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 online business success strategy.

Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) may be seriously causing damage to your business without you even realizing this.

See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective tool for WordPress users that lets you legally and ethically manage your customer reviews:

• Now You Can Easily Manage Your Online Reputation On WordPress With Power Online Reviews Plugin

Tips For Creating Customer Testimonials

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content. When you quote responses from customers in your content, you:

• Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
• Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
• Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them closer to a decision to purchase.

Here are some tips on improving your conversions with captivating client testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: Try using your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
• 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 increase visitor engagement with your content.
• Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more effective and captivating 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 using generic statements about excellent service and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Keep 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 you 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 pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your support before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our profits by $36,974 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution helped us grow our business?” If possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, like how much your solution helped to increase their market share or reduce their costs in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours 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.
• Vary the customer testimonials on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your web pages. 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 aspire to become is a very powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials targeted to your ideal customers.
• Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your solution, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
• Don’t use fake client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to produce their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to believe that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with ”made up” testimonials.

How To Get Customer Testimonials

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 tips for requesting testimonials:

• Contact your customers after 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after completing your service.
• Add a field for testimonials in your client surveys.
• Take out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with your services, 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 capture your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy and write it for them. If clients send 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 – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have already prepared something 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 Back To Their Site

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

Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder broadcasts. This should be done after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your solution. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking subscribers to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to solicit testimonials from other members for your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and user-friendly and the person providing 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 website in exchange).

Create A Customer Testimonials Section On Your Site

Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section throughout your site.

Practical Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for understanding visitor behavior on your site are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your website to observe visitor behavior here:

• How To Spy On Your WordPress Site Users With Heat Map Software – HeatMapTracker Review

Using Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.

Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is send 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 them into your pages and posts using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert 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, a company logo, etc.

The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version that has additional features and technical support.

Visit this site to download and use the plugin:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with images or videos on your site. You can insert testimonials via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.

The Testimonials Widget plugin provides additional features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and developer support.

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This premium WP plugin provides plenty of great features right out of the box, including:

• Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
• Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. using 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 learn more about this plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials Plugin

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

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

Testimonials and customer reviews are great sources of content that help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing customers, and start publishing these on your website.

Additional Info

The articles below provide useful information about creating engaging clients testimonials and were also 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 and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for 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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