Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat requires 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 media-driven economy, you just can’t ignore the significance of online consumer behavior, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your clients are saying about your solutions, customer support, training, etc. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing.
In this article, you’ll discover all you need to know to achieve better results online using sales boosting customer testimonials.
User Reviews And Testimonials
The great American showman P.T. Barnum is often quoted as having stated 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 and effective way of getting your business promoted. Quoting testimonials and reviews from your existing customers is 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 small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … consumer reviews!
Reviews and testimonials are a terrific way to build credibility for your services and products.
Marketing studies conducted by leading research companies all seem to lead to the same conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your sales pages helps to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about buying products and services, helps 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, 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 reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user reviews are responsible for producing an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website visitors who interact with both 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 Customer Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management
You should be adding great reviews and testimonials from really happy clients to your website.
Reviews and testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both in a positive or negative way.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could have posted negative comments on Facebook or a discussion group about a bad experience they’ve just had with 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 vitally important to your online 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 to worry about it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business, products or services through effective user review management:
Creating Engaging Testimonials – Useful Tips
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of marketing your products and services online and should be included in your content. When you include your own client responses in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help potential customers identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Below are some practical tips on creating user testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try using the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps preserve your testimonials’ authenticity.
- Use real photos: Marketing tests show that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are much more effective and memorable than simply providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” the support was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials in your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help to sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to present a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly ecstatic about your support when offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “As a direct result of using your XYZ services, we were able to grow our sales by $27,215 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution definitely 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 in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work 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.
- Avoid using the same customer testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial everywhere on your website. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more client 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 choose to use it.
- Appeal to your ideal customer: As every infomercial featuring a celebrity endorsement, subject expert or “busy mom” knows, if you know who your best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to is 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 a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use real testimonials. Most people can see through sites that employ copywriters to create their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective clients need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a false testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Clients
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 guidelines for soliciting testimonials:
- Contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after performing a service.
- Include a field for entering testimonials in all client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a short video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and record the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If clients send you positive written feedback 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 shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link Back To Their Site
Offer to post a link back to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real 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 a periodic newsletter message. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using 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 subscribers to provide feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to obtain testimonials that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (tip: offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section
Create a new section for testimonials and add a “more client testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section whenever you plan to add new testimonials on your content sections.
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 your testimonial content. A great tool for measuring what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your site to understand visitor behaviour here:
Using WordPress Testimonial Plugins
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages inviting users to submit reviews and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then send customers 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 the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into posts and pages 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 you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their business logo, etc.
The plugin also provides a “pro” version that has additional features and plugin support.
Go here for more information about using the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your site. 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 makes plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and developer support.
To learn more about using the plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers many great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
- Options to display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colors, 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 …
Testimonials and user 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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing clients or customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.
Resources
For additional sources of information and resources about creating engaging clients testimonials refer to the articles below:
- 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
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