How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? As most business owners know, that generating new customers can be confusing, time-consuming and very hard. Just trying to survive in business 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, ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what your clients may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your customers are saying about your products or services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of marketing your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content.
In this article, you’ll learn all you need to know to achieve better results online with more effective user testimonials.
Testimonials And Client Reviews
Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum, the great American showman, once stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-based content is a powerful and effective way of promoting your business. Genuine reviews from your existing users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is clearly a source of untapped business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … client reviews!
Customer testimonials and user reviews are fantastic for building credibility for your services and products.
Marketing studies conducted by many leading companies all seem to point to the same inevitable conclusion: user reviews and testimonials eliminate doubts potential customers may have about products or services, help with product selection and increases sales.
Here are just some statistics that support this:
- According to research findings by eVoc Insights, an organization known for researching and measuring 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 can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Site 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).
- 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 Customer Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation
Clearly, you should be adding great reviews and testimonials from very happy clients who have experienced positive results with your business 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 directly to your face, but they could have posted negative comments 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 vital to your business success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) could be hurting your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a simple tool for WordPress users that can help to avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business through effective customer review management:
Tips On How To Create Meaningful Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy. When you include responses from customers in your content, you:
- Show prospects 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 their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a buying decision.
Below are some practical tips on improving your conversions with meaningful testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try using the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos: Marketing tests show that using images of people’s faces draws the attention of visitors browsing a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Tell a story: Stories are much more effective and memorable than just providing facts and statistics. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about excellent customer service and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add testimonials to your site copy where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help sell your point. Think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception 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 clients solve before talking about the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are genuinely ecstatic about your customer service when offering a money-back guarantee or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our sales by $10,943 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ solution definitely helped us grow our business?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours you have helped them save, 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 client testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site’s pages. 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 launch discount for 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 best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to 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 testimonials across different platforms. If someone publishes a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your solution, send them a message asking for permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Never use fake client testimonials. Prospective clients need to see that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t destroy your credibility with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials
Ask
When you complete a service for someone, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from clients:
- Make a point of contacting clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 30 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after performing a service.
- Add a text box for entering testimonials in all your client surveys.
- Take out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, describe to viewers what you have done for the client and record the client’s positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy 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 best sections (only use what they have written – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and invite them to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link Back To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients providing you with 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 list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in a scheduled newsletter broadcast. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to use your products. 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 review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you request testimonials from other members for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (once again, you can offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this page throughout your site.
Useful Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of your 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 observing what visitors are doing on your pages.
We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your site to track visitor behaviour here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your website or blog is powered by 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 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 send users to your “Testimonials” page.
Here are some WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add client testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post 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 is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also provides a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.
To learn more about using the plugin, go here:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your WordPress site. You can insert customer testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget provides a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.
To learn more about using this plugin, visit this site:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that provides a range of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes for displaying correctly on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
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 existing customers, and publish positive content about your business on your site.
Additional Info
For additional resources about creating engaging testimonials read 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
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 show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your 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 completely FREE!
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