How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews

Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that generating new customers can be quite difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat 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 digital economy, you simply can’t afford to ignore the impact 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!

You may also be doing your business a great disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your clients are saying about your services and products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content.

In this article, you’ll learn tips for turning more visitors into prospects using sales boosting customer testimonials.

Testimonials And Consumer Reviews

The great American showman and successful promoter Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum once 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 promoting your business. Quoting genuine reviews from your satisfied customers is satisfied users are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new customers than anything you can say about your own products or services.

There is a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews from their customers!

Consumer reviews and testimonials are terrific for building credibility for your business.

Tests conducted by leading research companies all point to the same conclusion: adding customer testimonials and reviews to your sales information pages helps decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products or services, helps with product selection and helps increase the number of product sales.

Below are just some statistics that support this:

• According to research findings by eVoc Insights, a company 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 consumer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews play a significant role in creating an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• Website visitors who interact with both customer 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).

(The figures above were sourced from eConsultancy.com)

Adding Consumer Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management

Adding great testimonials and reviews to your website from people who are delighted with the results they’ve obtained by using your products or services is important for growing your business online and creating a solid online reputation.

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

People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could be posting negative comments on 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 an integral part of your business and content marketing strategy.

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) may be hurting your business without you even realizing it.

See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that allows you to legally and ethically manage user feedback:

• Managing Your Online Reputation With Power Online Reviews

Tips For Creating Sales Boosting Client Testimonials

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content. When you quote your own client responses in your content, you:

• Show others 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 aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a buying decision.

Below are some useful tips on improving your sales conversions with testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving little grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
• Use photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces will draw the most attention of visitors on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your content.
• Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more powerful and memorable than providing mere statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a far longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about how “excellent” the support was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Keep it in context: It’s good to add customer 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 your product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your customer service before offering guarantees or addressing objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “As a direct result of implementing XYZ solution, we have grown our bottom line by an additional $95,151 in the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product has helped us grow our sales?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work you have helped them save, how many new leads or new clients they were able to generate in a recent period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Use different testimonials on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your web pages. Depending on the type of business you run, 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 best customer: 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 can be 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 someone posts a great comment on your Facebook page praising your products or services, ask them for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
• Only use genuine client testimonials. Your potential clients need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are real. Don’t compromise your integrity with ”made up” testimonials.

How To Get Customer Testimonials

Always Ask For Testimonials

Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.

Here are some tips for requesting testimonials from your clients:

• Make it a part of your business processes to contact customers after 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after completing a service.
• Include a field for entering testimonials in your client surveys.
• Pull out your phone when you next meet with clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, explain to viewers what you have done for the client and make sure to capture the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. Whenever clients send 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 the client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have already prepared something to help them save time and let them know they are completely free to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link Back To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial

Offer to add a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive to get clients providing a testimonial. It also makes an 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 list of subscribers, include requests for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder broadcasts. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the impact of using your services. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to request testimonials from other members that become part of your account. 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 for permission to reprint it on your site (and offer to add a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Customer Testimonials Section On Your Site

Create a new page for testimonials and place a “more customer testimonials …” link to your main testimonials page wherever you have added single testimonials on your content sections.

Useful Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of user testimonials by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for understanding what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your sites to understand visitor behavior here:

• How To Spy On Your WordPress Site Visitors Using Heatmapping Software – HeatMap Tracker Review

Useful WordPress Plugins

If your site or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages inviting users to submit 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 then send clients to your “Testimonials” page.

Below are some great plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which you can use to add a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.

The plugin also can be upgraded to a “pro” version that offers additional features and developer support.

Visit this site to download this plugin:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your posts and pages. You can insert testimonials content 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 makes plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and developer support.

To download and use this plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

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

• Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
• Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid layout, etc. using a shortcode
• Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

To download 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 Summary …

User reviews and testimonials 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, and start publishing these on your website.

Additional Info

For additional information on creating engaging users testimonials see these articles:

• 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 actionable information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality 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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