Build 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 results? As most small business owners know, that finding new ways of generating new business can be hard. Just trying to remain in business requires 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!
Don’t ignore what users may be saying online about your business!
You are also doing your business a disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your customers are saying about your services and products. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing strategy.
In this article, you’ll discover ways to improve your sales using profit-boosting user testimonials.
Testimonials And Consumer Reviews
Legendary showman and businessman Phineas Taylor (Aka “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”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine testimonials and reviews from your existing customers are far more persuasive when it comes to drawing new clients than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews from users!
Reviews and testimonials are fantastic for building credibility for your services and products.
Marketing studies conducted by many leading research companies all seem to lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding customer testimonials and customer reviews to your sales information pages helps reduce doubts potential customers may have about your product, helps with product selection and increases sales.
Here are just some of the findings available to support this:
- According to research 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 customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, consumer reviews can produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more user reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Web site 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 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Consumer Reviews And Testimonials – Online Reputation Management
Adding positive testimonials and reviews to your site from people who are thrilled with your services is important for helping you grow your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Reviews and testimonials, 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 business directly to you, but they could have posted updates on a discussion thread about a bad experience they’ve just had with your services and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes an important aspect of your online business success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a plugin for WordPress users that lets you legally and ethically manage your customer feedback:
Creating Profit Boosting Customer Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to marketing your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content. When you include responses from customers 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 facilitate moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some practical tips on how to create profit boosting client testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
- Use real photos: Research shows that using images of people’s faces draws the attention of visitors on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are much more powerful and captivating than just providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add testimonials to your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help 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 can be purchased for before posting your price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your support when offering guarantees or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would consider to be more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our revenue by $41,304 in the last financial quarter,” 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 profits 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 business quarter, 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 repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be a little difficult if you are just starting out and have very few 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 customer 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 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 can relate to can be a powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials that speak directly to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your business, send them a message 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 write their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to believe that the testimonials displayed on your site are genuine. Don’t destroy your credibility with a false testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Clients
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.
Here are some tips for requesting testimonials from clients:
- Make a point of contacting customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 90 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after performing a service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in client surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with the results, ask them if they would be happy to record a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording your video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and record your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write it for them. When a client sends 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 given you – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to use it. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients providing 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 a request for a testimonial in one of your newsletter broadcasts. Preferably, this should be done as soon as your clients have had a chance to experience your solution. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your message and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking subscribers for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you solicit testimonials from other members that become part of your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is 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 site (tip: offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this page whenever you plan to add small blocks of 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. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to observing what visitors are doing on your site.
We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your site to measure visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your site or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages where users can submit reviews and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you can then refer clients to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add user testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you insert a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their company logo, etc.
The plugin also comes with a “pro” version that has additional features and plugin support.
Visit this site to download and use this plugin:
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 posts and pages. 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 plugin provides a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.
Go here for more information about this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin offers many 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 slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colors, font types and more.
Visit this site for more information about using this plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
Customer reviews and testimonials are great 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from existing clients or customers, and publish positive content about your business on your site.
Additional Info
The articles below are a great source of information on creating engaging 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful 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 completely FREE!
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