Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, and getting the exact same results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding effective ways of generating new business can be hard. Just trying to remain in business takes up 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-driven economy, ignoring what users 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 publish the positive things your customers say about your services or products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing.

In this article, you’ll learn how to create better results online using more effective user testimonials.

Testimonials And Customer Reviews

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 getting your business promoted. Quoting genuine testimonials and reviews directly from existing customers is existing users 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 just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … testimonials and reviews from clients!

Testimonials and reviews are a fantastic way to build credibility for your services and products.

Studies conducted by leading research companies all point to the same conclusion: testimonials and user reviews help reduce doubts potential customers may have about purchasing your product, help users select products and help increase the number of product sales.

Here are just some findings that 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 customer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, user reviews play a significant role in creating 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).
• 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 Consumer Testimonials And Reviews – Managing Online Reputation

Adding positive reviews to your site from very happy customers is important for helping you grow your business and creating a solid online reputation.

Testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and affect your business both positive and negative ways.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could have posted negative comments on Facebook or a discussion thread about a bad experience they’ve just had with your services 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 success.

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

See this article to learn more about a plugin for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of problem reviews about your business, products or services through effective user review management:

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

Improving Your Conversions With Testimonials – Useful Tips

User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing. When you quote your own user responses in your content, you:

• Show others exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help to solve for them and how easily this can be done.
• Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
• Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.

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

• Avoid over-editing: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
• Use real photos: Images of people’s faces draw attention on a web page. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
• Use the power of storytelling: Stories are so much more powerful 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 longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than using generalized statements about how “excellent” the customer support was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: Add customer testimonials to your web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where you believe these can most effectively help you sell your point. Think about the impact you will have on your visitor’s perception by adding 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 talking about the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your support when offering guarantees or providing content designed to help your 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 growing our sales by $76,391 during the previous fiscal year,” or “XYZ product definitely helped us grow our business?” Whenever possible, ask clients to specify quantifiable results when submitting testimonials, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs 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 financial period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
• Vary the testimonials on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult when you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your web pages. Depending on the nature of 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 best customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects can relate to 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 targeted to your ideal customers.
• Reprint content across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your solution, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your blog.
• Don’t use fake testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to produce their content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are real. Don’t destroy your reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials

Ask

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

Follow these useful tips for soliciting testimonials from your clients:

• Contact customers after 60 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing your service.
• Add a field for entering testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
• Take out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a completed project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a short video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording the video, explain to viewers what you have done for the client and try to capture their positive reactions and feedback.
• Make it easy for them. When a client sends 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 given you – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create 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 let them know they are completely free to change what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link To Their Site

Offer to post 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 the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are real and can be verified.

Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages

If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in one of your newsletter broadcasts. This should be done after your customers have had a chance to use your solution. 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 customers for feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you obtain testimonials for your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your website (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).

Create A Customer Testimonials Section

Create a “Testimonials” page and add a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section whenever you have added small blocks of testimonials on your content sections.

Practical Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of client 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 monitoring what visitors are doing on your site.

We have written an article about adding heatmap analytics to your sites to monitor visitor behaviour here:

• Monitoring User Behaviour On Your WordPress Site With Analytics Software – HeatMapTracker Review

Testimonial Plugins For WordPress

If your site or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages where users can submit feedback 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 WordPress testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into your pages and posts using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you add 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, their logo, etc.

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

Visit this site to download this plugin:

• Easy Testimonials – WordPress Testimonials Plugin

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WP plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your blog. 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 has plenty of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options for improved search engine results and developer support.

Visit this site to learn more about using this plugin:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

This is a premium WP plugin that offers many great features right out of the box, including:

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

Visit this site to download the plugin:

• Testimonials WordPress Plugin

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

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

Customer reviews and testimonials 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, and start publishing these on your site.

Additional Info

For additional resources about creating engaging testimonials read these useful 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 show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content for your 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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