How To Build Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that trying to generate new business can be extremely hard. 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 digital, mobile and social media-driven economy, you just can’t ignore the effect of what your potential customers are doing online, especially if they are posting comments about your business.
Don’t ignore what your clients may be saying online about your business!
You are also doing your business a disservice if you are not promoting the positive things your clients are saying about your products, services, customer support, training, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing strategy.
In this article, you’ll discover how to turn more visitors into qualified leads using sales boosting client testimonials.
Customer Reviews
P.T. Barnum, legendary showman and successful promoter, 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. Testimonials quoted directly from existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients 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 and testimonials from your happy clients!
Customer testimonials and user reviews are terrific for building credibility for your services and products.
Research conducted by leading marketing research companies all seem to lead to the same conclusion: user reviews and testimonials help decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products or services, help users select products and increases the number of sales.
Below are just some of the findings available to support this:
- According to research by eVoc Insights, an organization that researches and measures user experience, “In general, 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has ratings and reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Website 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 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 – Managing Online Reputation
You should be adding great testimonials and reviews from really happy clients to your website.
Reviews and testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both negative and positive ways.
People may not be saying bad things about your services directly to you, but they could be posting disparaging remarks on a forum about a bad encounter they’ve just had with one of your staff 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 really don’t need it) could be seriously hurting your business without you even realizing it.
See this article to learn more about a simple WordPress plugin that can help to avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business through effective user review management:
Creating Profit Boosting Customer Testimonials – Useful Tips
User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing. When you include responses from clients in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly with similar problems and pains what your products and services can do for them.
- Help prospects identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them further along the sales process.
Here are some practical tips on how to create powerful client testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelled words in the content helps to keep it ‘real’.
- Use photos: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are so much more powerful and captivating 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 longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about how “excellent” your customer support was 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 web content where it best makes sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help to sell your point. 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 support when offering a money-back guarantee or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “Since implementing XYZ software, our profits have grown by $64,099 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution definitely helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their profits 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, 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 a little difficult if you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your website. Depending on the type of business you run, you could try to obtain more user testimonials by offering limited review copies of your product, or a special launch discount for existing clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide 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 target audience 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 targeted to your ideal customers.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If someone publishes great feedback on your Facebook page praising your business, send them a message asking permission to reprint the content on your blog.
- Only use genuine testimonials. Your prospects need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers
Ask For Testimonials
Getting a testimonial from a happy customer can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from your clients:
- Contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
- Include a text box for testimonials in all your client surveys.
- Take out your phone when you next meet with a client or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a quick video testimonial/feedback interview. If they agree, while recording your video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and capture your client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. When 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 – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this 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 Publish Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes the implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Include A Testimonial Request In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in a scheduled newsletter broadcast. Preferably, this should be done after your customers have had a chance to use your products. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature helps you solicit testimonials from other members for your account. 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 site (tip: offer to publish a link back to their website in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Page
Create a new page for client testimonials and place a “more customer testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section throughout your site.
Practical Tip: You can measure how useful user testimonials are by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to measuring visitor behavior on your pages.
We have written an article about a heatmap analytics software you can add to your site to measure visitor behaviour here:
WordPress Testimonial Plugins
If your website 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 where users can submit testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is send customers 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 the sidebar as a widget, or embed them 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, a logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also provides a “pro” version that offers additional features and developer support.
Visit this site to download and use this plugin:
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 web site. You can insert testimonials 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 offers additional features via a premium version, including built-in functions SEO functionality and plugin support.
To download this plugin, go here:
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 the testimonial, 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 Conclusion …
Customer reviews and testimonials are great 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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing customers, and start publishing these on your website or blog.
Additional Info
The articles below are a great source of information about creating engaging clients testimonials and were 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 that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to 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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