Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, only to get the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that finding new ways of generating new customers can be difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat takes up a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.

In today’s online economy, ignoring what your 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 may also be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t spread the positive things your clients say about your products or services. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing strategy.

In this article, you will learn tips for converting more visitors into prospects with knockout client testimonials.

Testimonials And User Reviews

The great American showman and successful promoter P.T. Barnum once stated that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Using social proof as content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Genuine reviews and testimonials from satisfied users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you have to say about your own products or services.

There is a source of untapped business growth potential that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … testimonials and reviews from their existing users!

Customer testimonials and user reviews are fantastic for building credibility for your services or products.

Studies conducted by leading marketing firms all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: adding customer testimonials and reviews to your sales pages helps decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing products or solutions that you are trying to sell, helps users select products and helps increase sales conversions.

Below are just some of the stats available to support this:

• According to research 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 are responsible for producing 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 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 User Testimonials And Reviews – Online Reputation Management

You should be adding testimonials and reviews from very happy customers to your site.

Reviews and customer testimonials, however, are like double-edged swords; they can affect your business both in a negative as well as positive manner.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your products directly to you, but they could post updates on Facebook about an unpleasant experience they’ve just had using your products and this could be costing you business.

This is where online reputation management becomes vital to your online success.

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

See this article to learn more about a plugin for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage user reviews:

• Now You Can Easily Manage Your Online Reputation In WordPress With Power Online Reviews

How To Create Testimonials – Useful Tips

Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing strategy. When you include responses from users in your content, you:

• Show prospects exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily it can do this.
• Help site visitors identify their objections and address these.
• Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate moving them closer to a decision to purchase.

Below are some practical tips on how to create client testimonials:

• Avoid over-editing: You should try to use your customer’s actual words as much as possible. Leaving grammatical errors and misspellings in the content helps keep your testimonials sounding authentic.
• Use photos: Research shows 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 so much more effective and memorable than simply providing statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution came to the rescue will make a far more lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generalized statements about excellent 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 makes the most 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 if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are genuinely ecstatic about your support when offering guarantees or addressing objections.
• Quantify your information: Which of the following statements do you think your prospects would find more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for helping us grow our profits by $99,738 in the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ product has helped us grow our sales?” 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 by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours of work they have saved, 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.
• Avoid using the same customer testimonial 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 displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your website. 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 discount for existing 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 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 content across different platforms. If someone posts fantastic feedback on your Facebook page praising your products or services, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
• Don’t use fake client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write content. Outsourcing content is fine, but prospective customers need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility with a false testimonial.

How To Get Testimonials

Always Ask For Testimonials

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

Here are some useful tips for requesting testimonials from clients:

• Contact your clients after 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing a service.
• Add a text box for entering testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
• Pull out your phone next time you meet with a client or hand over a completed job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very quick video testimonial/feedback interview. During your video, explain to viewers what you have done for your client and try to record your client’s positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy for them. If a client sends 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 juiciest sections (only use what they have written – don’t put words into their mouth), and shape these into a testimonial, then contact the client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to save them time and invite them to change what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link Back To Their Site

Offer to post 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 not fake and can be verified.

Include Testimonial Requests In 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 experience your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking customers for 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 profile. 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 recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).

Create A Customer Testimonials Page On Your Site

Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “more testimonials …” link to your main testimonials page throughout your site.

Practical 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 your testimonial content. A great tool for measuring what visitors are doing on your pages are “heatmaps”.

We have written an article about a heatmap analytics technology you can add to your website to observe visitor behaviour here:

• Tracking Visitor Behaviour On Your WordPress Site Using Analytics Software – Heat Map Tracker Review

Useful WordPress Plugins

If your site or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add forms to your pages where users can submit testimonials.

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (remember to provide simple instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), all you have to do is send clients to your “Testimonials” page.

Here are some WordPress testimonial plugins you can check out:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add client testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into your pages and posts using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you insert a list of all your 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 business logo, etc.

Easy Testimonials also provides users with a “pro” version that has additional features and technical support.

To download the plugin, visit this site:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your WordPress site. You can insert testimonials content 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 comes with a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in options for better search engine results and developer support.

To download and use the plugin, go here:

• 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 for correct display on any device or browser.
• Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, list layout, grid layout, etc. via a shortcode
• Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.

Go here to download and use this plugin:

• Testimonials WordPress Plugin

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

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Conclusion …

Testimonials and user reviews 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 testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing customers or clients, and start publishing these on your web site.

Resources

For additional resources on creating effective users testimonials see 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for 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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