Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews

Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract customers, and getting the exact same results? As most small business owners know, that trying to generate new customers can be hard, time consuming and frustrating. Just trying to stay in business takes a lot of time, money and energy, and sometimes this can feel like it’s just not worth the effort.

In today’s online and social media-driven economy, ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!

Don’t ignore what customers may be saying online about your business!

You are also doing your business a great disservice if you aren’t publishing the positive things your customers say about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are effective ways of marketing your products and services online and should be included as part of your content marketing strategy.

In this article, you will learn how to turn more visitors into prospects using knockout client testimonials.

Testimonials And Consumer Reviews

Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, legendary showman and businessman, is often quoted as having said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

P.T. Barnum obviously understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-driven content is a powerful way of getting your business promoted effectively. Quoting testimonials and reviews from your existing users is satisfied customers are far more persuasive for attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.

There is clearly an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … consumer reviews!

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

Research conducted by marketing companies all point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding customer testimonials and user reviews to your sales pages eliminates doubts potential customers may have about products that you are trying to sell, helps with product selection and increases sales conversions.

Here are just some of the findings available to support this:

• According to a study 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 web site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
• According to Reevoo.com, reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more consumer reviews per product can translate into a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
• 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).

(Source: eConsultancy.com)

Adding Customer Reviews And Testimonials – Managing Online Reputation

You should be adding positive testimonials and reviews from existing customers to your site.

Reviews and customer testimonials, however, can work both ways and impact your business both positive and negative ways.

You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could post damaging words on Facebook or a forum 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 a vitally important aspect of your online business success.

Misconceptions about engaging in online reputation management practices, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you just don’t need it) may be seriously harming your business without you even realizing it.

See this article to learn more about a simple plugin for WordPress users that lets you legally and ethically manage customer feedback:

• Now You Can Easily Manage Negative Client Reviews On WordPress With Power Online Reviews Plugin

How To Create Compelling 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 your own client responses in your content, you:

• Show potential customers exactly what problems and pains your products and services can solve for them and how easily this can be done.
• Help prospects identify their objections and address these.
• Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and facilitate the sales process.

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

• Avoid over-editing: You should try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as possible. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
• Use real photos: Marketing tests show that using images of people’s faces will draw the attention of visitors browsing 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 far more effective and memorable than just providing statistical facts. The ability 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 how “excellent” the service was and giving “two thumbs up” product recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
• Use it in context: It’s good to add testimonials to your site copy 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 can create on your visitor’s mind by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting your price information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before discussing the benefits of your products, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your support when offering a risk-free guarantee or addressing objections.
• Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful… “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our revenue by $78,006 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ product definitely 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 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 testimonial throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out and don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial throughout your site’s pages. Depending on your business, 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 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 best 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 speak directly to your best audience demographic.
• Reprint content across different platforms. If someone publishes great feedback on your Facebook wall praising your products or services, send them a message asking for their permission to reprint the content on your blog.
• Only use genuine testimonials. Many people can tell if you are employing copy writers to create your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential clients need to see that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t destroy your credibility with a false testimonial.

How To Get Client Testimonials

Just Ask

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

Here are some useful guidelines for requesting testimonials:

• Contact clients after a specific period of time, e.g. 14 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after performing a service.
• Add a text box for testimonials in all your client surveys.
• Take out your phone next time you meet with clients or hand over a finished project and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they would be happy to record a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to record your client’s positive reactions and responses.
• Make it easy for them. Whenever clients send you positive written feedback 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 shape these into a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to save them time and let them know they are completely free to change what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.

Offer To Post A Link To The Source Wherever You Publish Their Testimonial

Offer to publish a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive for 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 subscriber list, include a request for a testimonial in a regularly-spaced auto responder broadcast. Preferably, this should be done after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using 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 clients for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.

Use LinkedIn

The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials for your account. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is quite simple and 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 add a link back to their website in exchange).

Create A Testimonials Page

Create a new page on your website or blog for customer testimonials and add a “read more customer testimonials …” link to this page wherever you display single testimonials on your content sections.

Useful Tip: You can measure how useful testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. ”Heatmapping” technology is a great way to understanding what visitors are doing on your pages.

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

• Tracking User Behavior On Your WordPress Site Using Analytics Software – HeatMap Tracker 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 forms to your pages where users can submit testimonials.

Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you then send clients to your “Testimonials” section.

Check out the testimonial plugins below:

Easy Testimonials

Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you publish a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which can be used to add a photo of the testimonial author, a business logo, etc.

The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.

Visit this site to learn more about this plugin:

• Easy Testimonials

Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your pages and posts. You can insert testimonials content 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 makes loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and technical support.

For more information about using this plugin, visit this site:

• Testimonials Widget

Testimonials WordPress Plugin

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

• Responsive design that resizes for correct display on any device or browser.
• Display your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, list layout, grid 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 colors, font types and more.

Go here to download this plugin:

• Testimonials Plugin

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

• How To Add Testimonials In WordPress

In Summary …

Testimonials and user reviews 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 customers, and publish positive content about your business on your website or blog.

Additional Info

For additional resources about creating effective users testimonials refer to 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content that will add value to 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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