Building Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, and getting the exact same results? As most business owners know, that generating new customers can be quite difficult. 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 your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what users may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a great disservice if you don’t publish the positive things your clients are saying about your services, solutions, customer support, etc. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing.
In this article, you’ll discover tips for converting more visitors into prospects with more effective user testimonials.
Testimonials And User Reviews
Legendary showman Phineas Taylor (Aka “P.T.”) Barnum 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 way of getting your business promoted effectively. Reviews quoted directly from existing customers are far more persuasive for drawing new customers than anything you say about your own products or services.
There is clearly a source of untapped opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … client reviews!
Customer testimonials and reviews are a terrific way to build credibility for your business.
Research conducted by many leading marketing research firms all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews help to eliminate doubts potential customers may have about buying your products or services, help users select products and increases sales conversions.
Below are just some statistics that support this:
- According to a study 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 customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, customer reviews can result in an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can result in 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 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 Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding positive testimonials and reviews to your site from clients who are delighted with the results they’ve obtained by using your products or services is important for growing your business and creating a solid online reputation.
Customer testimonials and consumer reviews, however, are like double-edged swords; they can impact your business both in a negative and positive manner.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your services directly to your face, but they could be posting negative comments on a discussion thread about a bad encounter they’ve just had with you or your business and this could be costing you business.
This is where online reputation management becomes vitally important 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 it) could be causing damage to your business without you even being aware of it.
See this article to learn more about a simple yet effective WordPress plugin that allows you to legally and ethically manage your customer reviews:
Creating Powerful User Testimonials – Useful Tips
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing strategy. When you include responses from clients in your content, you:
- Show other users exactly what problems and pains your products and services can help to solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help site visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help potential customers connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates moving them further along the sales process.
Below are some useful tips on creating testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try using your customer’s actual words as much as you can. Leave grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps to keep things ‘real’.
- Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews will help your visitors and potential prospects take notice of your site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are far more powerful and captivating than just providing facts and statistics. The ability 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 excellent customer support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: Add customer testimonials in your site copy where it best makes 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 by adding a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution sells for before posting product pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where customers are truly thrilled about your support before offering guarantees or providing content that helps your readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our net profit by $44,089 during the previous financial quarter,” or “XYZ software definitely 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 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.
- Use different client testimonials on your site: Although this can be a little difficult when you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid using the same testimonial throughout your site. 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 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 target audience 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 best audience demographic.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook page praising your products or services, contact them privately asking for permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use real client testimonials. Many people can see through sites that employ copywriters to write content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your prospects need to see that the testimonials you provide on your site are genuine. Don’t destroy your reputation with a false testimonial.
How To Get Customer Testimonials
Just Ask
Getting a testimonial from a satisfied client can be as simple as just asking for it.
Here are some tips for soliciting testimonials:
- Make a point of contacting clients after 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one immediately after completing a service.
- Include a field for entering testimonials in client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull out your phone when you next meet with a client or hand over a finished job and if they are delighted with your services, ask them if they wouldn’t mind recording a very brief video testimonial/feedback interview. When recording your video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to capture the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy for them. If clients send 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 your client and ask them for permission to publish it. Explain that you have done this to help them save time and invite them to edit what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link Back To Their Site Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to add a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients providing you with 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 list of subscribers, include a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder mailouts. Preferably, this should be done after your clients have had a chance to measure the effect of using your solution. Use words like “I need a quick favor” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them for feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature lets you solicit testimonials that become part of your profile. With LinkedIn, the process for requesting and providing recommendations is simple and user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your site (you can offer to publish a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a new page for client testimonials and place a “read more client testimonials …” link to this page throughout your site.
Useful Tip: You can measure how useful testimonials are 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 monitoring visitor behavior on your site.
We have written an article about adding heatmaps to your site to analyze visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your site or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to display testimonials. Some plugins also allow you to add a form to your pages where users can submit reviews and testimonials.
Once your testimonial plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for adding testimonials via the submission form – if available), you can then send clients to your “Testimonials” section.
Below are a few useful testimonial plugins you can check out:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free plugin that lets you add user testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into posts and pages using a shortcode. The Easy Testimonials plugin also lets you add a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which is great for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their business logo, etc.
The Easy Testimonials plugin also comes with a “pro” version with additional features and plugin support.
Go here for more information about using the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free WordPress plugin that lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with videos or images on your site. You can insert customer testimonials via a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and specify different display options such as random or specific ordering.
Testimonials Widget makes loads of additional features available via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and developer support.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium plugin that provides a range of 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, list layout, grid layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonials in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
Visit this site to learn more about the plugin:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Summary …
User reviews and client testimonials are powerful 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 site.
Additional Info
For additional information on 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, 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 100% FREE!
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