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? As most small business owners know, that finding effective ways of generating new business can be very hard. 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 digital, mobile and social-driven economy, ignoring what clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what customers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
By the same token, you are also doing your business a disservice if you are not spreading the positive things your clients say about your services or products. 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 included in your content marketing.
In this article, you’ll learn tips for turning more visitors into qualified leads with compelling user testimonials.
Client Reviews
P.T. Barnum, legendary American showman, is often quoted as having 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. Genuine testimonials from your existing users are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new customers, clients or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of opportunities for generating new business that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … reviews and testimonials from clients!
Reviews and customer testimonials are a terrific way to build credibility for your business.
Marketing studies conducted by leading firms all point to the same inevitable conclusion: adding testimonials and reviews to your point of sale pages helps reduce doubts potential customers may have about buying your product, helps users select products and increases the number of sales.
Here are just some of the statistics available to support this:
- According to research findings 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, customer reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales and 50 or more reviews per product can result in a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
- Web 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).
- 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 Consumer Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding reviews to your website from customers who are thrilled with your products or services is important for growing your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Reviews and testimonials, however, can work both ways and affect your business both in a positive and negative manner.
People may not be saying bad things about your business directly to your face, but they could post unhelpful feedback on Facebook, or a forum or discussion group 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 a vital part of your business and content marketing strategy.
Misconceptions about online reputation management, such as the process being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a simple tool for WordPress users that can help you avoid the escalation of negative reviews about your business through effective user review management:
Tips On Improving Your Sales Conversions With Powerful User Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful ways of helping you market your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing. When you include responses from users 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 your visitors identify and address their objections.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates moving them closer to a decision to purchase.
Here are some practical tips on how to create sales boosting testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leaving grammatical errors and misspelt words in the content helps preserve the authenticity of your testimonials.
- Use photos of real people: Images of people’s faces draw attention to your content. Adding photos of your clients next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your site’s content.
- Use the power of storytelling: Stories are far more effective and captivating than providing mere statistical facts. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a far more lasting impression on those reading your content than using generic statements about excellent support and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: It’s good to add customer testimonials in your site copy where it makes the most sense to place them, and where they can most effectively help you sell your point. For example, think about the impact you can create on your visitor’s perception if you were to insert a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution retails for before posting your service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped your clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your support before offering a money-back guarantee or providing content designed to help readers overcome their objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our net profit by $72,544 during the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ product definitely helped us grow our sales?” Whenever possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their market share or reduce their costs by in specific percentages or amounts, how many hours they have saved, 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 a little difficult when you are just starting out and have very few clients, try to avoid using the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site’s pages. 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 clients in exchange for an honest review and permission to publish it if you decide to use it.
- Appeal to your ideal 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 powerful motivator and influencer. People want to see and buy from “better versions” of themselves, so make sure to include testimonials that appeal directly to your best audience demographic.
- Reprint content across different platforms. If you get a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your products or services, contact them privately asking for their permission to reprint the content on your site.
- Only use real client testimonials. Most people can tell if you are employing copy writers to create your content. Outsourcing content is fine, but your potential customers need to see that the testimonials published on your site are genuine. Don’t compromise your credibility or reputation with a ”made up” testimonial.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Customers
Ask For Testimonials
If you have just completed performing a service, or a customer says they are really happy with your product or service, ask them for a testimonial.
Here are some useful tips for requesting testimonials from your clients:
- Contact customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 14 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one immediately after completing your service.
- Add a text box for entering testimonials in all your client surveys.
- Take 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 would be happy to record a very short video testimonial/feedback interview. While recording the video, explain to your viewers what you have done for your client and record the client’s positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If a client sends you positive written feedback 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 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 edit what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To Their Site
Offer to post a link to their website in exchange for their testimonial. This is often enough of an incentive for clients to provide you with a testimonial. It also makes an implicit statement to visitors that your testimonials are not fake and can be verified.
Add A Testimonial Request To Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in a scheduled auto responder message. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to use 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 users to provide honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review of your services.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature is a great way to obtain testimonials from other members for your account. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for 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 Page On Your Site
Create a new page for client testimonials and add a “more client testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials page whenever you plan to add single testimonials on your content sections.
Practical Tip: You can measure the effectiveness of customer testimonials by how long visitors stay on the section of your pages or posts where you have added your testimonial content. A great tool for monitoring what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your site to monitor visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add a form to your pages where users can submit feedback and testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), you then send customers to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add testimonials to the 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 your testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include an image with each testimonial, which can be used for adding a photo of the testimonial author, their company logo, etc.
Easy Testimonials also comes with a “pro” version that has additional features and plugin support.
Go here to download this 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 posts and pages. You can insert testimonials via 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 comes with a range of additional features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.
For more information about this plugin, go here:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium WordPress plugin 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, grid layout, list layout, etc. using a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on 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:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Client testimonials and user reviews 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 feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your clients, and start publishing these on your website or blog.
Additional Info
The articles below provide useful information about creating engaging users testimonials and were also 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 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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