Build Your Reputation With User Testimonials And Reviews
Are you stuck doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain customers, and getting the exact same results? Most business owners don’t need to be told that trying to generate new customers can be difficult. Just trying to keep your business afloat requires 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 media-driven economy, ignoring what your clients may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Don’t ignore what clients may be saying online about your business!
By the same token, you could be doing your business a great disservice if you don’t promote the positive things your customers are saying about your products and services. User reviews, testimonials, and case studies are persuasive when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be an integral part of your content marketing.
In this article, we’ll show you how to achieve better results online using engaging customer testimonials.
Consumer Reviews And Testimonials
The great American businessman and showman P.T. Barnum 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 promoting your business. Quoting genuine reviews directly from satisfied clients is existing customers are far more persuasive for drawing new customers than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is clearly an untapped source of business growth potential that most businesses simply do not utilize, or utilize correctly … reviews and testimonials from their customers!
User reviews and customer testimonials are a terrific way to build credibility for your services and products.
Studies conducted by many leading firms all lead to the same inevitable conclusion: testimonials and user reviews reduce doubts potential customers may have about purchasing specific products, help users select products and help increase sales.
Here are just some of the statistics available to support this:
- According to a study by eVoc Insights, a company 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 user 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.
- 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding Client Reviews – Managing Online Reputation
Adding testimonials and reviews to your website from very happy customers is important for helping you grow your business online and creating a solid online reputation.
Testimonials and customer reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both in a positive as well as negative manner.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business directly to you, but they could post disparaging remarks on Facebook, or a discussion thread or forum about a bad experience they’ve just had with your business 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 vital to your online business success.
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 to worry about it) could be seriously causing damage to your business without you even realizing this.
See this article to learn more about a plugin for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage customer feedback:
Improving Your Sales With Sales Boosting Client Testimonials – Useful Tips
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are effective when it comes to helping you market your products and services online and should be used in your content marketing strategy. When you quote your own user responses in your content, you:
- Show others exactly with similar problems and pains how your products and services can help them.
- Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their aspirations and motivations and this facilitates the sales process.
Here are some practical tips on improving your sales with user testimonials:
- Don’t over edit: Try to use the actual words used by your customers as much as you can. Leave little grammatical or spelling errors in the content. This helps keep your testimonials ‘real’.
- Use photos: 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.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are much more effective and memorable than simply providing facts and statistics. Being able to present a customer’s horror story and how your solution saved the day will make a longer-lasting impression on those reading your content than presenting generic statements about how “excellent” the service was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that everyone has heard a “million times” before.
- Use it in context: Add customer testimonials to 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 mind if you were to present a testimonial about what a “bargain” price your solution can be purchased for before posting product or service pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your products, or testimonials where clients are truly ecstatic about your customer service when offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify the information: Which of the following statements do you think is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for increasing our bottom line by $49,087 in the last fiscal year,” or “XYZ software helped us grow our sales?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable results, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs 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.
- Use different customer testimonials on your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or don’t have many clients, try to avoid displaying the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your web pages. Depending on the nature of your business, you could try to obtain more user 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 can relate to is a very 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 posts a great comment on your Facebook wall praising your solution, ask them for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Only use real client testimonials. Prospective clients need to believe that the testimonials published on your site are real. Don’t compromise your credibility with ”made up” testimonials.
How To Get Testimonials From Your Clients
Just Ask
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.
Follow these useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials:
- Contact your customers after a specific period of time, e.g. 60 days with an email reminder for a testimonial if you have not obtained one after performing a service.
- Add a text box for entering testimonials in your client satisfaction surveys.
- Pull 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 short video testimonial/feedback interview. During the video, describe to your viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to capture their positive reactions and feedback.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial 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 given you – never put words into their mouth), and use these to create a testimonial, then contact your client and ask them for permission to quote them on your site. Explain that you have done this to help them save time and let them know they are completely free to change what you have written however they see fit before replying with their approval.
Offer To Publish A Link To The Source Wherever You Quote Their Testimonial
Offer to post a link back to their site in exchange for their testimonial. This is a great incentive to get clients to provide 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 a request for a testimonial in one of your autoresponder broadcasts. Preferably, this should be timed to reach subscribers just after your customers have had a chance to assess the results of using your product, service or solution. Use words like “I need your help” in the subject of your email and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking clients for honest feedback, a testimonial, or a review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to request testimonials for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person providing the recommendation receives a link to their profile. If you get a recommendation on LinkedIn, ask for permission to reprint it on your website (once again, you can offer to add a link back to their profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section
Create a “Testimonials” page and place a “read more customer testimonials …” link pointing to this page throughout your site.
Useful 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 sites to analyze visitor behavior here:
Testimonial Plugins For WordPress
If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use a plugin to add, edit and 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), all you have to do is refer users to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use free plugin that lets you add testimonials to the sidebar as a widget, or embed testimonials into posts and pages using a shortcode. Easy Testimonials also lets you insert a list of all testimonials or output a random testimonial, and include images with testimonials, which you can use for adding a photo of the testimonial author, a logo, etc.
The plugin also provides users with a “pro” version that has additional features and technical support.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, reviews, quotes, or text with videos or images on your pages and posts. You can insert client testimonials using a shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and have multiple display options such as random or specific ordering.
The plugin offers extra features via a premium version, including built-in functions for improved search engine results and plugin support.
Go here for more information about this plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This premium plugin provides many great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
- Display your testimonials in a widget or as sliders, slideshows, grid layout, list layout, etc. via a shortcode
- Styling options (display image on top, bottom, or side of testimonials, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customized font and background colours, font types and more.
To download the plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
Testimonials and user reviews are great sources of content that help your business add credibility, build authority, improve online reputation, and grow your sales funnel. Always ask for testimonials, reviews, and feedback from existing clients, and publish positive content about your business on your web site.
Additional Info
For additional sources of information and resources about creating engaging testimonials refer to 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 regular training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, 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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