Building Your Reputation With Testimonials And User Reviews
Are you stuck in a cycle of doing what you’ve always done to attract and retain new customers, only to get the exact same disappointing results? Most small business owners don’t need to be told that finding effective ways to generate new business can be extremely hard and time-consuming. Just trying to stay in business 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 and social media-driven economy, ignoring what consumers may be saying online about your business could be a costly mistake!
Ignoring what consumers 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 aren’t publishing the positive things your clients say about your services and products. Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are persuasive ways of helping you promote and market your products and services online and should be added to your content.
In this article, you will learn how to convert more visitors into qualified leads using sales boosting client testimonials.
Consumer Reviews And Testimonials
Phineas Taylor P.T. Barnum, the great, legendary showman, is often quoted as having said that “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”
P.T. Barnum understood the power of “social proof”. Social proof-driven content is a powerful and effective way of getting your business promoted. Genuine reviews from existing clients are far more persuasive when it comes to attracting new clients, customers or users than anything you can say about your own products or services.
There is an untapped source of business growth potential that most small businesses just aren’t utilizing, or utilizing correctly … customer reviews!
Testimonials and reviews are a fantastic way to build credibility for your services and products.
Studies conducted by leading research companies all point to the same conclusion: testimonials and user reviews help decrease doubts potential customers may have about purchasing your products or services, help with product selection and increases the number of sales.
Here are just some of the stats 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 site if it has ratings and customer reviews.”
- According to Reevoo.com, user 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 customer 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).
(Above figures sourced from eConsultancy.com)
Adding User Reviews – Online Reputation Management
Adding great testimonials and reviews to your site from customers who are delighted with your products or services is important for growing your business and creating a solid online reputation.
Customer testimonials and reviews, however, can work both ways and impact your business both negative and positive ways.
You see, people may not be saying bad things about your business, products or services directly to you, but they could have posted updates on Facebook or a discussion group about a bad encounter they’ve just had with you or 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 a vitally important aspect of your online business success.
Misconceptions about managing your reputation online, such as being too complicated or too time-consuming (or the belief that you really don’t need to worry about it) may be seriously hurting your business without you even being aware of this.
See this article to learn more about a tool for WordPress users that allows you to legally and ethically manage your customer feedback:
Tips On Improving Your Conversions With Awesome Client Testimonials
Testimonials, user reviews, and case studies are powerful when it comes to helping you market and promote your products and services online and should be added to your content marketing strategy. When you quote responses from clients in your content, you:
- Show prospects exactly what pains and problems your products and services can help to solve for them and how easily this can be done.
- Help visitors identify their objections and address these.
- Help prospects connect with their motivations and aspirations and this facilitates the sales process.
Here are some tips on improving your sales conversions with awesome client testimonials:
- Avoid over-editing: You should try using 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 of real people: Images of people’s faces draw the most attention on a web page. Adding client photos next to their testimonials and reviews can help increase visitor engagement with your content.
- Tell a powerful story: Stories are much more effective and memorable than simply providing statistical facts. 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 how “excellent” your customer service was and giving “two thumbs up” service recommendations that all of us have heard a “million times” before.
- Keep it in context: It’s good to add testimonials to your web content where it makes the most 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 retails for before posting your pricing information, or testimonials about problems you’ve helped clients solve before presenting the benefits of your services, or testimonials where clients are genuinely thrilled about your support when offering guarantees or addressing objections.
- Quantify your information: Which of the following statements is more powerful: “XYZ solution was directly responsible for growing our profits by $19,165 during the last financial quarter,” or “XYZ solution definitely helped us grow our business?” If possible, publish testimonials containing quantifiable data, like how much your solution helped to increase their sales or reduce their costs 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 period, what kind of things are they able to do or experience now that they couldn’t do before, etc.
- Avoid using the same testimonial repeatedly throughout your site: Although this can be somewhat difficult if you are just starting out or have very few clients, it’s best to avoid displaying the same testimonial everywhere on your web pages. 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 ideal customer is, providing testimonials from people who your prospects aspire to become 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 best audience demographic.
- Reprint testimonials across different platforms. If you get great feedback on your Facebook page praising your commitment to customer satisfaction, ask them for permission to reprint the comment or post on your site.
- Don’t use fake testimonials. Your prospects need to believe that the testimonials provided on your site are real. Don’t destroy your reputation with false testimonials.
How To Get Customer Testimonials
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.
Here are some useful guidelines for soliciting testimonials from your clients:
- Make it a part of your business processes to contact clients after 30 days with an email request for a testimonial if you did not obtain one after completing a service.
- Add a field for entering testimonials in all client surveys.
- Pull out your phone next time you visit clients or hand over a completed 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. While recording your video, describe to viewers what you have done for your client and make sure to capture their positive reactions and responses.
- Make it easy and write the testimonial for them. If clients send you a positive email thanking you for a great job 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 help them save time and invite them to modify what you have written however they like before replying with their approval.
Offer To Post A Link To The Source
Offer to publish a link to their site 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 not fake and can be verified.
Include Testimonial Requests In Your Auto Responder/Newsletter Messages
If you have a subscriber list, include requests for a testimonial in one of your newsletter mailouts. This should be timed to reach subscribers just after your clients have had a chance to assess the results of using your products. Use words like “I need your help” in your email subject and make the point of your email or message specifically about asking them for feedback, a testimonial, or a product review.
Use LinkedIn
The LinkedIn “Recommendations” feature allows you to solicit testimonials from other members for your profile. The process for requesting and providing recommendations is user-friendly and the person who provides the recommendation gets a link to their profile. If you get a positive recommendation on LinkedIn, ask their permission to reprint it on your site (once again, you can offer to add a link back to their website or profile in exchange).
Create A Client Testimonials Section On Your Site
Create a new section for customer testimonials and add a “read more customer testimonials …” link pointing to your main testimonials section wherever you are adding small blocks of testimonials on your site.
Tip: You can measure how useful customer testimonials are by how long visitors remain on the section of your pages or posts where you have added the testimonial content. A great tool for measuring what visitors are doing on your site are “heatmaps”.
We have written an article about a heatmap technology you can add to your sites to measure visitor behavior here:
Useful Testimonial Plugins
If your site or blog is built using WordPress, you can use a plugin to add and display testimonials. Some plugins also let you add forms to your pages inviting users to submit testimonials.
Once your plugin is installed and set up (with instructions for using the testimonials submission form – if available), all you have to do is refer users to your “Testimonials” page.
Check out the WordPress testimonial plugins below:
Easy Testimonials
Easy Testimonials is a free WP plugin that lets you add testimonials to your sidebar as a widget, or embed them into a Page or Post using a shortcode. The plugin also lets you insert 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, a logo, etc.
The plugin also comes with a “pro” version that offers additional features and technical support.
Visit this site to download this plugin:
Testimonials Widget
Testimonials Widget is a free plugin that lets you add random or selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your blog. You can insert 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 additional features via a premium version, including built-in options SEO functionality and plugin support.
Go here to learn more about using the plugin:
Testimonials WordPress Plugin
This is a premium WordPress plugin that offers a range of great features right out of the box, including:
- Responsive design that resizes to display correctly on any device or browser.
- Display options for your testimonials in a widget or as slideshows, sliders, grid layout, list layout, etc. by adding a shortcode
- Styling options (display image at the top, bottom, or side of the testimonial, display testimonial in a speech bubble, customize font and background colours, font types and more.
To download and use the plugin, visit this site:
To learn how to add testimonials in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
In Conclusion …
User reviews and client testimonials are great 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 your clients or customers, 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 regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
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